Mahathir Mohamad served as prime minister of Malaysia between 1981 and 2003, and again between 2018 and 2020. Today’s episode in part examines the implications of being governed by the very old; Mahathir was 93 when he returned to power in 2018.
Ethnic tensions are intrinsic to Malaysian history and politics. A mix between Malays, Chinese and Indians, the majority Malay population, reeling after years of partly real and partly perceived suppression by the other groups, rallied around Mahathir, who promised to construct a country run by and for Malays. This had mixed results, but few can dispute Mahathir didn’t give it a good go; he served as prime minister for twenty-two years, staying in power by locking in the Malay vote for five elections in a row.
My guest today is James Chin, professor of Asian Studies at the University of Tasmania. James has written extensively on Malaysian politics, and his outlook for Malaysia’s future is mixed; whilst he is encouraged by the increasing pluralism at the top of Malaysian politics since 2018, he is also concerned by the pervasive influence of Islamism. We discuss these issues, as well as the implications of having a country so defined by ethnic division.
Mahathir Mohamad served as prime minister of Malaysia between 1981 and 2003, and again between 2018 and 2020. Today’s episode in part examines the implications of being governed by the very old; Mahathir was 93 when he returned to power in 2018.
Ethnic tensions are intrinsic to Malaysian history and politics. A mix between Malays, Chinese and Indians, the majority Malay population, reeling after years of partly real and partly perceived suppression by the other groups, rallied around Mahathir, who promised to construct a country run by and for Malays. This had mixed results, but few can dispute Mahathir didn’t give it a good go; he served as prime minister for twenty-two years, staying in power by locking in the Malay vote for five elections in a row.
My guest today is James Chin, professor of Asian Studies at the University of Tasmania. James has written extensively on Malaysian politics, and his outlook for Malaysia’s future is mixed; whilst he is encouraged by the increasing pluralism at the top of Malaysian politics since 2018, he is also concerned by the pervasive influence of Islamism. We discuss these issues, as well as the implications of having a country so defined by ethnic division.
Hello and welcome to the hated in the dead with Tom Leeman. Today's episode in part examines the implications of being governed by the very old. In 2018, Malaysian politics was graced with the return to power of 93 year old Mahathir Mohamad, who had previously served as Prime Minister between 1981 and 2003. ethnic tensions are intrinsic to Malaysian history and politics. A mix between Malays, Chinese and Indians, the majority ethnic Malay population, reeling after years of partly real and partly perceived suppression by the other groups rallied around Mahathir in the 1980s, who promised to construct a country run by and for Malays. This had mixed results, but few can dispute Mahathir didn't give it a good go. He served as prime minister for 22 years, staying in power by locking in the Malay vote for five elections in a row. When Mahathir came back, it was to defeat his handpicked successes and his old party, a party which until Mahathir says 2018 victory had never lost power. There was something very odd that it took a 93 year old to finally append Malaysia's ruling party and create something new, especially when that 93 year old had been the gatekeeper of the old political system, his entire adult life. My guest today is James chin. Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Tasmania. James has written extensively on Malaysian politics, and his outlook for Malaysia's future is mixed. Whilst he is encouraged by the increasing pluralism at the top of Malaysian politics since 2018. He is also concerned by the pervasive influence of Islamism. We discuss these issues, as well as the implications of having a country so defined by ethnic division. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to introduce Mahathir Mohamad. Hi, James, how are you? Good morning, James. We're talking about Mahathir Mohamad. Today, he was Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1981 until 2003, and then again for a second time between 2018 and 2020. The histories of Malaysia and Singapore are sort of inextricably linked. I did a podcast about six months ago with PJ Toom. About Lee Kuan Yew, the long standing Prime Minister of Singapore. I think there are some similarities in between Madiran Lee Kuan Yew as characters and as political figures and perhaps differences and some of the differences I'd like to perhaps tease out today. But suddenly that came out. Again and again, from my conversation with with PJ as being consequential about Singapore was was the role of ethnic politics and ethnic divisions. Malaysia has ethnic divisions as well. Can you describe the the ethnic breakdown in Malaysia? And also just something I was sort of thinking about when I was preparing for this episode is obviously that Malaysia is two islands. So it's interesting to think about how kind of an ethnic construct across two different islands which are quite far away from one another might actually work in practice. Yes, I think you're absolutely right. To understand Malaysia, I think you need to understand the racial makeup, and English. In addition to that, you need to understand the geography of Malaysia as well. So the current Federation of Malaysia essentially consists of three separate entities. They all got together in 1963. And these three entities, the commonalities was that they were all colonies of the UK. So when Britain decided to get out of Southeast Asia, initially, they wanted all these five entities that they control in Southeast Asia. And these five entities were Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo, what we call Saba today, Brunei and Surat. They want all the five entities to come together into a single new country, you have to understand, but in the 50s and 60s, it was the Cold War era. So obviously, you can't allow five new countries to appear suddenly, especially in Southeast Asia where people are very worried about the rise of China and the spread of communism. So initially, the British wanted all these five entities to come together to create a Federation in Malaysia. So Brunei refused to come on board. Singapore came on board, but two years later because of a fallout with The Malaysian system, the