*Siapapun yg ori. rakyat msia akan bangga dgn Tun apabila tundukkan BBC Hardtalk yg bukan calang2 org boleh menang lawan bercakap dgn mereka...umur tun hujung thn ni 83thn tapi still maintain cool tak gelabah kasi fire diorang balik...patutlah tok arab.paki dll yg dok puji dia kerana kepetahan dan kelantangannya.
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(Transkrip penuh temuramah Stephen Sackur-BBC Hardtalk dengan Tun Dr Mahathir)*
*BBC-HARDTALK INTERVIEW WITH TUN DR.MAHATHIR MOHAMAD*.
*recorded on 18th day of April, 2008 in London.*
*Stephen Sackur Introduction:*
Last month marked a watershed in the politics of Malaysia. The ruling
national front recorded its worst election results in five decades. Its
still in power but seriously weakened. My guest today personifies the power
of the ruling party for 22 years.
He was Malaysias PM and one of the most outspoken leaders in the Muslim
world. His critics called him a racist and a dictator. Has retirement
mellowed Dr.Mahathir Mohamed?
*Stephen Sackur*: Dr Mohamad welcome to Hardtalk. Lets start with that
election result last month, has it marked the beginning of the end for
Malaysias ruling party?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Not necessarily, unless no action is taken, of course
it may result in that. But if proper action is taken, including of course
the present Prime Minister leaving his seat of power, it may be possible to
bring back the Barisan Nasional Front in order to become again a very strong
ruling party.
*Stephen Sackur*: Youre saying that PM Abdullah Badawi has to be kicked out
for the ruling party to recover?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Well not so strong as that. He can step down. I
stepped down in my time. Its about time that he steps down because the
result of the election shows clearly that many of the former followers,
supporters of the Nasional Front had decided that they would work, vote for
the Opposition even if they didnt like the Opposition. They voted for the
Opposition to send a message to the present government.
*Stephen Sackur*: Prime Minister Abdullah says that you have been one of the
curses that have brought him down, because youve been sniping from the
sidelines for the last two or three years.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: That may be so. I dont see why I should not
criticise wrongdoings by him.
*Stephen Sackur*: What wrongdoings?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Well in the first place, the government promises to
remove corruption and things like that, but the government is found to be
corrupt.
*Stephen Sackur*: You are tearing your own party apart though, that is the
problem. And that is what many people inside your party believe.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Well sometimes it may be necessary. I told people
that Im a doctor. If I find one leg becoming gangrenous I remove it.
*Stephen Sackur*: Now he has said Prime Minister Abdullah, that he will go
eventually, but is your message to him that he has no time, he must go now?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: He must go now, because he will take time to revive
the party for the next election.
*Stephen Sackur*: Isnt the truth of what we see in Malaysia today that the
real discontent isnt so much with Prime Minister Abdullah, it is with the
system and the ideology that you bequeathed to your country?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Well the system and the ideology have been there for
the last 50 years. Its worked very well we had always won elections, people
always supported us and the country has done very well during that 50 years
with that system.
*Stephen Sackur* : But the indications are and the opposition succeeded by
saying to the public, we no longer want this racially defined system inside
Malaysia. And it was the racial defined system that was the platform upon
which you succeeded in running Malaysia for 22 years.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: I think thats wishful thinking on the part of
foreign critics. But the fact is that this election result was due to
disaffection on the part of the ruling partys supporters, with the present
leadership.
*Stephen Sackur* : Well let me just quote you the words of the new head of
Penang State and lets not forget that these results saw five very big and
wealthy states go to the Opposition. The new head of Penang State Mr Lim
Guan Eng, he says we want a new state administration that is free from
corruption and cronyism, we are here to build a Penang State for all. You
didnt build a Malaysia for all did you?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: I did. If you look at Malaysia today. Everybody is
enjoying, has enjoyed, a very good life. They have become very prosperous.
Malaysia was one of the fastest growing countries in the world. If you look
at the different races, you can find that they all benefited from that
government. So it is of course, necessary for Opposition parties to make
remarks like that.
*Stephen Sackur* : But they are not making it up are they? Lets look at
your new economic policy which you pursued for so long. It favours ethnic
Malays, in so many different ways, from public sector appointments to
university places, to advantageous acquisition of stocks, discounts on
housing, I dont know where to stop. There are so many different ways in
which you ran an unequal system.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: No this was a policy which was initiated by my
predecessors, it was necessary to...
