Opinion: Mahathir’s problem is that he assumes too conveniently that everybody wants to be him

Opinion: Mahathir’s problem is that he assumes too conveniently that everybody wants to be him




TheRealNehruism
Writer. Seeker. Teacher

Image credit: Focus Malaysia


Just because the vast majority of the Malays in Malaysia support Palestine and are culturally and emotionally tied to Indonesia, it doesn’t mean that if one day, if an Arab nation or Indonesia, initiates an invasion of Malaysia, the Malays in Malaysia will just roll out a red carpet and let them take over the country.


The Taiwanese and the population of Hong Kong are ethnically Chinese, but this doesn’t mean that they will just roll over and let China do whatever they want in Taiwan or Hong Kong. When Beijing assumed too conveniently that Hong Kong is a part of its territory, the population of Hong Kong launched a massive protest against it in the year 2019, while the Taiwanese are willing to risk starting World War 3 in order to maintain their sovereignty.


In the same way, despite what Mahathir thinks, just because Indians have a sentimental and emotional tie with India, it doesn’t mean that we are going to betray Malaysia.


The Indians and Chinese in Malaysia are of course loyal to Malaysia. Why wouldn’t we be? Malaysia is our home. Even if it is your own uncle who is trying to boss you around in your house, you are going to oppose him, not support him. For Mahathir to believe that Indians in Malaysia will support or not oppose some other country trying to lord us over in our country, even if it is a country that we have emotional and cultural ties to, is a reflection of who he is, not a reflection of who we are.


People will always be loyal to their homes. This is the universal feature of human nature.


The problem with peninsular Malaysia is not that the Indians, Chinese and Malays here are not loyal to our home and country, but that despite being loyal to our home and country, there is some friction amongst us, which sometimes makes it difficult for us to be around each other.



We are like 3 brothers who will definitely come to the aid of our parents if they are in trouble, but we might do it separately instead of cooperating together. This is the Malaysian dilemma. We all love our motherland, but whether we love each other, is a different question altogether.


A big reason why we have a house divided is because of people like Mahathir, who have continuously and relentlessly sowed discord and suspicion in our relationship, by shoving their irrational and unnatural ideas about identity and race relationship down our throats for decades.


The fact of the matter is that Mahathir has a deranged view about race and identity, and the reason he has this deranged view is that he has a problem with his own racial identity. For the first 32 years of his life, or from the time he was born until the independence of the country, Mahathir was a non-Malay, but after the country was formed, he converted into a Malay by using the power of the constitution.



When Saul turned to Paul on the road to Damascus, he attributed it to the miracle of god. Mahathir however, has no miracle to justify his conversion. Because of that, he has developed a series of irrational and unnatural ideas to help him come to terms with his reason for conversion.


Despite acknowledging that his father is a non-Malay and despite affirming that he is a constitutional Malay, not a bona fide Malay, he has constantly evaded answering the question of who he was from the day he was born up to the age of 32 when the Malaysian constitution came into force in the year 1957 and allowed him to convert into becoming a Malay.


His abrupt, secretive and unexplained conversion is his own business, but to believe that his manner of conversion is the right way to be a Malaysian, which everybody should follow, is absolutely deranged.


It is deranged because we can clearly see that his own conversion has caused him so much trauma, that half the time he is firing at the non-Malays, or the people he used to identify with, for no good reason although we have given him any offence and the other half of the time, he is firing at the Malays, by calling them lazy or ungrateful or whatnot, as if he himself is not a Malay.



Why would anyone follow his example and convert abruptly and drastically into becoming a Malay, as he suggests, when he himself is still deeply disturbed by his conversion, despite the fact that his conversion happened more than half a century ago?


If Even after 50 years have passed since you did something, you are still so haunted by it, to the extent that you are lashing out at everybody who you suspect is involved in it, whatever you did can't possibly be right.


The problem with Mahathir is that when it comes to the truth and his pride, Mahathir will always choose his pride, and his pride will never allow him to admit that he is wrong.


I am not saying that it is Mahathir converting into Malay that is the wrong thing – it is not unusual for people to change their identity – but it is the way that he did it that is probably causing him a lot of guilt and regret.



It is his stubbornness in denying his ancestry, even to the extent of being completely ungrateful to his father, and the fact that he did it so secretly as if he would die out of shame if anyone found out what he did, that is probably causing him to have a mental trauma on the subject of race for the last half a century.


Is it that hard to admit that he was an Indian from a mixed marriage background, who looked like a Malay more than an Indian, who fell in love and married a Malay girl, and found that being Malay was not only more satisfying than being an Indian, it also offered him more opportunities to fully realise his potentials than being an Indian, so he converted and become a Malay?


If he just said it plainly, everybody would have understood it and he could have saved himself 50 years of unnecessary mental trauma.


It is his penchant for fighting against truth, up to the point of denying altogether that he had undergone a change in racial identity in his 30s or 40s, that is causing him to constantly blame the non-Malays for his own flaws, as if he is still one of us, while perpetually disparaging the Malays as if he is not one of them.


Just because Mahathir converted into becoming a Malay and a Malaysian, he cannot assume that everybody wants to be him. Just because Mahathir chose the wrong way to change your racial identity, and has become quite unhinged in regards to the subject of race or identity because of his mistake, he can't just assume that being unhinged is the right state to be in, and expect us to do what he did and became as unhinged as him.


When you fight against reality, you will always lose your mind.


Mahathir might be an intelligent and great man in other departments, but when it comes to the matter of racial relationship and identity, Mahathir for all intent and purpose, has lost his mind.



Nehru Sathiamoorthy is the author of “While Waiting for the World to end”. He was a columnist at FMT and a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, Malaysia-Today, MalaysiaNow, MalaysiaKini and Focus Malaysia.