A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (3 page)

The next results to be announced were those of the Vice-Presidents. I waited with bated breath over the number of votes Harun would get. There were seven candidates, of whom only Tun Ghafar was an incumbent. The other two, Tengku Razaleigh and Musa Hitam, were not contesting. They had gone for broke, contesting only the Deputy President’s post and nothing else. Other than Tun Ghafar and Harun, those standing included Tengku Tan Sri Ahmad Rithaudeen Tengku Ismail, Tun Ghazali Shafie, Tan Sri Senu Abdul Rahman, and Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim.
[13]
 As expected, Tun Ghafar came in first with 869 votes. Then Harun garnered 757 votes to come in second. Tengku Ahmad Rithaudeen came in third with 711 votes.
 

My worst fears were confirmed. The outcome posed two major problems for me as I began my stint as President of UMNO and Prime Minister. First, there was the possible split in the party between Tun Musa and Razaleigh’s supporters and, second, we now had a Vice-President in jail.

On 15 July Tun Hussein chaired his last Cabinet meeting. The following day he submitted his official resignation letter to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong,
[14]
 then Sultan Ahmad Shah of Pahang. At 11am the same morning, a short ceremony was held in the palace’s 
Dewan Istiadat
 or Ceremonial Hall. All the Ministers were present, together with the Inspector-General of Police, the Chief of the Armed Forces and the Attorney-General. Toh Puan Suhaila Mohd Noah, Tun Hussein’s wife, and my wife, Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali, were also there. At another table sat the Acting Lord President of the Supreme Court, Tan Sri Raja Azlan Shah, (who later became the Sultan of Perak
[15]
) and the Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Hashim Aman.
 

Tun Hussein walked in with me behind him. We were dressed in dark lounge suits and 
songkok
 as the ruling requiring Malay Ministers to wear black 
baju Melayu
 was not yet in force. Then His Majesty the Yang di-Pertuan Agong walked in and sat on the throne flanked by four aides-de-camp drawn from the Police and the Armed Forces. Upon the invitation of the Court Chamberlain I walked up to the Agong, who handed me the official document for oath-taking. After reciting the oaths, one being the oath of office and the other to guard official secrets, I signed them and they were countersigned by the Acting Lord President.

Inscribing those signatures represented a sharp demarcation between my old life and my new one. During my tenure, I would often wonder how an ordinary person like me had risen to this office. Looking back, it was a most unlikely path for a medical doctor, let alone a commoner. Yet I became the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia.

ENDNOTES

[
1
] A state in the northwestern region of Peninsular Malaysia.
 

[
2
] A state in the East Coast region of Peninsular Malaysia.
 

[
3
] A state in the southern region of Peninsular Malaysia.
 

[
4
] He was also held in detention under the Internal Security Act for several years; see his autobiographical memoir, Special Guest, Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur.
 

[
5
] A state in the central region of Peninsular Malaysia.
 

[
6
] Harun, the Chief Minister of Selangor from 1964-1976, was convicted in 1976 on corruption charges relating to the 1975 Muhammad Ali-Joe Bugner boxing match in Kuala Lumpur.
 

[
7
] The NEP was designed to narrow the socioeconomic gap between the Malays and other indigenous peoples, and the Chinese and Indian minority groups.
 

[
8
] Roughly translated as “son of the soil”, this term refers to Malays and other indigenous groups of Malaysia.
 

[
9
] The United Chinese School Teachers Association of Malaya.
 

[
10
] The Barisan Nasional, or National Front, is the coalition of political parties that has headed the Government since Independence.
 

[
11
] Tun Musa Hitam served as Deputy Prime Minister from 1981-1986.
 

[
12
] The Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC), which houses UMNO’s headquarters, was officially opened on 2 September 1985.
 

[
13
] Tun Ghafar Baba was the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1986-1993; Tengku Ahmad Rithauddeen Tengku Ismail’s last Cabinet position was as Defence Minister until 1990; Tun Ghazali Shafie’s last Cabinet position was as Foreign Affairs Minister until 1984; Tan Sri Senu Abdul Rahman was Information and Broadcasting Minister in the Tunku’s Cabinet; and Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim is the current Information, Communication and Culture Minister.
 

