In the year 1970, the publisher Donald Moore took a controversial step by publishing a book for Asia Pacific Press based in Singapore. The book was entitled "The Malay Dilemma" and its author was a prominent Umno politician named Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

From the outset, the publishers knew that they were courting controversy by deciding to publish this book. Mahathir had previously been labelled as one of the Umno "ultras" for his unequivocal stand on the issue of Malay rights and privileges, and as such had developed an image as a stringent Malay nationalist.

The book was bound to cause an uproar among certain quarters of the Malaysian (and Singaporean) population, so the publishers were careful to state their own reservations in their preface to the book. They noted that the ideas contained in the text were the thoughts of a "sincere and educated" Malay thinker who was willing to have his opinions put on record for posterity. They believed that the public should give the man the chance to speak and to have his views discussed openly in public.

Posterity may well judge the man differently, but for anyone who reads "The Malay Dilemma" in the light of present developments in the country, there are bound to be eerie and ironic similarities between the situation that Mahathir was describing in the 70s with what is happening now.

In 1970, Mahathir argued that the political culture of the Malays had degenerated to such an extent that politics had simply become an end in itself. He believed that the conservative Malay elite in Umno had created a political culture where politics and government were no longer about serving the public good, but was concerned mainly with the accumulation of power, wealth and largesse, which in the end made the Malays even more corrupt and dependent. In his own words:

"Merdeka brought power and wealth to the new Malay elite. Politics was found to be the panacea. It provided the short-cut to everything... It made possible the attainment of positions of immense power. It brought about laws and policies that placed some Malays in a position to acquire great wealth, or at least a good livelihood without trying too hard... In other words, politics created for the Malays a soft environment which removed all challenge to their survival and progress" (pg 31).

Mahathir's view of how politics had been reduced to an end rather than a means explains his cynicism towards politics, the political process and politicians in general at the time. For him, the democratic political system that Umno presided over had been reduced to merely an elaborate ritual that politicians and leaders underwent and paid lip service to in order to secure material gain and power for themselves and their followers.

Once they had come to power, Mahathir argued that the leaders of Umno and the Barisan Alliance began to show the authoritarian streak in them. He wrote at length about the use and abuse of power and the cultivation of patronage networks under the Alliance leadership at the time:

"Power corrupts, and the near-absolute power that the Alliance (Barisan) obtained corrupted the thinking of the leaders almost absolutely. Umno, the mainstay of the Alliance, held more power and therefore has to accept the major share of the responsibility for the decay which gradually affected the Alliance government almost as soon as independence was achieved." (pg 8).

In particular Dr Mahathir condemned the accumulation of power at the centre which led to the over-empowerment of the executive and made the Prime Minister the most powerful figure in the land:

"Unfortunately, when the leaders of the party also became the highest and most authoritative officers of the government, the provisions of the party constitution appeared incompatible and almost irrelevant. The prestige and authority of these officials as members of the government outweighed those of party officials. The Prime Minister in particular became so powerful both by virtue of his office and by popular acclaim, that the party became subservient to his person.

And so, not only was the (Umno) General Assembly frequently put off, but even the (Umno) General Executive Council was not called upon to discuss government policy or even party policy. The party was held together not because the members had generally identical ideas on

politics, but through a system of patronage and disguised coercion based on government rather than party authority" (pg 9).

So great was the Prime Minister's power and personal dominance over the government and his subordinates that he ultimately assumed the stature and manners of a feudal lord who bestowed offices and status of rank as a reward to those who were loyal to him:

"Independent Malaya chose to treat membership to the cabinet as reward for loyalty to party chiefs and acceptability to the Prime Minister. Once appointed, no amount of dereliction of duty could affect the position of a Minister. On the other hand, even if a minister performed well, failure to remain on good terms with the Prime Minister meant removal from the Ministry" (pg 12).

The government, under the rule of Umno, also abused the offices of state and the resources of the government in order to perpetuate and reproduce itself at every election:

"All the while the government was busy on devices to perpetuate itself. These devices were so transparent and so lacking in subtlety that they achieved just the opposite effect. Everyone except the government saw this... Thus long after the rural development schemes had lost their impact, the government still carried on building mosques and community halls, not because these facilities were thought necessary, but in the mistaken belief that it would favourably influence the voting at the next election. As was to be expected, as the elections approached, the grants for these rural development schemes increased. Until just before and during the elections, the Ministers were kept busy handing out cheques" (pg 12-13).

The net result of this complex process of corruption and abuse of power was the creation of a political and governmental elite that became more and more estranged and isolated from the masses in general. It was this that led to the unpopularity of Umno in 1969-1970, and it was this that made the Prime Minister then, Tunku Abdul Rahman, so unpopular with the ordinary Malays.