left Malaysia, so the Malaysia you see today just consists of Leia or the Malay Peninsula, Sabah and Surat, which are located on the island of Borneo. Now in terms of the racial makeup, the three major races on the peninsula side are the Malays, Indians and Chinese. And in Sabah is Seraiah. The demographic is very complicated. There's basically about, you know, at least 50 to 60 different tribal groupings. But in Sabah, essentially the majority tribal groupings is a group called the Kadazan loosens. And in Surat, the biggest ethnic group are the bands. And these groups are indigenous to the island of Borneo. So if you talk about the racial divide in Malaysia today, essentially you're talking about the Malays versus the non Malays versus the tribal groupings in Sabah syrup. So these are the three big groupings. If we move to discuss Mahathir the subject of our conversation today, he was born in Alor Setar, in 1925. He's still alive, he's 97 years old now. Briefly, what do you think is important to know about Maha tears, early life and his first dealings in politics in the 1940s and 50s. If you look at this very long, you know, seven decade career that he's ended up having, what from the sort of first 20 or 30 years of his life is significant to understanding this man? I think to understand my father's political career, you really have to book sorry, you really have to read his book. He wrote a very interesting book when he was out in power for a little while after 1969 up to 71. The book is called the Malay dilemma. Everything you need to know about Mahathir his early upbringing and his political philosophy can be found in the book. But essentially, Martha is very much a creature, somebody was born in a post war period, who lived through Second World War, who understood the difficulties of what they call the war years, he lived through the Cold War years. And I think he was very much, you know, the nationalists that we find in many parts of the world. Immediately after the war, they wanted to move the countries to independence. Now, in terms of his political dealings, my take is that a lot of his political outlook in life was shaped by his experience gathered during the Japanese occupation. And secondly, when he did not get a chance to go to study in the West. So in the old days, before Malaysia became independent state, all the top Malays students, all the top students of the country were traditionally sent to the UK to study and you find this a similar pattern in all the British colonies, they got the brightest and smartest, are members of the royal families and send them to the UK in order to get them to appreciate the British system. So Martez case, he was not able to get a scholarship. So he ended up as a medical student in Singapore in those days. In those days, that university in Singapore serve the entire British colonies, including Malaya. So he went there as a medical student. And I think the sort of racism he faces Singapore, and his unhappiness with the British system, he felt that the Malays will repress by the British, I think that colour his entire view of politics or what Malaysia should be like in the future, and I think he carry he said, a belief formed during that initial period throughout his life, including today. So this was racism that he experienced as a Malay person. Yes, this was his his experience as Malay. The story going around was when he was a medical student in Singapore. On one particular day, he went to see cp haarsma His wife, and then both of them were medical students at the University of Singapore then. So when he arrived, a city has mass house in a cab, the cab driver instead of dropping him off at the front of the house, just drove all the way to the back. So this was the assumption that he he was either working as a labourer or worker in the house, so it was not entitled walk to work through the front door. And I think experiences like that really Colour his views about ethnicity about racial relations, and about where the Malay community stood in terms of politics. His political career is so long, I feel the need to sort of jump in somewhere. I want to talk first about his relationship with Tunku. Abdul Rahman was seen as the father, founding father of Malaysia. It who wants to enqueue and what was Matthews and tinkerers relationship, like what was the nature of it. So tang of the Roman is a member of the Malaysian royalty. So like many parts of the British Empire, being a member, the royalty means that if you are talented, you had a better education, the British colonial authorities will send you to the UK to study so that. So Tim Cook came to the UK to study he took a law degree, but an extremely long law degree because in between, he was having fun living in the UK, he was the person known as the founder of the Federation of Malaysia, simply because when he went back, the British supported him politically, he set up the political party, he became the leader of the political arm, no. And he's the one who negotiated the independence of Malaya and later Malaysia, with the British. So as I said earlier, the British wanted all these important people in the colonies to study in the UK, to influence them, to make sure that they're pro British, so that when the British leave the country, and those countries became independent, they remain friendly to the interests of the UK. So together Brahmam was the founder of Malaysia in that sense that he negotiated independence. Now in terms of his relationship with MRP. Initially, marfy was a supporter of Tunku Marva, in fact, joined two goods party, um, no, initially to go deep recognise what is political talent, everything was quite okay, in initial period. But everything fell apart in 1969. Most people tell that in 1969, that is the watershed moment for Malaysia, because in 1969, immediately after the general elections, there was a ratio riding in Malaysia, in all the major urban centres in the in the Malay Peninsula. So during this period, there was a lot of political turbulence. And it was during this period that they wrote an open letter to God, the robin, asking him to step down as the Prime Minister. Now, that's a really, really important event. Because this was the first time where a young Malay chap with, you know, with no political standing, stood up within the party, as the leader of the party, the sitting Prime Minister, to resign. So basically, the letter is quite controversial, because basically, the letter argues that Tunku will have to step down as the Prime Minister, because it was too close policy that