[
14
] The King and elected head of Malaysia’s constitutional monarchy.
 

[
15
] A state in the northwestern region of Peninsular Malaysia.

My father, Mohamad bin Iskandar, was a man of unusual character when it came to education. He ran to school and not away from it, and he hid his attendance from his parents. It was this peculiarity that ultimately taught me to revere learning and knowledge.

In the days of his youth, Malay parents were against sending their children to English schools because most of them were run by Christian brothers, or missionaries. They taught Christian scriptures in convents and other missionary schools, and many Malay students had to study it as one of the subjects for examination. Malays, who were Muslim, feared their children would be converted to Christianity if they went to these schools, though there is no record of anyone converting. Naturally, my father did not tell his parents when he decided to attend classes at a Christian school in the British colony of Penang.
[1]
 He was bent on getting an education because he believed it would improve his employment prospects, and that his faith in Islam was strong enough to resist proselytising.
 

After passing Standard Four, he was accepted by the Penang government as a trainee teacher. He underwent “normal class” training, a kind of on-the-job training for teachers. In 1908 the Kedah government invited him to start an English school in the capital town of Alor Star for the children of the royal household and the elite in Government service. Among his students was Tunku Abdul Rahman, who would later become the first Prime Minister of independent Malaya and Malaysia. My father was a strict disciplinarian and was not much liked by his students, including the future first Prime Minister. This was probably because the Sultan had given my father permission to punish students for not studying, even if they were from royal families. He had no hesitation about doing this, sometimes even resorting to the use of a thin rattan cane.

He was equally strict at home. Because he demanded that we study hard, our relatives sent their children to stay with us so they too would be infused with the same values. Among them was the late Tun Syed Ahmad Syed Mahmud Shahabuddin who was the fourth
Menteri Besar
of Kedah from 1967 to 1978, among other things, served as Governor of Malacca from 1984 to 2004. We children lived in awe of my father, even though he never laid a hand on us. He didn’t have to—the sound of his cough when he came home was enough to send us scurrying back to our books and homework. We all studied together at the big table in the front room, stopping only for dinner.

My father was later transferred from Kedah to Pahang and then Johor to teach in the English schools there. The journeys were often strenuous and took many days. He had to go by steamship, taking my mother and his children with him. One of my sisters, Habsah, was born in Pahang, and my brother Mahadi was born in Johor where my father taught in a school which later became the famed Johor English College. Eventually he got tired of being transferred and of living so far away from home. He resigned from the teaching service after nearly eight years. Being good at mathematics, he then joined the Kedah Audit Department as Senior Auditor. He used to tutor my brother Mashahor, who was two years ahead of me in school, about HCF or highest common factors and LCM or lowest common multiples. These lessons took place at the big table where I was studying and I listened in keenly, becoming quite good at mental arithmetic as a result. My father retired when I was in Primary Two of the Government English School in Alor Star.

It was in the poorer quarters of this town that I was born, in an area called Seberang Perak. My real birthday is 10 July 1925, but my father registered all his male children as born in December. Since the Malayan school year began in January, this avoided any hassles to do with age when registering for entry. That is why my registered birth date is 20 December, making me slightly younger than my real age.

With its stinking earth drains and black scum floating on the water, our neighbourhood verged on being a slum. The area would get very muddy after it rained. During high tide the river water would flow into the drains and spill into the surrounding land, dumping mounds of waste when the tide receded. There was a positive side to this. During this season, my brothers and I would fish for 
ikan temekong
, a kind of small catfish. It was inedible, but we liked the fun.

A number of local characters frequently passed our house
—
the transvestite Che Din Ponen; a soya bean cake and bean sprout seller; Encik Sutan Adam, a well-to-do neighbour; and a woman cakeseller who regularly carried four baskets of varied Malay 
cucur
 or cakes on her arms. On some nights, Pa’ Awang Ladeh, known as such because he sold 
ladeh
, or curdled milk, would pass by. His son Abdul Rahman Awang later studied dentistry and was in the 1947 batch of medical students with me. After graduating, he joined government service and rose to become Director of the Department of Dentistry in Malaysia. His story proves that anyone can do well in this country if he tries hard enough.

