Letter to Dr Mahathir

A good article written by an Ipoh gal....must read

We know you want us to stay stupid, but it's time to let others clean up your mess

Sorry to disappoint you guys, MM is not Marilyn Monroe, America’s legendary sex symbol, the beautiful blonde that drove all men wild and crazy. Here, MM is the country’s fourth Prime Minister, the man we all loathed and wished he just fade away.


MM said Malaysians are not mature enough for debates. He said debates would only make the situation worse as Malaysians were too sentimental and emotional to appreciate arguments that were presented rationally.

“The Malaysian public is not yet that mature. This is not America. And even in America, the debates only expose how stupid the candidates are, that’s all,” he told reporters at the Perdana Leadership Foundation in Putrajaya recently.  We are mentally inadequate, says Dr M:  Guess, how come?

Not mature enough means not fully developed or lacking the wisdom usually associated with adults. In other words, Malaysians, by and large, are still mentally inadequate. For this, we really have him to blame and thank for, in the same breath.

In 1974, MM was made the country’s Education Minister. That was when the decline began. Bit by bit, this man started to dismantle the strong foundation of a very sound education system which we have inherited from the British who once colonized us. Step by step, he began to take away the core, the essence, the fundamental part of education; then molded it into a tool to serve his political needs.

First, the teaching of English is limited to one subject only and English Literatures were relegated to the trash bin. He then politicized subjects like History and Moral Studies. Without us realizing it, he closed our windows to the world. Instead of studying world history, we were forced to focus on local history and even then, we have to study distorted history, history not written by neutral historians but by those appointed by the Education Ministry to glorify the government.

It was a torture to read about the government coined slogan “Bersih, Cekap dan Amanah” in Moral studies when you can see corruptions being practiced so openly among civil servants of all levels.

Dr M Wants Us to be Stupid
Not satisfied with this, he also enforced greater government control over Malaysian universities, despite very strong opposition from the academic community. MM also moved to limit politics on university campuses, giving his ministry the power to discipline students and academics who were politically active and making scholarship for students conditioned on the avoidance of politics.

All his plans were aimed towards one motive – to stifle the intellectual growth of the populace. When we are stupid and ignorant, he can rule mighty over us. He does not want us to be smart and intelligent. In this way he could hold the grip longer. He managed to lord over us for 22 years (1981 to 2003) as Prime Minister, with iron fists and all the public institutions as well as the media at his disposal. Many of his opponents were banished off or put away behind bars without a fair trial.

The Lost Generation and Now the 1Malaysia Logo Generation!

I call those of us Malaysians who went to local government-funded schools after 1974 as “The Lost Generation” and I am among the first batch of “The Lost Generation.” I was only ten years old and in Standard Four when he became the Education Minister. His policies affected the quality of education that I received.  It was not the all-round education which my much older siblings and those from their era received.

What I had was a half-baked education. It was something that was neither here nor there, something which I was not proud of at all, something which could be a lot better if only a politician was not the person to dictate what I should learn in school.

Even today, my children are still trapped in his policies. They were the second batch of “The Lost Generation.” The things they are studying now are many times worse off than my time. What good knowledge can they get when there was a big “1Malaysia” logo on each of their textbook?
How mature can they become when they are not allowed to think beyond their text books? How well-informed can they be when their History book said it was UMNO that got us our independence and we ought to be grateful to them? How smarter can they grow when they are fed daily with poisons like “Rakyat Didahulukan, Pencapaian Diutamakan?”

Hold Your Tongue and Let Others Clean Up Your Mess

I believed that as long as our education is being used as a political weapon by those in power, Malaysians will never get to grow maturely, not now, not in another 55 years. We need to separate politics from education as much as we need to separate politics from religions and ethnicities too.

What good will the Twin Towers, the Formula 1 in Sepang or the Kuala Lumpur International Airport does when our minds were shackled? Isn’t it ironic that the same man who gave us these “feel good” icons also took away the very basic human trait that we all have – mental development?

So, MM, can you blame Malaysians for not being mature enough? It all started with you, actually. What you should do now is simply hold back your vilest tongue and let others clean up the mess you have created!