Travelling with Mahathir

Dr Mahathir Mohamad

I DON'T believe that anyone would be able to describe former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad better than he could himself.
 In the decade or so that I covered him as a journalist, most of the time on his working visits overseas, I never tried to fathom the man any deeper than what I saw with my own eyes. The truth, I believe, is that Mahathir never revealed much of himself to the public and most only knew him as Malaysia's longest-serving prime minister.
 But I tend to think that Mahathir was more relaxed when he was outside of the country, where often we, journalists fortunate enough to accompany him, at times saw his sides other than the firm and stern commander of the Malaysian cabinet.
 Mahathir struck me as a very intelligent man, as someone who does not waste even a minute of his time and a man on a mission. But most of all, I viewed Mahathir then as someone who has a single-minded approach in everything that he does. In his vocabulary, the word 'defeat' does not exist.

 I had a feeling then that as a medical doctor, he hated whatever was in fine prints. To him, if a diagnosis  indicate a limb is the primary source of a problem, he will not hesitate to amputate.
 He made the point very clear in a speech he delivered at his alma-matter, the King Edward Medical College in Singapore once when he was invited to talk on a topic that 'Doctors make better leaders'. I was among hundreds of doctors and medical students in that standing-only audience who applauded almost every sentence that came out from Mahathir's mouth.
 When he mentioned that doctors were more direct in their approach towards solving problems, unlike lawyers and accountants whom he said tend to beat around the bush, I could sense that his Singapore counterpart, Goh Chock Tong, who was also on stage, felt so out of place.
 After his speech, when Mahathir took time to mingle with the audience, he was swarmed by people who wanted to shake hands with the man. I could hear whispers among the doctors and aspiring medical practitioners in the hall that they too would want to become prime ministers one day.
 I think Mahathir was also someone who constantly has the desire to learn new things. He was not shy of asking, especially on matters he was not too well-versed in. At times when he visited plants and factories, especially those of high technology companies, he carried a small note book with him and took notes. He was genuinely interested.
 Once when he was shown around the Motorola plant in Schaumburg, Illinois, Mahathir spent a considerable amount of time asking and listening to a technician explaining to him workings of a police information system the company manufactures. Others in his entourage were standing in one corner, obviously disinterested.
 And Mahathir was at times funny. That's the other side of him I guess. Once on a visit to Japan, the automotive company, Isuzu lined up all its vehicles for him to test-drive on the proving ground.
 Knowing that he loved fast cars, all of us waited near a sleek Isuzu sports car waiting for him to test the machine.
 But not Mahathir. He walked to an Isuzu bus, climbed into the driver's seat and took the brute out for a spin around the test track and later reverse-parked the bus the way he found it. The Isuzu president remarked to me later that Mahathir was the only head of government he knew who could drive a bus.
 Mahathir hated cigarettes. He could not stand the smell of cigarette smoke. But he caught me smoking once in Tokyo. I did not expect him to pass by the small alley. But he did and I had no time to snuff out my cigarette. He said, "hang nak cepat mati hang pi duduk atas jalanraya nun,". I sheepishly excused myself and threw the cigarette away.

Mahathir addressing the UN

 And perhaps for reasons only he knew, Mahathir just loved going to Africa and to other God-forsaken countries. So it was during his time that I got to go to some of the places I never knew existed.
 I thought Macedonia was a town during Alexander The Great's time. But there I was, with him, in its capital Skopje one day in 1996. I covered him in Sarajevo too before that.
 Then there were other places like Malawi, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Estonia, Sudan, Uruguay, Argentina, Jamaica, Cuba, Senegal, Guinea and many others.
 Somehow Mahathir never liked going to western Europe and the US. I guess he feels that we owe the western world nothing. Mahathir finished his education in Singapore.
 He wasn't exactly fond of the United Nations either, as he feels the UN was being run by the US and nobody else.
 After that visit to Illinois, he later stopped by in New York during the UN General Assembly period. But the Assembly was not foremost in his itenerary. He was there especially to meet his good friend, Cuban President, Fidel Castro.
 The picture of them hugging made it into one of the pages in an influential New York newspaper. The headline was: "Mahathir snubs Kofi Annan". Annan was then the UN Secretary General. Mahathir did not even bother to meet him.


ENDS