created a rise. So basically, Martinez argument was quite simple, the Federation of Malaysia or Malaya, or belongs to the Malays, the Malays are the indigenous people of Malaysia, and therefore they should reign supreme in or they should be ranked number one, first among equals. And this idea was this idea of Katana and Malaya which the Malay supremacy. So he argues that tunco had gone too far to accommodate the interests of the non Malays, principally the Chinese or the Indians. And because of that, the bulk of the Malay population were very unhappy. And that led to the riots of 1969. Although initially, the idea was not was not widely accepted in the Malay establishment. But after the riots and the suspension of Parliament, I think what happened was that the Malay establishment decided that we need to rebuild Malaysia in such a way that they it was made clear that the Malays would dominate not only in the political sphere, but in every aspect of this nation. So I think after that sort of idea came into the Malay establishment once it was widely accepted, then that's where Martez idea took off, and to goo was forced to resign as the prime minister. And shortly after that mark, they came back into the party, or I forgot to mention earlier that in a Marty was suspended from um, no party because of the letter. But after 1971, he was allowed back into the party when to go, I was forced to step down as the Prime Minister. One of the interesting things about Malaysia as a system is that if you look at it, at least nominally on paper, it looks very similar to the British political system. It's got a sort of Westminster parliamentary system. It has a head of state that was described as a monarch in this era, the 1960s. How democratic could you say that Malaysia actually was in practice? Was there sort of a realistic chance that a party other than UMNO could have won power? Well, I think what you'll find in the 1960s in the first decade of Malaysian independence is that Malaysia was a Democrat. In a sense that the laws was written in such a way that everyone was more or less equal. The problem, then was that they did not manage the ethnic relations very well. So there was a lot of disparity. So it is a fact that in the 1960s, the bulk of the economy was controlled by the foreigners, you have to remember the British were given the height of all the major companies in Malaysia. So even after the left, the companies obviously, were still operating in Malaysia. So they still held a lion's share of the big stuff in the economy. Secondly, the British word the Chinese community, they had a big share of the economy as well. And the Malays had a very, very small shared economy, I think most economists will agree that the Malaysia the overall economy will probably be around 5% or less. So you can imagine the unhappiness in the Malay community. And just to put that in context, in terms of percentages of population this time, can you give us sort of rough idea of what the population share was between the Malays, the Chinese and the Indians? Sure, at the time of independence, basically, the Chinese and Indians were hovering around 40 45%. The Malays was around, you know, 49%, just the other 50% and the other 5% of population came from Sabah and Surat. But today the population has changed completely. Today, the Chinese population has fallen to about 24%. The Indian population which used to hover around 10%, is now roughly on around 6%. So basically, the Malay population has gone up tremendously. But that's not how people in Malaysia today look at Malaysia. Today. Basically, when we look at the population, they look at it in terms of the boom Petrov versus the normal mudra. So the boom we try is administrative term that was brought in after 1970 to include all the groups that are deemed as indigenous people. So basically, when you count the indigenous population in Malaysia, which includes the indigenous people, Saba answer are, the Malay population with jumped approximately 70% Rather than resigned in 1970. And this was kind of a signal for Mahathir to come back to politics, who mentioned that obviously, they'd fallen out over math is requested that he resigned, how easy did he find it to come back into politics and start climbing the AMLO ladder, such that by obviously, by the early 1980s, he was in a position to become prime minister. So I think he didn't have much of a problem coming back. So in the early 1970s, there was a very small group of Malay professionals being a medical doctor, obviously, helping with his standing in the Malay community. And he was quite a popular doctor in a lot of star where he practice. So I don't think that was the issue. I think the thing was that he was extremely lucky. He was extremely lucky that the Prime Minister that came after to grab the ramen, the one that actually pushed together out was a guy called to Razak, but Tim Razak could not really rule properly, because by the mid 70s, he was suffering from cancer. So he died and he was replaced by his brother in law, call Hussein on now, when I say my birthday was lucky because Hussein Khan selected him as his deputy. And he actually jumped through several other people, which much more seen in him, and who said almost also very sick. So by 1981, when we say on, had to medically retire, you know, Marty was the deputy prime minister that obviously became the Prime Minister. So in some ways, he was very lucky that the two leaders preceding him, both, you know, had to step down and one day in office due to medical issues, so he was at almost at the right place at the right time. You mentioned earlier Mahathir is political talents. What were those talents? Well, I think if you speak to people, the older people who serve with him or who were with him at the time, when he became the Prime Minister, in the mid 80s, I think what was very clear about him was that a lot of Malays saw that he was very different from the other Malay political leaders, because he had a very clear vision of where he wanted Malaysia to go. He had a very clear vision of how he wanted to reform the Malay community. Here I'm talking about something that he my themes have written extensively. He has made a very powerful argument that one of the issues Making the Malays forbear in terms of progress or stopping the progress, that Malays are quite feudalistic. So, things like this, he had a very clear programme, but how the map Malaysia developed country and he also was seen as somebody who was widely read sort of an intellect and somebody who could sort of had a reputation