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The brilliant Malaysian man for all seasons, if a cabinet minister, is usually a nobody

THE PRIME MNISTER IS an Islamic scholar because he has a degree in Islamic studies, so goes the spin. But while he is a deeply religious man, as many are, even he would admit he is no scholar. He has been built into one when he became prime minister. Tun Mahathir is a doctor, a great one at that, although he stopped practicing more than 30 years ago. The health minister, Doctor Chua Soi Lek graduated as a doctor, but gave it up for politics about the same time. But both are described as medical doctors. News reports, then of Tun Mahathir and Dato' Chua now, speak of their expertise in medicine, but neither would admit to all that. Dato' Ling Liong Sik, a medical graduate from Singapore, gave up his medical practice about a quarter of a centry ago, but he was treated in office as if he knew more than the specialists at the University Hospital. Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, before he entered Parliament, was known for his brawn than brain; but today in office it is reversed.

They have beaten the odds and became what they are. They are tall without these attributes. But in office, they are presumed to know about everything. It is often a mockey when the Malaysian mass media treat them as philosphers one day, teachers the next, and moralists the day after that. It is thought, usually by officials, that people will not believe the leader unless he is what he is not. They are decent people, with foibles and setbacks like everyone else, but are regarded as next to the Almighty when they reach the heights of political office. This gives them the "right" to order their people around and stand on their presumed dignity. But once out of office, they are discarded by the very officials, and ignored by the people. They are no more the cardboard figures they were in politics, even if many of them put on airs for the rest of their lives.

This is why they cling to office. They are zeros once they leave it. I once had lunch with a former cabinet minister, when a senior civil servant from his former office, came across the floor to greet me. He ignored the minister, although he had daily meetings with him only weeks earlier when he was cabinet minister. As he left my table, I had to call him back and introduce my host. He had already dismissed from his mind his former minister. The man was history, and Malaysians prefer to forget their history. Very sheepishly, he greeted him. But it is life in Malaysia. He left the cabinet just before Hari Raya. The previous year he had a full house in Gombak where he stayed, of fellow cabinet ministers, ambassadors, and the movers and shakers of the capital. But as an ex-minister, the food went to waste. Only two people from that rarified list turned up.

Putting to pasture those who spent their life in politics, often believing they had the attributes they are given. From one day to the next, they experience the height of their fame and their nadir. This is probably why there cling on to their official positions. There are ministers in the cabinet who have been there for nearly thirty years. But they do not have a life after they leave it. My cabinet minister friend died a lonely death, the papers reporting it after his burial. Another minister is on dialysis, forgotten in UMNO and the cabinet. Those around him now do not know the power he then had. He is a shadow of his old self, and is often lost in a crowd. There are ministers in the cabinet who would be lost if they are dropped. They do not have a life of their own, and being dropped is the biggest tragedy in their lives.

Rare exceptions are Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy prime minister who has emerged as an opposition leader after his stint in prison, apparently on trumped up charges; Dato' Shahrir Samad who was sacked from the cabinet twenty years ago, but remains a credible political figure and has built a life outside it; the late Tun Mustapha, who became successively Yang Di Pertua and chief minister of Sabah, and rejected Kuala Lumpur's offer of defence minister in 1974. But he had a vision, and that kept him a key figure in Malaysian politics. There are few politicians in the National Front who could emulate them in politics. Many wither away once out of politics. If anything, the fight to stay in politics, especially in the cabinet, have become stronger with the passing years. The late Tun Sardon Jubir, said his decision to leave the cabinet was made by an extraneous confrontation: he was told bluntly by the younger Malays in his constituency that he should leave the cabinet and allow them to make money, that if he had not, it was tough luck!

Pak Lah, whom I first knew as a civil servant, was not expected then to be secretary-general of a ministry. He would have teh tariks in Bangsar even when he was foreign minister. But that does not mean he is a pushover. He was secretary of the National Operations Council when the country was under civilian, or rather UMNO, "martial" law. He was not known then for the attributes he is now said to have. But no one in political office can be other than super human, unless he is not from the National Front. A minister can go to Bejing and apologize for a Malay girl, so we are told, doing nude squats, but it is two reporters from the Chinese press who reported, like the others, that the girl was a Chinese national. The home minister, Dato' Azmi Khalid, is excused however although his actions allowed China to dictate terms to Malaysia. He has denied that in Malaysia, but he told the press there he did just that The Malaysian media ignores what the minister said or does outside the country on a contentious issue, and concentrates on statements in the country that make him look good.

The spin has started to justify the resignation of the two Chinese reporters. But It was to tell the papers owned by other than UMNO in the National Front that they report with peril what UMNO does not want reported, usually long after the fact. It was done so clumsily that the deputy prime minister had to say the resignations were not racial. But it was. The Star was taught a lesson when it was shot down in the 1980s. When it returned after the suspension, it lost a lot of money and its former verve in reporting. To make an increasingly skeptical Malaysians it, a MCA deputy minister is called in what the deputy prime minister did. The two reporters had resigned as an offering for the paper to exist. It was this China Press that had first reported the woman in the nude squat was a Chinese national. The emphasis now is on the race of the woman, not the police resorting to nude squats of women they arrest.

M.G.G.Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com