Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times Barry Wain (grave mercy .TXT) 📖

only Europeans could govern our country effectively". What was needed, he said, was "decolonization of the mind". Dr. Mahathir said, "Most Asians felt inferior to the European colonisers...Asia was a region without pride and self-confidence...".[29] Changing that mindset — the nearest Dr. Mahathir came to explaining what he saw as a national inferiority complex — and restoring pride and confidence, infused much of his policy making.

This explained Dr. Mahathir's willingness, even eagerness, to forgive the Japanese for the suffering they inflicted on Malaya from 1941 to 1945. While they awakened national consciousness and expedited the struggle for independence, Japanese troops committed a number of massacres and atrocities during their occupation.[30] In addition to transferring the four northern Malay states to Thailand, leaving the Malays in a minority in both countries,[31] the Japanese exacerbated inter-ethnic tensions and conflicts.[32] Their use of Malay policemen against the guerrillas in the Chinese-dominated Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army set the stage for reprisals once the war was over. Indeed, some historians trace the starting point of racial cleavages in Malaysia to the Japanese period.[33] While acknowledging Japan's responsibility for immense hardship across Asia, however, Dr. Mahathir encouraged the official Malaysian view that emphasized remembering the positive rather than the negative aspects of the war.[34] To him, the Japanese invasion "convinced us that there is nothing inherently superior in the Europeans. They could be defeated, they could be reduced to grovelling before an Asian race...if we wanted to, we could be like the Japanese...and compete with the Europeans on an equal footing".[35] In 1994, Dr. Mahathir told visiting Prime Minister Tomiichi Muruyama there was no need for Japan to keep apologizing for its wartime conduct.[36]

Ever ready to make amends for Malaysians who had felt "the bitterness and pain of life as a colonized people",[37] Dr. Mahathir targeted a symbol that had long offended his nationalistic sensibilities: "Carcosa", a magnificent colonial house on a hill above Kuala Lumpur's Lake Gardens. Built in 1904, it was traditionally home to Britain's most senior representative. Tunku Abdul Rahman had presented the deeds to the mansion and surrounding acres to the British government in 1956, a goodwill gesture that was anathema to those who felt Malaysia was extending to Britain "the ultimate in privilege and status" that was denied to other governments.[38] They also believed that the gift of the highest point in the capital "had a negative psychological effect on the Malaysian people".[39]

As soon as he got the chance a quarter of a century later, Dr. Mahathir orchestrated a campaign from behind the scenes to evict Britain's high commissioner from "the house on the hill", as it was known. It sounded innocent enough when the matter was raised at the UMNO General Assembly in 1982 by a woman delegate. "It serves no purpose for the government to give too much to people who have colonized this country for so long while the people and the nation derive no benefits from them," she said. They were actually Dr. Mahathir's words, planted by him to get the ball rolling.[40] And Britain was expecting it: Dr. Mahathir had sent a private emissary, his businessman-politician friend and informal adviser Daim Zainuddin, to London to let the government know they would have to relinquish "Carcosa".[41] The British initially took the view that it would not be appropriate to return the property while the Tunku was still alive, but they acquiesced in 1984, years before his death. Although not paid compensation, they were granted land for a new residence in the fashionable Ampang area.

Downgrading the Commonwealth to the bottom of Malaysia's foreign policy agenda was another way of putting Britain in its place. Dr. Mahathir declined to attend the biennial Heads of Government Meeting in Melbourne in 1981 and again in New Delhi in 1983. His view was that he could achieve more by staying home than going abroad to just "talk with no tangible results". Staying home on special occasions became a Mahathir trait.

It was the tough-minded British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, herself a mold-breaking politician and outsider, who worked out how to repair relations with Malaysia. After her foreign secretary and defense minister returned empty handed from a trip to Kuala Lumpur early in 1982, Thatcher took it upon herself to end the estrangement. In hosting Dr. Mahathir in London in early 1983, she showed the deference that made the difference. Thatcher entertained Dr. Mahathir at a so-called "peace-meal" at No. 10 Downing Street, the grand occasion attended by an array of dignitaries whose presence underlined Dr. Mahathir's VIP treatment.[42] The British government subsequently agreed to allow Malaysia's national airline to carry more passengers on the Kuala Lumpur-London route. On his return to Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir announced the end of Buy British Last. He attended the 1985 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, and at the next gathering two years later offered to host the 1989 meeting and the Commonwealth Games in 1998. It was quite a turnaround for the man who had described the Commonwealth as a "creature of the past".

The limited boycott was to have lasted until Dr. Mahathir judged not only the British government but also business, the press and other institutions to be showing Malaysia more respect. By the time he lifted the restrictions, after 18 months, British companies were hurting and complaining about the loss of contracts estimated at between 20 million and 50 million pounds. Dr. Mahathir told the Malaysian Parliament that the British had shown "a comprehensive change in attitude and thinking towards Malaysia as a sovereign and independent country". One basic adjustment in London was the acceptance that Britain in future would have to compete with the field for commercial contracts, and perhaps sweeten major deals with government inducements.[43]

While Dr. Mahathir had made his point, his underlying pragmatism was undiminished, as indicated by the speed by which bilateral relations recovered and British investment in the Malaysian economy simultaneously spiked. Although the West might be rotting morally, it remained an essential market and source of capital for Malaysia's ambitious