as our tramline nationalists. So, the Malays trusted him to make sure that you know, unlike before 1969, he will not, he will not give in too much to the Chinese and the Indians. So in in that sense he was he was quite a quite an interesting and interesting in the sense that, you know, he did not see himself a Malaysian leader, he always saw yourself as a nationalist. And I think that was the key to his success. Now, they became prime minister in 1981. You mentioned that he saw himself as a Malay nationalist, in terms of putting that into practice in the 1980s. What did that actually mean? What did he, how did he actually want to change the political and social settlement in Malaysia? So when martec came to power, he was very clear that what he needed to do in terms of making sure that there was progress in the Malay community, if you remember, what I said earlier was that, at a time of independence, the malaise really were in control politics and bureaucracy. But the big gap was that they had a very little sharing economy. So one of the things he quickly did when he was Prime Minister, whether he wanted to increase the share of the Malays community, in the private economy, the way he did, it was basically to industrialization programme. That's number one, he went into a lot of industries. Secondly, he did a privatisation exercise. So in the 1980s, similar to the UK and attacher, the there was this big move towards privatisation. But in the Malaysian case, the edit the ratio criteria to this privatisation industrialization. In other words, when you privatise government, utilities, all these things, a lot of these were given to Malay companies. So immediately, the Malay company had a bigger sharing economy, right. Obviously, a lot of these utilities are very big companies when you privatise it, it was the same story with Malaysia industrialization policy. So they did things like a car plan, building cars, set up steel industries, everything. So the ultimate aim, there was all this eventually will end up in the hands of Malay capitalists. So he was trying to do two things, trying to build a Malay middle class. Secondly, was trying to make sure that he can build a large, what he calls a doom withdraw commercial industrial community, in other words, a Malay capitalist. So he wanted to ensure that, you know, we in a very, very short time, the Malay had a substantial stake in the economy. So that the Malay was a bank, they wanted to balance out with Chinese and Indians. So the idea was that if the Malays had an equally big stake in economy, like the Chinese and Indians, then you have political stability, because everybody had a stake in the economy. And in terms of achieving that political stability. I mean, I can sort of see, I don't I don't want to sound like an apologist for sort of chauvinistic policies here, because I'm not I'm not trying to justify them. But obviously, the situation that you described, immediate post war, where the largest part of the population has very little control within the economy that that it's not a an optimal situation, forgetting any policies that came after. Can you describe at all in terms of the actual results of this policy? Can you see it as a success? Do you think because obviously, in spite of what I just said, selecting economic, so leaders and captains of industry aren't based on ethnicity is is not a good idea, because you're immediately excluding bright people from other ethnic backgrounds who might actually run it better. Yes, I think you have really touched the real issue in Malaysia that this sort of ethnic identity linked to the economy and the wider community. This is the crux of the matter in Malaysia. So today, when you look back or the market economic policies, I think you will find that most economists will argue that it's a mixed bag. There are some areas that are successful, some areas are not very successful. So for example, he was quite successful in building a Malay middle class, but in terms of Malay capitalists, a big group of those who were given opportunities during his time, essentially the dogs survive after the great financial crisis. A lot of them I know did not made it because a lot of those people rely on government support. So when a crunch came, their business cannot survive. So the number of Malay capitalists in Malaysia is actually quite small. So in that part, I think most people will say that it's been a failure. In terms of his policy of privatisation. Most people argue that it's also big failure, although he did, created huge companies, and he did sell it to individual Malays. The bottom line is that a lot of those companies got into trouble and the government was forced to come back to bail them out. So a perfect example of that is that Malaysian Airlines, which used to be a very famous world airline, it was privatised, sort of Malay capitalist. After the financial crisis, everything fell apart, and the government was forced to come back and bail the airline out. So today, you know, the government is burdened with an airline, which is still making losses. So I think you have really, you know, hit the nail on the head, and say that, you know, the problem with Malaysia is this issue or ethnicity. Race in Malaysia is sort of the, you know, the starting point for everything that happens in Malaysia. But the other thing that happened during Martez rule, which, which I think, in my opinion is that he's he's to blame for it was that during his long tenure as the prime minister, he flirted with this issue of political Islam. He tried to build, you know, a solid base of political support, not only based on Malay nationalism, but also based on Islamic supremacy. So he started to bring in Islamic elements into the administration, he started to promote Islam in a political arena. So the end result you have in Malaysia today is not only political supremacy, or Malay political supremacy, you also have Islamic supremacy. So with these two toxic elements, are these were the issues become correlated in Malaysian politics? So was he trying to sort of conflate the two and say, you sort of like you can't be a Malay without being a sort of a, you know, fervent Muslim to? Yes, what he was basically trying to do was that within unknowing, so um, no, is actually a very powerful Malay political parties when he was in power. The only opposition or not throughout the period was prime minister was another Malay party, which initially broke away from, um, no, it was called pass or party, Islam, Malaysia. So from the name alone, you can gather there