*Stephen Sackur* : But you ran it for 22 years, you had ample opportunity to
change it.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Yes I had ample opportunity to implement in a way
that will correct imbalances that existed in Malaysia since the British
days. And unless these imbalances are corrected theres bound to be another
race riot, as happened in 1969.
*Stephen Sackur* : But the point is that 80 thousand Indians for example,
were on the streets protesting long and loud last November, because they are
no longer prepared to live with the racial division that you set in the
stone.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Why now? Why not during my time? They were quite free
to demonstrate. Many of the people who disagreed with me demonstrated...
*Stephen Sackur* : But many of the people who disagreed with you, Im afraid
ended up in prison.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Who?
*Stephen Sackur* : Hundreds of them, read every Amnesty international and
human rights watch report for the years in which you were in power..
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: The western press, the problem is that you make up
these stories and then you take this as the truth, its not the truth. Tell
me who are the hundreds of people who ended up in prison.
*Stephen Sackur*: Ill discuss human rights a little bit later. I just want
before we get distracted from this question of racism in Malaysia, I just
want to put to you this final point: Anwar Ibrahim says that he is going to
push and of course he your long time friend who became, your political
enemy, he is going to push for a colour blind Malaysia where affirmative
action is open to all who need help.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Well this opportunism for him, now that he is out of
the government, he was in the government for a long time, he never made any
complaints, he never did anything to.
*Stephen Sackur* : He certainly made a complaint when you locked him up.
Dr.Mahathir Mohamad: Well that was not the reason why he was locked up, he
was accused of sodomy, he was accused of abuse of power, he was tried in
court, nine months and he was defended by nine lawyers and he was found
guilty...
*Stephen Sackur* : Trumped up charges.. trumped up charges.. says not just
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International but Ive been looking through the
record, the Canadian government, the White House, the International
Commission of Jurists, all of them expressed grave and deep concern with the
way in which your judicial system treated Anwar Ibrahim.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Yes youre free to say so but...
*Stephen Sackur* : Im not saying it, Im just quoting to you all the people
who did say it.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: But what is the record of these countries? These
people, these same countries arrested people without the law, and detained
them in Guantanamo Bay and even in Britain here, you arrest people and
detain them without any sanction by law.
*Stephen Sackur* : So does that make it okay that you did it for 22 years?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: We did it under the laws of the country, but it is
not the way...
*Stephen Sackur* : You used the laws which went back to colonial times, the
internal security act, emergency procedures, you feel satisfied to tell me
that that was entirely legitimate?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: No we find that the situation in the country is very
very fluid and it is very likely that there will be racial riots, unless we
prevent precise people who are promoting racial hatred from talking about
it.
*Stephen Sackur* : Put it this way, Dr Mahathir, youve had several years
out of power now to consider your record and what you did, I wonder whether
you are now ready to say that you regret what you did to Anwar Ibrahim?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Why should I regret? He was arrested under the laws
of the country, he was tried in the courts of the country and he was
sentenced by the court. If he was not wrong, I dont think, no matter what
you think about our judiciary, I dont think he would have been sentenced to
prison.
*Stephen Sackur* : It damaged your reputation though didnt it?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Well thats something I have to accept.
*Stephen Sackur* : You may also find it comes back to haunt you? Anwar
Ibrahim is now leading the opposition coalition. We are led to believe that
there are certain MPs in the ruling party who may defect to him, in which
case he could very soon be running the government. And hes made it plain
that he wants to have you answer for all of the things you do while you were
in power.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Well hes welcome to do that if he becomes the Prime
Minister of Malaysia, but if he wins over members of the ruling party to his
side, it is the prime minister, the present leader who should be blamed,
because he couldnt even get the loyalty of his own members.
*Stephen Sackur* : It wasnt the current prime minister who was in power
when Anwar Ibrahim was savagely beaten during his time in detention?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Savagely beaten? I know he was slapped and he had a
black eye which was very useful for election purpose...
*Stephen Sackur* : Why you think he hit himself maybe?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Well I dont know what happened..but the police the
IGP admitted that he assaulted Anwar, but that wasnt me that was the IGP.
*Stephen Sackur* : But how do you respond, if Anwar comes to power and he as
he said on this programme and elsewhere, that he wants a full and thorough
public inquiry into all of your, Dr Mahathirs misdeeds, how will you
respond to that?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: He is welcome to do so, but I hope that he finds
people who are neutral, who are impartial, probably foreigners, because I
dont trust the people that they put after people they dont like.
