I’ve not seen so many ‘beg to differs’ in such a long time, and amongst politicians. The old guard begs ‘to differ’, though begging for anything, pardon included, seems far from the agenda. First Tengku Mahaleel screams bloody murder, then Mahathir screams treasonous betrayal, and now his political secretary’s screaming fantastic incompetence.
It still feels to me that being part of the old guard means having the luxury to err on the side of angels, though the NST does much to insinuate about Mahathir’s hypocrisy; for a man who ‘brooked no dissent’, such dissent is both amusing and sad. Amusing because you’d never expect it of the man. A colleague today passed a remark about how good Dr Mahathir was, and is. I remember him cursing Mahathir two years ago.
What a difference a year (or two) makes.
And it’s sad because all of this, all of the noise, sounds like the ineffectual flailings of a once-great man in his dotage. I think back to fictional characters striving to the bitter end against an impassive, brutal fate and what Mahathir’s been doing resonates. Not because I agree with him - and I do, actually - but because he flies against the inevitable: the edifice of a modern Malaysia he built will fall, change or crumble; his dreams and the dreams of his generation will be forgotten; and history will judge him.
That last, I think, no man can bear.
I cannot envision or imagine what it means to leave behind a legacy. I wonder, sometimes, if that question occupies him: how will I be remembered? It’s a weighty question, an uneasy question with no easy answers. I don’t think anyone has easy answers when questions progress to that point where they are, in the end, stripped of idealism, cynicism, even bitterness. I can only imagine that question asked simply, plaintively.
I wonder if Dr Mahathir sees no difference in his plight with that of a man imprisoned with no hope of release. I wonder if he now feels the helplessness of a life that has passed him by, now at the end of everything. I have a feeling of satisfaction when I imagine how he might feel, and then I remember that I too will share that fate one day.