is a Islamic party. And your number one aim has always been to set up Islamic State in Malaysia. So he saw that as a threat. Because towards the end of his rule, it was very clear that pass was making inroads in the Malay community. Because as you know, Islam is a very powerful political symbol, we saw that there was a worldwide revival of Islamic politics after the fall of Iran in 1979. So throughout this period, the Islamic party was getting more and more powerful. So that's the reason why he wanted to bring in more Islamic elements in the unknown to government. So he can tell the Malay community you don't have to support pass, because he wanted more Islam, um, no, as Islamic as pass. So this is where the problem lies. In sort of Islamic politics, you have two distinct things you have sort of Islamism, which people that are Islamist to people to kind of want to use the system of government as it stands to kind of turn it in on itself and create a kind of Islamic style of government and then you have sort of outright jihadists. These people who are not interested in using government politics at all for its own ends, they just they want us to completely fundamentally change the system by force by by kind of violent force. Islamism has obviously played an important role in Malaysian politics recently, is there a big problem with sort of jihadism that we have seen in in other parts of the Islamic world over the last couple of decades, are not really not in the Malaysian context. But the interesting thing about the way Martha has brought Islam into Malaysia or in the Malaysian politics is that he sees Islam as a fundamental today he used to change the mindset of the Malays. So when he was promoting Islam in Malaysia, he was promoting a very specific set of Islamic beliefs, things like work hard study, hard, new knowledge and everything. So he was trying to use very much he was he was trying very hard to use Islam in order to modernise the thinking of the Malays. If you remember what I said earlier one things that he was very worried about The progress of the Malay community was that he felt that the Malay community was to feel realistic. So he thought that if I can use a slum as justification for them to learn, you know, to study hard to work hard, these people will be successful in a modern capitalist economy. But the problem is that when he tried to bring that into the administrative part, he basically create a bureaucracy to promote Islam. And what you have is a bureaucratization, or Islam in Malaysia. So one of the unusual things about Islam in Malaysia is that it is defined by the state, and it's imposed by the bureaucracy. So very often, Muslims from other parts of the world when they come to Malaysia, they find that the way Islam is practised in Malaysia, and Malaysia is a Sunni Islam, they find it a bit unusual, because a lot of the rules about the way Islam is practised in Malaysia, stems from the bureaucracy, or not from a religious class. So it's almost like the Church of England. Yes, but much more powerful unfortunately. I mentioned earlier that Malaysia has a head of state, but Marty was not the head of state he was the Prime Minister, the head of state is sort of colloquially referred to as the king. But this is quite an unusual monarchy in the sense that it's at least partly elected. Can you go into how the the Head of State operates in Malaysia, Malaysia is unique in a world that it is the only country in the world where the head of state the monarchy is elected, a man of the night, so tonnes that night, so turns in Malaysia, they're called the Conference of rulers. So among themselves, they will elect one person to serve as the king for a period of five years. The way it was in practice that usually the oldest member, get the serve the five years, obviously, you do not want any sort and don't miss out. So that's how the system was in practice. In terms of the constitutional requirements, the head of state is a ceremonial poster, the king is a ceremonial monarch. He does not hold any political power, but he's supposed to be above politics. But in reality, like our political system, because he's the king, and also certain he will have influence behind the scenes. I think something that I've read is that obviously, Mahathir was a very overbearing political figure. And one of the things that I've read that he that people have accused him of is sort of eroding the traditional power of the Sultan's. And if the king, is this the case, what sort of relationship did he have with the king or kings that he was dealing with when he was Prime Minister? So in general, my take is that mother doesn't really believe in the monarchy, or at least not in the Malaysian context. He always had difficulties with the monarchy because this fits into this idea that the reason why the Malay community is so fatalistic is because of this king king system, if you want to call it that, you know, right, if you have a king, then you have titles, you have different ruling classes, people born into different classes, or that sort of thing. So Mahathir did not really believe in all that. The reason why people say that he had a very bad relationship with royalty was because during the time when he was in power, back in the early 1990s, one of the Sultan's who became king was involved in an incident where the Sultan actually killed somebody else. Now, obviously, we something as sensitive as that. The police was trying to hush it up, err on a hunch. But Marty felt that these things should not be harsh. So what happened was that he brought law brought a new law into Malaysia, which says that the king is no longer 100% immune from other normal laws, and that the king can be charged for crimes, especially if it occurs when he's not performing official duties. So that really seal you know, these bad relationships with certain Sultans. So even today, right, the descendants of the Sultan of Johor, the law are specifically targeted, so don't do all right. Even today, they still have very bad relationship with the mountaire family, but among the Malay intelligencia, a lot of people agree with Matteo that, you know, the way the Sultan's behave in Malaysia, I you know, that they really should be more control on the activities rather than less. There were some big figures in the region, the wider Southeast Asian region at this time. You know, you've got Suharto in Indonesia, you've got Ferdinand Marcos, in the Philippines dung XIAO PING in China. Yeah. What was mother's relationship with the wider region? What was his foreign policy