Dr Mahathir blames the NEP for Malay ills. But he ignores his own role in it. The group that formulated it in the aftermath of the 1969 racial riots had two options for the Malay: create a few thousand entrepreneurs of whom a few would in the course of time be billionaire entrepreneurs; or create a few billionaire entrepreneurs who would then ensure those under them would benefit. One group headed by the Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak, opted for the first option; the other of which Dr Mahathir was one the second. When he succeeded Tun Hussein Onn as prime minister in 1981, he changed course for the second option. To see it spectacularly fail in two decades. There is not one government-encouraged Malay or Chinese entrepreneur who is solvent and a business man in his own right. Those who survive are those who struck out on their own and were at ease with the non-Malay, as most Malays are not.

In the highly charged political atmosphere after the May 1969 riots, no one, not the Cabinet, not even the Prime Minister of the day, Tun Abdul Razak, would countermand it. It did not succeed. It affirmed the political manipulation of the language of instruction, and raise the ante with Malay cultural nationalism. Worse was to come. The Malay ignored English, but not the non-Malay. Thirty years on, the English gap is wider than it ever was from the first days of British rule in the late 18th century.

No one, not even the usually critical Straits Times in Singapore, looked beyond the official announcement. Who would benefit if Pulau Tioman is duty-free? In the 1970s, a casino was planned, but quickly dropped when opposition to it threatened votes. It was too far away from the coast, and reached only from Endau in Johore, and it would have upset the local villagers. In those days, that was enough to scuttle a project. The then prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak, in whose parliamentary constituency Pulau Tioman was, would have none of it.

The Indera Kayangan byelectios in Perlis kicked off with the usual defections. Barely had the campaign begun when its Keadilan elections director and 68 others defected to UMNO for the usual reasons: they had seen the light; Keadilan did not select a Malay candidate; UMNO is the party of the future; the party they walked into from UMNO is now without hope. Maj (rtd) Mohd Shariff Abdul Razak, who is also deputy liasion chief for the state, decided, on the spur of the moment, to defect, so disgusted he was that his demands were not met; but not disgusted enough to be the Keadilan director of elections. He did not, as he admits, convey his reservations to party leaders. Why did they quit? The Perlis mentri besar, Dato' Seri Shahidan Kassim, says all Keadilan members "that matter" in Perlis would leave "on their own accord, after being disillusioned with the opposition parties". There has not been an election in the past two decades without "disgruntled" opposition members would cross over to the National Front "after having seen the light"; one went on to be a cabinet minister and, on retirement, deputy chairman of a major bank.

When the late Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, met the then Indonesian President Suharto in Palembang in 1975, it was agreed that 500,000 Indonesians would come to Malaysia to work in the estates and factories with a shortage of workers. The paperwork took longer than usual, only to be expected in two huge uncontrollable bureaucracies. In the interim, waves of Indonesians landed in the shores, so that when the legal ones arrived, it doubled the recent arrivals. This did not include the constant arrival of Indonesians illegally in Sabah and Sarawak.

The man who led the opposition onslaught then was the late lamented Tan Chee Khoon, whose uncanny ability to wean answers out of a reluctant cabinet earned him respect on both sides of the House. When he opened his hospital in the 1970s, it was the then prime minister, Abdul Razak, who declared it open.

In Malaysia, the leader of the moment denigrates his predecessors, and those he wants destroyed. Go to the National Monument in Kuala Lumpur. No where in the placard about it is the name of the man who had it sculpted: Malaysia's founding father, Tengku Abdul Rahman. That plaque was put up under the aegis of Dr Mahathir, who at the time it was put cold not forgive the Old Man for challenging his UMNO Baru. Tun Abdul Razak assiduously turned the Tengku into a non-person after he took over. Who remembers Tun Hussein Onn, the immediate past prime minister?

The Conference of Rulers has stayed above politics, at least they do now as they did not in the past. It could, in any case, come to no other conclusion without damaging the rulers' position as head of the religion in their state. The sultans of Trengganu and Kelantan, whatever their private views, could not possible defy their PAS state governments. Besides, all told, the rulers are particularly careful when matters of Islam have to be decided upon at Kuala Lumpur's insistence. Kuala Lumpur had agreed with Singapore and Indonesia on a common day for the Ramadhan fast to begin. But the then Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak, did not consult the Conference of Rulers, which then would not approve it. The question of when the Ramadan fast would fall was so contentious that Kuala Lumpur ought to heed the pitfalls inherent in such ill-thought political moves to sideline an inconvenient political opponent.

Dato' Seri Anwar's request is allowed to lend respectability to the talks. But the conditions it imposes is inexplicable. The Hospital Kuala Lumpur director, Dr Abdul Razak Kechik, puts five conditions: that the German specialist come within 14 days, that Dato' Seri Anwar pays for the treatment and operation at the hospital, that he meets all expenses himself, that he is solely responsible for anything that may go wrong, that HKL specialist will witness all procedures undertaken. When you undergo treatment in the Hospital Kuala Lumpur, you sign away your rights to protest if it goes wrong. That is always the practice. Indeed, so are the others. But when then is it necessary to insist that the specialist must come within a fortnight? What happens if the man cannot make it? Would then the "compassionate grounds" go out the window when, for argument's sake, he says he is not free for a month? It is safe to assume Dato' Seri Anwar is not his only client, and he has commitments in Germany that must be met. So, why this pressure?

UMNO wants Malay unity talks to isolate PAS. In 1972, with the New Economic Policy in place, the prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak, met the PAS president and Kelantan mentri besar, Dato' Asri Muda. for a grand coalition to further Malay interests. PAS joined the National Front when it was formed the next year. Five years later, PAS is out of the coalition, and out of office, in street riots over a crisis UMNO engineered, from Kelantan which it had governed for 20 years. It was of office for another 12 before it returned, in Kelantan, in 1990. In 1986, PAS forged a link with the Chinese community, and established the Chinese Consultative Committee. UMNO was split between the forces of the Prime Minister and of Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. PAS's show of force frightened the UMNO rump. The Prime Minister and his then deputy prime minister, one Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, negotiated in secret for secret talks. They leaked it. The public outcry broke PAS's back. The Chinese deserted it. It was returned in the elections of that year with only one seat in Parliament.

The New Straits Times gushingly tells us he is the first to attain federal political office since 1952. The Seenivasagam brothers, SP and DR, were giants in Ipoh and the PPP represented their ideals and hopes, went out to root for the underdog and, especially DR, fiery parliamentarians; SP, on the other hand, was more calculating and less prone to histrionics as his brother was. DR's death robbed the PPP of its vitality, and in the aftermath of May 13, SP brought the party into the National Front but refused to hold office when Tun Abdul Razak offered it to him.

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