*Stephen Sackur* : Interesting that you say you dont trust people who are
currently or maybe in charge of any inquiry, do you trust the integrity of
the Malaysian judiciary?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: I do, at times I do but...
*Stephen Sackur* : Is that because you appointed the judges?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: I didnt appoint the judges, the judges were
recommended by the Chief Justice and my duty is to check whether he has any
records or not and after that he is presented to the king who will then
appoint the judge...
*Stephen Sackur* : Dr Mahathir, you know as well as I do, that the hottest
political topic in Malaysia today, is the state of the judiciary, the
integrity of the judiciary and that a video has been playing in Malaysia for
a long time now which shows a top lawyer talking to a top judge going back
to 2001, in which the lawyer says to the judge believe me in the end all of
the positions going all the way to the supreme court are fixed by the
politicians, i.e. by you who were the prime minister at the time Dr
Mahathir?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Did he say that? Did he mention my name?
*Stephen Sackur* : He didnt mention your name he said this will be fixed,
this goes through the political system. You ran the political system.
*Mahathir Mohamad*: Im not so sure about that. But the fact is that this
man had his video taken because they intended to blackmail him. He happens
to be my lawyer, defending me at this moment for libel against Anwar and
this tape came from Anwar. Anwar had these things recorded in order to
blackmail the lawyer.
*Stephen Sackur* : But the point is the current government led by Prime
Minister Abdullah who is nominally or despite what you have said on this
programme, is of your party. Prime Minister Abdullah has now essentially
apologised, he said both to the supreme court justice that you removed and
to other judges that were suspended or removed during your time in power,
hes said sorry to them. Hes said that he wants to offer them monetary
compensation
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Fine but its a political move. Something a man who
is very unpopular at the moment, wanting to show that hes going to do
something right.
*Stephen Sackur*: And that Dr Mahathir is my point. The Malaysian people no
longer want to live with the system you created. Thats why Prime Minister
Abdullah is essentially dismantling the system that you created.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: No no no hes not dismantling the system, he is
making use of the system in a worse way. Nobody can say anything against
him, he has newspapers which only reports about him and how great he is. And
he was mislead by his own supporters, into believing that if he holds the
election now, this is one and half years before the end of the term, he
would win, he would have a clean sweep.
If you look at the records, he made statements that he would win the
election, with zero for the Opposition.
*Stephen Sackur*: The more I listen to you talking about Prime Minister
Abdullah, the more I wonder why did you choose him to be your successor?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Well these people are very smart in hiding their true
character. He was known as Mr Clean and I thought I would appoint a clean
person to succeed me. Although he was not the one with the highest votes in
my party. But I thought that he was older and I appointed him thinking that
hes not going to do anything very wrong. But this man gives priority to his
family rather than to the country.
*Stephen Sackur*: So it was a fundamental lack of judgement on your part?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Yes Ill admit that. But we all make mistakes. The
British people voted in people like Blair, who told lies, so did the
Americans. Lots of people make mistakes.
*Stephen Sackur*: We all make mistakes you say, was it also a mistake for
you to define yourself so clearly, as anti-western and anti-democratic, in
the sense that the West understands democracy?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: No thats the problem, I am not anti-Western, I am
against the bad things that were done by the Western countries.
*Stephen Sackur*: Youre not anti-western and yet in June 2003 before you
left office, you said anglo-Saxon Europeans are essentially proponents and
Im quoting here: proponents of war, sodomy and genocide.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Which is true, you must admit.
*Stephen Sackur*: But youre not anti-western?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Im stating the fact. This is their character and I
will continue to say so.
*Stephen Sackur*: So when you come here, you sit in the Hardtalk studio, in
the heart of London, you regard yourself do you, as in one of the
Headquarters of war, sodomy and genocide?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Well I come here of course expecting to be lambasted
by you, because that is the way you work.
*Stephen Sackur*: Well Im not lambasting you at all. Im trying to tease
out whether you believe it was a mistake for you to use this sort of
language. Because you clearly cut yourself off, from any sort of meaningful
dialogue with the West when you use these words.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Well the Europeans used to call us the lazy Malays,
incompetent Malays, untrustworthy Malays, we couldnt say a thing about you.
So when I was in a position to say what we think about you, and I did and
you dont like it. When you said it to us you expect us to like it. We
didnt like it, but we had no way of making our voices heard.