like? So in terms of his foreign policy, basically Marty saw himself as two things. He saw himself as a leader in ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but also saw himself as sort of an unofficial spokesperson for the third world, especially the Islamic world. So that's the reason why he criticised the West a lot, especially why than Western hypocrisy, especially on the issue of Palestine. So he spent a lot of time on that issue. He also spent a lot of time again trying to change the Malay Mindset by launching his force most famous foreign policy and our policy is called the look is policy. He was asking the Malay population in Malaysia to follow the work ethic of the Japanese and are being very industrious. You know, all that sort of stuff. So that was his foreign policy. In terms of his relationship with the rest of Southeast Asia with his contemporaries. I think he did not have very good relations with Lee Kuan Yew Murthy always thought that two of the Rama made a mistake in allowing Singapore to leave the Federation of Malaysia. The argument is that to go the wrong who have said no and pulling the security forces to dealt with Lee Kuan Yew and that will be the end of it. And he also saw Lee Kuan Yew as also a rival. He was always unhappy that Lee Kuan Yew because of the economic success of Singapore was sort of sending a signal out there. You know, we not only can we survive on a free of state in Malaysia, we will not be successful, that sort of attitude. Now in terms of its relationship with other strong men in Southeast Asia. My take is that it was just a normal relations. But I think he also felt that he was never taken as seriously compared to people like Suharto or Lee Kuan Yew I think he put it this way. He was really bothered that you know that the Western press, the major Western press did not give him more press coverage compared to people like Suharto, Lee Kuan Yew. Was that the case? Yes, because I was told many times by when I interview people were in that on the on the specific visit to America. His visit was not covered on the front page of The New York Times when Lee Kuan Yew also auto goes to America, they're likely to appear on the front page of New York Times. So things like that really bother him. If we think about his longevity, he was Prime Minister for a very long time. He won, I think, five elections. Obviously, part of the way he did this was sort of locking in the Malay vote, and a large part of the Islamist vote into his sort of voting coalition. And they formed a sort of natural majority that would allow him to be basically perpetually keep getting elected. But was there was this sort of active suppression of other politics? Uh, you know, of other political forces within the country? Yes, well, Martha doesn't really believe in democracy. He believes that for a country like Malaysia, where there's more or less permanent ethnic tensions between the Malays and anomalies that you need strong men grew, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, you can't have democracy. Because if everybody's asking for the regs, everybody's pushing for the rights, you will not have a stable political system. Especially in the background of the ethnic riots. I think what everyone fears both the Malays and anomalies in Malaysia, they fear repeat of 1969 ratio rice. So I think he strongly believes that you can have democracy, but you can have sort of a Malaysian type democracy, very similar to what the Chinese are saying, you know, Chinese type democracy or Chinese capitalism. So he believes that for a country like Malaysia, you need strong men politics. So in that sense, he doesn't believe in democracy. So back, the most controversial thing that happened during his term was in 1987. He sort of unleashed this, the police against the opposition. You know, a lot of opposition people were arrested, put in jail, or that sort of thing. And that was the time when he was under pressure, because there was a faction in UMNO, who came very close in deposing him as the leader of Umno. So within a short period, after that you had the thing of Operation London in 1987, where he shut down newspapers, great many opposition leaders were arrested. That to me is really, you know, confirmation what I said earlier that he really believes in strong man rule. He believes that for a ethnically divided society like Malaysia, if you don't have a strong man at the centre or you don't have a strong government, everything will fall apart. He left office in 2003. Very much like Lee Kuan Yew he sort of became a bit of a backseat driver for the people that succeeded him even for his, the successes that he'd hand picked. How long did it take for him to start criticising the people that came after him? So basically, the prime minister that came after him was a guy called Abdullah Abdullah Badawi. He chose Abdullah Badawi because he, you know, Abdullah Badawi was quite a weak figure, interestingly enough. Part of the reason he chose him was that we made it very clear that he will carry or follow through mother's existing policies. But what he didn't know is that once that way, became the Prime Minister, he changed completely. He dumped most of his key policies. So I have to be careful who you're appointing. So anyway, but basically, he was very unhappy when Badawi started dumping his policy, so within a period about three or four years, he started criticising Badawi extensively, and in fact, he campaigned against Badawi so that's the reason why, in Badawi re election second election, but that we did badly, and he was also the one behind the scenes to appoint the next successor, which is Najib Razak, another very controversial figure in Malaysia. And we Najib Razak, within a period of probably even shorter within one or two years after najis victory, he began to criticise Najib, I think the problem with all these strong men of Southeast Asia is that the moment they are in power, they do not want to run the country day to day. But they still want the main thrust of the policy to be continued. And whoever comes in after them, if you don't carry through the the the key policies, then that's where the trouble starts. While in trouble did start in this case, obviously, because Murthy ends up coming back there was a big corruption scandal in Malaysia in 2017. Can you can you sort of can you talk about how Mahathir came back into politics? I mean, he became prime minister again in 2018. Short surely, people must have seen this for the disaster that it was going to be. You know, I don't want to sound