COMMENT I have said in the past that when we need to speak up and tell our prime minister some hard truths, we have to do so with respect.

It is true that there are some politicians for whom we have little or no respect, but this is Dr Mahathir Mohamad, our elder statesperson who is 94 years old, not a man of 30 or 40 whom we can whack as we please without any remorse if they go off track.

Unfortunately, of late Mahathir has been seriously vilified by Malaysians, including some of my fellow Sarawakians, rightly or wrongly. To many, the writing is clear on the wall. His time as prime minister is up.

In an online chat group, a friend recently challenged me after I called for decorum in the language used against Mahathir, asking what respect I still hold for the prime minister after all the misgivings against him, his dictatorial decisions and for allowing racial and religious taunts to prolong, in particular.

This did not come from a politician whom we could brush aside as an adversary, but an ordinary professional whom I know has zero political ambition...