Mahathir Mohamad - Malaysian Man of The Century
Arrogantly ignoring the turbulence

Our (Harakah) choice of Mahathir Mohamad as Malaysian of the Century may surprise some and anger many others. But he is chosen not only for his perceived achievements but also for his monumental failures.

Mahathir is chosen for ramming a wide range of policies down the throats of Malaysians, changing the political culture to a decidedly moneyed one and for his arrogant rule ignoring the turblulence which sparked the country's first open confrontation between leaders.

At the beginning of the century, Malaysia did not exist; the Malay peninsula was known in colonial shorthand as British Malaya, with four states - Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan and Trengganu - under Siamese suzerainty Sabah (then known as British North Borneo) a commercial enterprise owned by the Borneo Company (now fallen on hard times) and Sarawak a personal fiefdom of the Brooke family.

Malaya as the political entity we know came together only on 1 February 1948 as the Federation of Malaya, when Britian's plan to unite all British territories in Southeast Asia failed when Malays in Malaysia rallied under Onn bin Jaafar, formed UMNO to oppose it.

Nine years later, on 31 August 1957, Malaya became independent; six years and two weeks on, the Federation of Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak merged into Malaysia.

So, when selecting the Malaysian of the Century, the choice had to be from those pre-independent entities and its later fusion into Malaysia. British colonial administrators, Japanese overlords during World War Two like General Yamashita and Count Terauchi, Sultan Ibrahim of Johore rubbed shoulders with Sir Onn Jaafar, who united the Malays in 1946 to stop the British dead in their tracks, Chin Peng who led the Malayan Communist Party to create the Emergency that speeded up Malaya's march to independence and laid down arms 40 years later in an enigmatic revolution which it lost, as conventional history puts it, or it gave up the struggle in 1954, as Anthony Short wrote in a government sponsored history which it immediately repudiated; Tengku Abdul Rahman who negotiated for Malaya's independence and Malaysia's formation.

Also in this list are Dr Burhanuddin Helmy, the Malay nationalist giant and intellectual collossus who spearheaded the formation of PAS from the religious wing of UMNO which broke away in 1951; Tun Sir Tan Cheng Lock, who founded the Malaysian Chinese Association; Tun Lim Chong Eu, the erstwhile chief minister of Penang; Tun V.T. Sambanthan, who transformed the MIC formed in 1946 by John Thivy to fight for Indian independence to a Malaysian political organisation; Mr Lee Kuan Yew, who brought Singapore into the Malaysian federation in 1963 with his private agenda of the PAP replace the MCA, and left or forced out two years later.

Who among these and others considered emerged larger than life so completely, for good or ill, upon Malaysian life this century? There is no doubt it would have to be Dr Mahathir Mohamed, the Prime Minister.

But Harakah views his achievements differently from his spin feuhrers or his Government's achievements. He is chosen for ramming a wide range of policies down the throats of Malaysians, changing the political culture to a decidedly moneyed one, downgrading Parliament to one of his lesser known and increasingly irrelevant offices, arrogantly ignored the ground turblulence which exacerbated into an open confrontation when his erstwhile deputy prime minister was expelled from the party, arrested, beaten up and jailed.

His 18 years as Prime Minister ignored the tremendous cultural changes the New Economic Policy had wrought upon the feudally self-conscious Malays to the point that they emerged as Malay individuals with a mind of their own and not as adjuncts to UMNO or any other political grouping. It is this explosion of democratic beliefs against an autocratic political oligarchy led by Mahathir that he would be remembered for. His actions ensured the blooming of a thousand flowers with varied opinions and independent thinking that changed the course of how Malaysia would develop from now on.

Governance already begins to be framed with a view to what the people think. He has destroyed the political career - for now - of Anwar Ibrahim but his inept handling of the case ensures the man becoming an incalculable icon on which the reawakened Malaysian focuses his mind on.

The revitalisation of the Malaysian citizen comes amidst a devaluation of the instruments of the government. The impact of this is felt amongst the citizenry which vents its frustration seemingly united, but large enough to worry the government to force it to make changes. An articulate opposition in Parliament without the racial fear of being labelled racist or anti-Malay forces the government to account for its actions.

The Prime Minister's position would remain even if the end of this century be 31 December 2000.