ages but 93 year old man who's already been Prime Minister for 22 years coming back. Yeah, so I think the election of 2018 when we saw my they coming back the power. That was quite a unit election, I don't think it can be repeated. The reason I said that was because back in 2015, that was the start of this one MDB political corruption. So the background to this is basically that one of the prime minister that he helped us Najib Razak, was involved in a gigantic financial scam called one MDB. The short version the story is that basically the scammed the Malaysian system out of approximately four and a half to 6 billion US dollars. I think there's going to be a movie made about this. So basically martec came back and decided to lead the opposition and they overthrew his old party, um, no by playing this corruption cut. Basically, his argument was that Najib corruption was so huge that it not only embarrassed the Malay race, but embarrassed the whole country in the eyes of the world. And that this, this corruption was in the Malaysian polity was too much. People always understood that there's corruption in Malaysia, but this was, you know, beyond anybody's imagination. So he came back in power in 2018, primarily because of that. He was there for another two years, and then a sort of crisis engulfed his government and he was eventually pushed out at the age of 95. Can you go into the nature of that crisis? What happened? Here, the short, the short version is quite simple. So basically, when he came back in 2018, he led a new opposition alliance against his own party. And the opposition Alliance, interestingly, consists of those Party who are opposing him when he was in power. In other words, on the other side, he basically went to the other side, cobble them together, created alliances co Pakatan harapan are the allies of hope, the One Power that came in, he became the Prime Minister. But unfortunately, the problem is that he was still trying to run his old style of government. He was trying to run Mahathir government 2.0 rather than a reform his government, you know, people voted them in the chair means the system. So basically the system fell apart. Because there was too much tension in the system between the whole cabinet was dysfunctional because you have people from the Reform Movement whether reformulation and a prime minister who was not in favour of reforming the government. He was basically trying to run Marty 2.0, or continuation of his government. Um, no. Up until 2018, and no had been in power, basically for the entirety of Malaysia's existence it was it was to enqueues party. It was then Matthews party, and his success as party as well. And then Murphy came back and defeated it since Mahathir has left has the fact that he managed to sort of bulldoze this, you know, sort of lumbering party of ammo out of the way, do you think that has that had any benefit has that sort of broken the political system up a bit and made it a bit more open, a bit more reformist? I think he has in an indirect way. So basically, what happened was after the fall of Martin 2.0, in 2020, the new government that came to power did not last one year later, in 2021, which is last year, that that coalition also fell apart. And we had a new prime minister now. So we have basically three change of government since 2018. So I think that's a good thing, because prior to the first regime change in 2018, the general consensus among the ordinary people was that if you had a change of government, and um, no was no longer leading the government, then you might have a situation where racial riots will break out again. So I think that more has been completely broken. I think people understand that a change of government or change of regime is a normal thing in most, in most places where you're allowed to vote. And the change of government, in fact, is a very positive thing. So we had three change of government since then, there has been no major incidents with any change of government. So I think going forward, I think the Malaysian people will be quite happy to vote in a totally different government from now on. So I think that's the really positive thing about about the change by Mahathir in 2018. Do you think ethnic politics with this great corruption scandal? In 2017? Do you think after that ethnic politics has become a little less important in Malaysia? Or not really, I think the problem with Malaysia is that the ratio thing is so deeply ingrained in the system. It is it is sort of institutionalised. So it is not possible for you to remove the racial element for Malaysian politics, the only way to remove it is you need to break down the system completely and rebuild the system from the bottom out. Short of that is very difficult. If you speak to most Malaysians, they will tell you that Malaysian politics is driven by three things is called the three are the first out is race. The second one is religion. And the third one is royalty. So with each of these components, there it is very, very difficult to change the system. And I think I mentioned earlier that we're in the 1980s and 1990s. Under Marty, you have the rise of political Islam. So that's another element on top of the racial divide. So increasingly, Malaysia is heading towards some sort of crisis, it will not happen soon. But it will come sooner or later. And what do you think the nature of that crisis will be? So the nature of the crisis is quite simple. There will be a tipping point when those people who are clamouring for a Malaysian Islamic State, eventually, there will be a point where either the Islamic wing or they lose completely. So Malaysia over the next few years will have a very interesting choice, either to support a government which brings in more and more Islamic policies, or they move to a system where they will introduce less and less religion in the system. Right now, it looks like we're heading towards a situation where they want more religion in the system. But we don't know because we've seen experiences with other countries like Algeria, Tunisia, all them after having a Islamic style of government, the population they decided to revote, and they change the system they completely so we have to see Malaysia is unique in a sense that among all the Islamic countries, Malaysia, in Southeast Asia is the only one where the Malay religion is decided in the Constitution. If you read the Malaysian constitution, it says that if You're defined by the state as a Malay person, or your religion is Islam. There's actually no way constitutionally or legally in