There was also the Indian watercarrier, who was a little eccentric. He had a habit of suddenly putting down his four-gallon tins and dancing noisily. For some reason, he had all kinds of coins attached to his shirt and they would make a jangly “kerching-kerching” sound as he danced and shouted, “Aiyem yuyeh, uhuk-uhuk!” which was quite meaningless. To this day, whenever I wear my state uniform and medals I am tickled by the memory of this man with his many coins. I think I look like him.

My father was a Penang Malay. Almost all Malays of the island of Penang have some Indian blood. Migration from India was highest when Penang became a British colony, and since only the men came, they usually married Malay women. Their children were called Jawi Peranakan, literally “Javanese-born”, probably because people in those days were unable to distinguish the Malays from the Javanese. To this day, the Arabs call Malays the Jawi people. That the Arabic script used in Malaysia is also called Jawi is a coincidence. Culturally and linguistically, the Penang Malays are Malays. My father could not speak any of the languages of India and knew none of his forebears or relatives there. The connection was completely broken.

My mother, Wan Tempawan, was a Kedah Malay. The pre-fix “Wan” indicates that she was from the ranks of Kedah Malays who usually served the royal households or were in government service. Since my father’s own relatives were all in Penang and so did not know the Malay families of Kedah, my parents’ marriage was an arranged one, with a few senior Malay civil servants acting as go-betweens. My mother was very well-bred and understood the 
adat
, or traditions and codes, of Malay etiquette. Accordingly, she brought us up to behave and carry ourselves as good, well-bred Malays.

My father gave all his children the education they needed to make their way in life. But I have always felt that, of my brothers, I was the luckiest because my father gave me the highest level of education. That is why I was better off than all my siblings.

While my father stressed general education, my mother insisted that her children learn the teachings of Islam early in life. She was good at reading the Quran and she taught us herself. My eldest sister, Rafeah, whose nickname was Putih,
[2]
 was known for her good voice when reciting the Quran. At the Malay school we were taught basic elements of the religion, and we memorised selected verses of the Quran without being given any explanation of their meaning. Later we had a tutor from an Arabic school, Encik Zakaria Mohamad Noor, who taught us to memorise more verses and gave us the translations in Malay. Even now, I can recite these verses from memory. Between my father’s emphasis on education and my mother’s insistence on knowing my religion, I became enthusiastic about acquiring knowledge and reading all kinds of books.
 

I was closer to my mother than to my father and as a result, she shaped my personality more. She taught me the values that I have upheld throughout my life, especially to be modest and not boastful about what I have done. When I did speak about myself—perhaps in a bragging tone—she downplayed my achievements. She believed that I should always give way in any dispute or quarrel. I used to find this very hard to do because I usually believed I was right. But as far as my memory stretches, she never took my side in a dispute.

She also taught me very clearly that if I wanted something, I had to work for it. When I wanted to buy a pen, she told me to carry buckets of water for her jasmine plants for one sen a day to earn the money. From her, I learnt that this was the honourable way. So when my pocket money was reduced from four sen to two sen after my father retired, I did not complain. Instead, I tried to earn extra money by selling balloons to my friends. I would buy three balloons for two sen from a shop near my house, usually on Fridays when I had time, and then sell them for one sen each. You could buy a lot with a one-sen profit at that time, like a full plate of rice with curry. But I did not always get to spend it on myself. Sometimes the class bully, who lived near where I did, would take me to the tuckshop and force me to spend the money on him. If I refused, he would punch me and I certainly did not want to get into a scuffle with him. He was one of the tough guys and his father was an ex-police officer. I also made some money by doing more chores at home. My mother kept chickens and ducks under the house, and I helped her to feed them and get them into the coop in the evenings. I also chopped 
bakau
 logs, a mangrove wood, for the cooking fire. For doing these chores I would get one sen as 
upah
 or wages.