It can be said that during the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was no critic of Umno as vociferous and vocal as Mahathir. His attack on the leadership of Umno, the political culture engendered by Umno, and the political condition of the Malays as a result of Umno politics, was comprehensive and total. He was the first to successfully discredit the leadership of the party, the ideological trend it had taken and the foundations upon which its power rested.

Yet when we look back at the developments in the country from 1970 to the present, we need to ask ourselves: Has anything really changed? Has Mahathir really been able to break away from the corrupt, decadent and ineffective mode of leadership that he once so violently attacked?

To answer such questions would be difficult at this juncture. There are many who believe that Mahathir's political career is far from over. I, for one, would argue that so great has been his impact on the development of Malay political culture that his presence and influence would be felt for several more generations at least. (The young who are in their 20s today are, for want of a better phrase, the children of the Mahathir era; we still cannot predict the shape of the world that they will build for the future.)

But if we were to look at the personality and beliefs held by the man himself, we may begin to understand why Mahathir has not been able to dismantle the structures of feudal power and dominance in the country. For one thing is patently clear in Mahathir's "Malay Dilemma": the "ultra" who articulated his bitter polemic against the leadership of Tunku was not himself a radical who envisaged a radically new political order shaped by a completely different value and belief system.

For at the heart of Mahathir's ideology in 1970 was the enduring belief in the values and practices of feudalism and neo-feudal political culture. This becomes clear when we see how he defends the values and practices of feudalism itself. As he puts it:

"In itself the feudalist inclination of the Malays is not damaging. It makes for an orderly and law-abiding society. People who could follow and observe an unwritten code of behaviour are easily made to observe the written laws of a country. People who accept that a society must have people of varying degrees of authority and rights easily make a stable society and nation. A revolution in such a society is unusual unless led from above. A feudal society is therefore not necessarily a dormant or retrogressive society. It can be a dynamic society if there is dynamism at the top. But when the top fails, or is preoccupied with its own well-being, the masses become devoid of incentive for progress" (pg. 170-171).

"Even feudalism can be beneficial if it facilitates changes... The political Rajas of today can therefore institute change if they themselves are willing to change. Such a change would spread rapidly. If the indications are that there should be change in the value system and ethical code, then the leaders can lead the way with the certainty that they will be followed by the masses. In a feudal society, if the leaders fail, there is little hope for the masses" (pg. 173).

Mahathir's defence of traditional Malay feudalism shows that he was never really a radical. He never sought to change the political culture of the Malays or to radically alter the political terrain of the country. Rather he merely wanted to replace the old elite with the new "political rajas" (to quote his own phrase) who are made up of businessmen and intimates. His belief in the positive aspect of feudalism is based on his own authoritarian view that societies should be led rather than self-governing, and that leadership must come from the top which is made up of a select elite.

The masses are simply meant to follow obediently without question. This has been a fundamental feature of all UMNO leaders, conservatives and "ultras" alike, for the simple reason that the party itself is a conservative nationalist party which draws its inspiration from the reservoir of neo-feudal values and practices.

The irony, of course, is that having failed to critically address and remedy the weaknesses and inherent contradictions of neo-feudal politics in the 1970s, Mahathir could not give an adequate account to explain why the whole Umno system came so close to collapse between 1969 to 1970. Then, as now, the leadership of the party had become so blind to what was happening outside that it could no longer hear the appeals and protests of the general public who were fed up with being patronised and dictated to by their leaders who insisted on ruling and leading them "from above".

What might happen to the present political system in the country is an open question that can only be answered with the benefit of hindsight. The past offers us some clues as to what might happen, based on what has happened before. We end on an ominous note that was struck much earlier by Mahathir himself, who realised, as early as in 1970, that Umno could not maintain its iron grip on power indefinitely without the masses responding critically:

"When it came to power, Umno had more strength than it needed. The repeated disregard for intra-party criticism did not seriously impair its strength at first. But nevertheless the continuous whittling away of its mass support steadily told on its ability to garner sufficient support during elections" (pg. 10).

"The government, glorifying in its massive strength, became contemptuous of criticisms directed at it either from the opposition or its own supporters. The gulf between the government and the people widened so that the government was no longer able to feel the pulse of the people or interpret it correctly. It was therefore unable to appreciate the radical change in the thinking of the people..." (pg. 15).

The lines above could have been written in 1970 or 1999. They were relevant then, as they are today. It is for this reason that "The Malay Dilemma" is such an important and valuable work for us at present. There are still many things that we can learn from Mahathir's book. It remains an important and relevant text for the simple reason that it sums up the contradictions and tensions that persist in a neo-feudal political system that is aware of its shortcomings, but at the same time is not capable of reforming itself for good. Such change did not come in 1970. Whether it comes today remains to be seen.

Dr. FARISH A. NOOR is a political scientist and historian who has studied the development of Malay political culture and is currently working on the historical development of the Malaysian Islamic Party and other Islamist movements. He is also the secretary-general of the International Movement for a Just World. The views expressed here are entirely his own.