*sigh*
It's a moments like these that remind me that we sometimes deserve the "news" we get. We laugh and make fun of comments without trying to understand the background and context behind them. Tun Dr Mahathir's comments — bizarre and definitely incendiary though they are — had been quoted out of context in the blog post highlighted above. I'd already posted about Dr M's speech five days ago in the News thread here:
9/11 was staged, Mahathir says
The above, in my opinion, adds a very different nuance to what Dr M probably meant to say through his
entire speech, full versions of which have not been published online, as far as I can tell.
The man may be highly controversial, and I don't personally like his politics, but he is also nothing if not an extremely canny politician. Dr M has long been known for his vehement anti-Zionist views, but he is also the one man who had been most responsible for keeping a firm lid on racial and religious tensions in Malaysia throughout his 22 years as the country's prime minister — a fragile state of affairs that appears to be falling apart in Malaysia because of the recent arson attacks on churches, a Sikh temple and two mosques this month.
In other words, while his 9/11 comments are totally outlandish and completely out of line, they are very much in keeping with Dr M's populist tactics. He meant those words for a domestic audience, and he doesn't really care much what the rest of the world thinks.
And, when it comes to Malaysian politics, Malay identity and the Malaysian approach to Islam, I'd say that Dr M is a far more complex man than his words make him out to be. He was a strongman that Malaysia may be nostalgic for at this time, given its
tense political environment over the past two years.
Laugh and ridicule him if you want. But bear in mind that you're playing into his hand by doing so. And bear further in mind that, despite his bluster, Dr M is paradoxically more moderate on religious issues than many of his political successors.
Mass media rightly gets criticised all the time for the way it projects news, but bear in mind that it's the way we read and interpret the news that is really to be blamed, rather than the platform that delivers the message.