*Stephen Sackur*: I am just wondering how you feel about democracy. Of
course in the world since 9/11, the United States and the coalition of
partners led by the United Kingdom, have talked a lot about spreading
democracy, do you believe in democracy?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: If you look at the history of the west, they come up
with all kinds of ideologies, they use it for sometime and then they found
it defective and they dropped it and start on another. One day they are
going to forget about democracy because in some countries democracy actually
ended up with anarchy. And there were practically no governments. Its not a
system that can feed everybody. You must have a certain understanding of the
limitations of democracy, in order to make it work.
*Stephen Sackur*: Is that why you were not a democrat, why you in the end
did behave like a dictator?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Well that is something that the West would like to
say about me, I am a dictator.
*Stephen Sackur*: Well Im just quoting your own words from 2002. You said
its good governance people need, you said, feudal kings even dictators have
provided and can provide good governments.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Well thats very true, that is very true. The great
civilisations of the past did not have democracies. And yet they became
great. Its not necessary that the system will work for everybody. But if we
have a bad leader, even the democratic system will fail.
We must remember that it is a democratic country which dropped atomic bombs,
killing 200 thousand people.
*Stephen Sackur*: How do you think the Malaysian public will respond to you
saying, look you know what democracy isnt the best system and in fact
dictatorship can often work better.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: I went through five elections and I won all the
elections with a majority...
*Stephen Sackur*: Without a free press, locking up many of your opponents
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: There you go again about locking up many of my
opponents, who are they?
*Stephen Sackur*: I dont know how many times I have to tell you, that Ive
studied the human rights watch reports, the Amnesty International reports,
studies from the state department, from the Canadian government.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: These are biased reports, the first thing I did on
becoming the prime minister in 1981, was to release political prisoners who
were detained by my predecessors, 22 or them, including many members of the
Opposition.
*Stephen Sackur*: Under the 1984 Press law which required newspapers to get
a new licence every single year. It made it very easy for you to quieten
them down, didnt it?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: No it has always been there, the press law has been
there...I didnt do that...but the fact is that we have a multi-racial
country and if we are not careful, there will be racial flare-ups. And you
look at most of the countries with multi-racial population, they are never
peaceful, even Northern Ireland, it took you such a long to stop the war in
Northern Ireland.
*Stephen Sackur*: Talking of peace, you did worry about the stability of
your country, didnt you? Thats why you were very strong, very tough with
Islamist extremism inside Malaysia.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Yes it is necessary.
*Stephen Sackur*: Well I just wonder in that case then why just before you
left office, in October 2003, why did you tell the Islamic Summit Conference
that and Im quoting again a very famous speech, its a little bit long but
"1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews," you said.
"Were actually very strong. The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12
million but today Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight
and die for them." You went on to say: "But the Jews have become arrogant.
And arrogant people like angry people will make mistakes and there may be a
window of opportunity for us."
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Im stating facts, I am willing to say that again and
again that this is what has happened.
*Stephen Sackur*: Anti-Semitic and racist that was called by many
governments and people around the world.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Anti-Semitism is created by the Jews themselves. We
cannot say anything. In fact journalists have been arrested for saying
something against the holocaust and jailed for three years. Where is the
freedom of press?
*Stephen Sackur*: So those words I quoted in your view, are not
anti-Semitic?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: No they are not anti-Semitic? I am just quoting
facts. The fact is that the United States obeys what Israel wants it to do.
*Stephen Sackur*: You call them facts, lets leave that aside for the
moment. I am trying to understand your logic. Here you are a man who says
that your own country is potentially destabilised by Islamic extremism and
then you go out in an Islamic Conference and you use words which could have
been used by Osama bin Laden.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Theres no contradiction, no contradiction at all. I
dont want Islamic terrorism any more than I want Jewish attacks against
Israel, or American bombs on Baghdad. It is not incompatible.
*Stephen Sackur*: Do you feel confident that people still listen to your
message?
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: I wouldnt be able to say. Why should people worry
about me?
*Stephen Sackur*: In Malaysia people say, and Im talking about the Prime
Minister, the leader of the Opposition: its time for you to be quiet.
*Dr.Mahathir Mohamad*: Why should I be quiet? You mean to say when they are
doing something wrong, to my country and I should not say anything? I would
be irresponsible if I were to do that.
*Stephen Sackur*: Dr Mahathir Mohamad thank you very much for being on
Hardtalk.
*Dr. Mahathir Mohamad*: Youre welcome.
