Better to rebut Dr M than ignore him

FMT:

Better to rebut Dr M than ignore him

Muddy constitutional questions he brings up have a way of recurring and beg prompt demolition.




From Terence Netto


PKR Youth chief Adam Adli has advised Malaysians to ignore the ructions ignited by political chameleon Dr Mahathir Mohamad in recent weeks.

Mahathir has asserted that attempts are being made to change the name of the country from being called “Tanah Melayu” to something that is less ethnicity-defining.

Also, he has floated the notion that it is “unconstitutional” to promote multi-racialism because it subtracts from the “Malayness” of the polity which, he argued, is embedded in the constitution.

Mahathir did not furnish any evidence of attempts to alter the name of the country, aside from implying that DAP was behind the move.

As to the “Malayness” of the constitution and the illegality of promoting multi-racialism, multiple critics have heaped scorn on his line of reasoning, enough to make him feel embarrassed at having aired such specious arguments.

But, as many know, Mahathir is not averse to making spurious claims.

Indeed, these days he is not even concerned to allow for the passage of a decent interval of time between a line of argument he put out during the 22 months he was prime minister (May 2018 to February 2020), and now when he has asserted that very argument’s opposite.

This is the case of having denied during his second stint as PM that DAP enjoyed inordinate power and now when he claims it is highly influential in Anwar Ibrahim’s unity government.

People who will say anything are often the victims of diminished self-esteem.

Mahathir has the knack of bringing up a matter that can let loose sinister ripples in the consciousness of his audience, in furtherance of his designs.

At the April 1987 Umno AGM, the one that saw a contest for the presidency between him and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Mahathir’s presidential speech, given just before the vote was taken, alluded to the conflict between Pakistan and India for no rhyme or reason, a gratuitous insertion calculated to tell listeners that bigger stakes than a probable change in party leadership were riding in the balance.

The stuffing must be knocked out of the constitutional issues Mahathir is busily stirring up these days.

These issues, whether fabricated or authentic, must be explained and resolved in the public understanding because they have a way of recurring in the body politic.

Look at the way affirmative action and abortion have come up again in the United States after long decades of their apparent resolution in the 1960s and 1970s.

The ones with the clearest and convincing conceptions endure while the rest wither and wane.



Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.