Malaysia for a Malay person to leave the Islamic religion. So that part is quite interesting. But that doesn't bode well. No, it doesn't. I want to finish by comparing Murphy to Lee Kuan Yew a little. Obviously, Malaysia and Singapore aren't the only countries that have had these people clinging on to power sort of decade after decade. But these this kind of extreme difference to sort of narrow people letting them come back and be backseat drivers and stuff. What do you think it is about Malaysia and Singapore that caused it to happen in these two countries, these two countries that many people would argue are sort of the same place really the you know, always there's strong cultural crossover between the two. It's interesting that these two countries had quite similar rulers in some ways that they both outstayed their welcome. I mean, I suppose it could just be an extreme respect and deference to the old in your culture, for instance, what do you think it is? But I have to disagree with slightly I think if you look at it in detail, Malaysia and Singapore, very, very different countries. Oh, argue that often, I think 65 When Singapore left Malaysia, they pursue a totally different set of policies. So they set the policy basically based on meritocracy rather than race. In Malaysia, everything is dependent on the city. So I think that's where things are different. But in terms of the leadership thing, I would argue that what has happened in Malaysia in Singapore is that basically black lines in Southeast Asia are still very important. So for example, the recent example is look at Marcos, the first Markov state such a terrible job in the Philippines that he was actually forced to flee the country, the Americans were forced to use a helicopter to fly into Hawaii, from Manila. And yet, no 20 years later, 30 years later, the sun has come back and won the presidential election, the Philippines with a huge margin more than doubled the votes of his opponent. So I think one of the unusual things about Southeast Asia is that it is still very fatalistic, people still believe in this idea of lies. In other words, if you come from the right political bloodline, you have sort of the right to rule, or people vote for you simply because of which family you're coming from. And I think that sort of thing is still a big problem in Southeast Asia, especially in traditional societies like Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Suddenly, that's become more common, since the fall of the Berlin Wall. And the rise of the Internet has been that dictators have become much Savea in the way that they centralised power around them. You know, they're still unrelenting in doing that, but they don't use the kind of style in his tactics of extreme totalitarianism, a very, very repressive police state. North Korea, for instance, now looks like something of an outlier in the way that it administers its state. Whereas in the Cold War era, it was very common. Lee Morgan Besa. The political scientists call this sophisticated authoritarianism. You know, these people they use the internet very sadly, they're often actually elected. Putin is elected, for instance. In that sense, do you think Mahathir and Lee Kuan Yew were kind of ahead of their time? Look, my argument is that is not that they're any more sophisticated compared to the previous generation. Every generation uses their existing tools in order to shape public opinion. So you know, the previous generation could not have shaped the public opinion we do today through social media, because social media did not exist during that time. I think the key difference between the older generation and this generation in terms of political leadership is that the older generation, the number of voices in the political arena a lot less in today's generation, anybody can put their voice out in the public sphere. And it was much, much much harder to manage public opinion today. So that's the reason why, you know, they spent a lot of money, a lot of resources, you know, trying to shape public opinion through social media. So it's a question of using the tools. I think the other key differences that especially in the last 20 years since the fall of the Soviet Union, certainly this idea that liberal democracy is the only way out elections is the only legitimate way governments can be formed in the sort of norms are stronger and stronger. And that's the reason why you see authoritarian governments no matter how rigid the system is the leader will go through a process of some sort of elections to gain legitimacy. So one of the interesting things you'll find around the world is that we have leaders who has a long history of authoritarian rule in the last 1015 years, and they've been holding elections regularly, where they win by 70 or 80% of votes. And obviously, you know, that, you know, is not done in a free or fair environment, but they still go through it, they spell out resources, and they tell the rest of the world I say, I'm a properly elected leader. So I think it is it is about the culture norms of specific time points in history, rather than anything else. Do you think it actually works for them? Do you think that obviously, in reality, it doesn't give them much more legitimacy? But do you? Do you think that perhaps, do you think it is sense that it does? Do you think this, this is a successful tool? I think it's successful, because they believe in it. And also in the international arena, I think you have some certain bragging rights. You can say that I went to the election, I won election that yes, it is true that it was not a free elections, free and fair elections. But I did give my people a chance to vote me out. It's just too bad that the opposition can get together and I want by 80% of votes so that they get a bit of legitimacy in the international arena, but you are right in usually in the in their own countries. Nobody believes in those elections. James, thank you very much. That was great. And if people want to read what you write about Malaysia and about other things, where can they find you? They can find me on academia website or ResearchGate and other website I put all my publications there, so anybody can download any of the articles or read for free. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the hated in the dead. If you've enjoyed this podcast, follow it on Spotify and Apple podcasts. And for good measure. Leave us a review. You can also follow the hated in the dead on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook so you never miss new content.