YOURSAY | ’Politicians like Mahathir never learn when to keep quiet’.

COMMENT | Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's most narcissistic of all?

Justmyview: Politicians like Mahathir never learn when to keep quiet. Some analysts should make a quick survey to find out how many people really care what he says nowadays. In any case, the voters in Langkawi had sent a strong message in the latest general election to tell the world just where he stands in the country’s politics.

I AM A MALAYSIAN: This is arguably RK Anand's best-written analytical article, on Mahathir. Mahathir (and his family who somehow has not or cannot rein in this proverbial bull in the china shop) must wake up and realise by now that that's how thinking people perceive him to be - the recalcitrant, ignominious discarded politician who refuses to close his toxic mouth.

MS: When David Letterman decided to call it a day several years ago, his producers of “Late Night With David Letterman” ran a tongue-in-cheek promo which had a lineup of political and stage luminaries mouth the line," our long, national nightmare is over". This brings me neatly to the deluded and deposit-losing former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, rejected by his people and yet unable to leave the limelight to the one who has risen from the political wilderness into which he was cast.

Mahathir's delusions, like those of his coterie of cronies and backers, are many, chief amongst which is "respected elder statesman". He is not, just like he was not a visionary (a title he was awarded by sycophants) after his Vision 2020. Well, we know what happened that year - the disastrous politics of treachery, the lies and the mismanagement which followed and the fragile economic state of the country ... even before Covid-19 slipped in undetected.

The problem is that none of his political adversaries has found it in themselves to tell him like it is - his pivotal role in reducing the country to what it is today, the series of missteps and misadventures with public funds wasted on prestige projects and his policies which actively promoted social division while bankrupting the universities of its accumulated intellectual wealth.

The legendary Mahsuri's Curse upon Langkawi, I now believe, included the malignant presence of Mahathir on the island. With his humiliating removal and the simultaneous assent of his nemesis, I believe the curse is now finally broken. If common sense and right thinking finally characterise governance in this much-abused land, there may be a sliver of light and hope at the end of 2022.

Cogito Ergo Sum: Beautifully put. I like the opening, middle and ending, but I loathe the subject. Mahathir’s fairytale story, if it can be called such. In reality, it is the nation’s nightmare come true. By promoting his cronies to become billionaires, he created a small group of pseudo-rich who lacked the culture or the temperament of the old rich who built empires and this nation on hard work and shrewd business acumen.

This new small but powerful retune had the arrogance to even believe they achieved success because of their abilities, hitherto unrecognised because of prejudice and unfair discrimination. The truth could not be further. This template was used in the civil service where compliant and obsequious individuals were pushed above their pay grades and intellect.

Just like their counterparts in the private sector, truly believed they deserved their promotions. And today we are paying the price of one man’s stupidity and hypocrisy which led to the dumbing down of everything, including education and service to the people. It will take four generations at least to undo and reverse the damage and belief system he has inculcated.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s fairy tale had just begun. The dragon has been slain. But there are many more dangerous dwarfs in the shadows. I hope he gets to destroy them all in the five years he’s got. Only then maybe, we can live “happily ever after”.

In Our Time: We are just normal citizens trying to grapple in our minds and hearts with the utter waste of a long life laden with prestige and potential. How could one become a non-stateman who single-handedly destroyed the foundations of rich multicultural Malaysia?

A trained medical doctor who could have built on the strengths of the still healthy nation then. But no, he poisoned the waters - cronyism, kickbacks, “ketuanan”, greed. We now have a flooded, cut-up and almost ungovernable cowboy land.

We are not crying for the wild boy who broke all his toys, we are crying for ourselves.

MatK: Poor man has been pilloried, tarred and feathered for some time now. Let him be. Leave him to remain to sulk away at his past failures and present misfortune. Whatever name recognition is left for his future generation, just remember that for more than three decades he was the acclaimed pre-eminent leader for his community and the nation.

Anand SP: Waste of energy trying to spew more venom on this man who single-handedly destroyed the fabric of a once beautiful and budding country. May he realise his follies and maybe just maybe apologise to every Malaysian.

Jagara: So you folks have gleefully written off the old man, thinking he is finished. This old fox will confound you yet by living to 120 and coming back with a vengeance.

Ha ha! Just joking. Methinks he is finished too.

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