“If Mahathir thinks that he has been defamed or maligned by Wain in the new biography, he should avail himself of the legal process to clear his name and reputation and not to support any ban or censorship of the book.” – YB Kit.

Why does Tun Dr Mahathir need any legal process to clear his name and reputation? Barry Wain did not allege that TDM was personally corrupt, did he?

If all the former AWSJ former editor did was to criticise TDM’s administration’s record and legacy – that it epitomises corruption at new heights causing the country to lose $100 billion to cronyism and nepotism – this is something that is no skin on TDM’s back. He can live with this book, and maybe even flattered that he is noteworthy enough to be written about by the former AWSJ editor.

For example: There was a time when the then Pemuda UMNO chief (Zahid Hamidi) (allied to Anwar) initiated an attack by criticising Mahathir’s economic policies as being laden with cronyism and nepotism. TDM’s counter attack was unabashed and brutally honest: he published a list of government contracts and their beneficiaries. He basically said that his cronyism and nepotism had helped 6 million “cronies” (meaning NEP’s beneficiaries) amongst whom included his accusers and critics. There was no visible support within UMNO then for TDM’s detractors. The attack fizzled out.

For TDM was a ‘successful’ politician by long tenure precisely because he was able to exploit the impulse and insecurities of his constitutency and buffer these insecurities and anxieties by the panacea of the NEP of which is the champion!

If the insecurities may be assuaged by the sight of grandiloquent infrastructure projects rigged with leakages – if these white elephant projects were beneficial only to a handful of crony captains to represent in symbolic terms the success and creation of wealth amongst the so called “haves not” – it was considered a necessary evil for which TDM should be praised than criticised. Thats the prevailing thinking then and even now….

There will therefore be no Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to prove that Wain is wrong.

This is because Wain is of course right but his being right has nothing to do with the fundamental issue of the political/feudal patronage system of cronyism and nepotism of which many have come to associate the implementation of NEP with, and which system is even today the fulcrum of the entire BN/UMNO set up and raison de etre.

To have an RCI on how or whether under TDM’s watch $100 billion had been wasted or burned up on grandiose projects and corruption is to question in same vein why after his watch another RM12.5 billion will be wasted by his successors on PKFZ.

The call for RCI is a good try but it won’t work because what you are basically calling for is a RCI on the whole political feudal system of patronage facilitated by the NEP that (warts and all) is handed down as part of TDM’s political legacy and embraced even now as sancrosanct and fundamental to the very existence of the ruling party and beneficial to its constitutency.

TDM then is likelier opposed to any ban or censorship of Wain’s book though those in power themselves may have misgivings that the book will expose their modus operandi!

As to the part of being labelled “Maverick”, I am sure he revels in it.

Fame or infamy – no matter. What is important is to be noted. Why else he said that he would shoot the Vietnamese boat people, or attack Jews as Zionists, quarrel with several leaders one of whom (Keating) called him recalcitrant? To be maverick and controversial is infinitely preferred top being an unknown nobody that attracts no news and attention.