JULY 10 — Love him, hate him — preferably the latter — but it is impossible to ignore our nation’s first Übermensch.

Malaysians alive are intimate with Mahathir Mohamad’s omnipresence, even if he mistakes it for omnipotence.

And he turns 100 today.

Wish him happy birthday, even Genghis Khan’s enemies did not begrudge him on his birthday, presumably.

To reach a century is wildly spectacular for him, considering the doctor already experienced cardiac problems in his 50s.

From dedicated smoker to health freak. A life of regimented rest, diet, exercise and medical supervision which likely make a collection of drill-instruction staff-sergeants weep in a circle.

It is not that he hits three digits, but that he is not frail, withdrawn or lost but in good physical form.

He is only three years younger than second prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein. The average eighty-year-old Malaysian uses a walker and stares into oblivion when left alone. Mahathir the elder drives a car and tweets sarcastically about the government’s FDI strategy.

So, on that count, he deserves a big hearty A. The role model for any Malaysian.

Yet, Malaysia is obese, tops the charts on hypertension, diabetes, kidney ailments and physically stunted adults.

So, it does ask whether he transmitted his discipline to the people, or merely bulldozed measures with various degrees of success, and failures.

Outcome obsessed, not a visionary

Mahathir often treated the symptoms rather than the disease. In that sense he was more politician than physician.

The country’s economic distortions post-independence, to him, needed a kick up the backside.

Most agreed and still agree. The Mahathir hue however was to champion Malay domination, rather than parity through policies. And it was all top-down, non-inclusive and rushed.

Get Malays wealthier, give them handouts but not deal with the cultural elements which distract nor construct values which promote diligence.

Sustainability was not on his agenda. It planted a false consciousness, which turned into an entrenched entitlement culture which he himself rued.

A class of businessmen who still expect rather than replicate, or better innovate.

But did the investment yield results? It did. But with bad efficacy, lousy bang for each buck. That is Malaysia today in a nutshell. Overspend only for low returns.

What allowed Mahathir to write cheques as he wished?

His 22 years in power also coincided with peak oil wealth.

While the Razak and Hussein Onn years shepherded Petronas’ incipient years having been formed only in 1974, and successors after saw Malaysia back to being a net oil importer, Mahathir had the bonanza years.

And he spent.

Would his successes dissipate and failures magnify if there was no oil money? If unsure, sit near the nearly abandoned Dayabumi Complex, an early Mahathir era gift, and ponder.

He did not realise, the country is not one patient but an ecosystem. Actions lead to reactions. The Ali-Baba culture was the ecosystem responding to the situation.

If wealth was handed over indiscriminately to a race, then the old order just adjusts itself. To accommodate but not hand over control. The result, a small new class of wealthy Malay, but broad resistance resulted in corruption at all levels to circumvent.

The Malay masses benefited from the overall up of the economy, but the economic chasms in many ways increased. They look more uplifted but feel bogged down by the new economy.

To be a poorly trained graduate of a sub-par institution indebted by student loans and unqualified for the modern jobs promised and moonlighting as store clerk unable to even access a crippling long-term car loan for a vehicle without a spot to park in the low-cost housing project he rents with six others. And no chance of parole.

That’s the Mahathir economic legacy. Own a car which destroys the paycheque and all the problems go away.

And naïvely expected a professional class of Malays to identify more with lower income groups, which they did not. Instead, Malaysia today is as ever divided by social classes.

Unlike Razak and Hussein, who in principle waged war on poverty, vintage Mahathir was waging war on other Malaysians.

The guns can still be heard.

Racist-relations

He’s a throwback leader who felt racism was a strength, maybe the energy of being born the year Mein Kampf debuted.

The chance was there to have a country. When he inherited the country in 1981, ethnic mistrust dominated but Malaysia had stabilised as a function since independence and the potential to integrate was high. The oil money was available.

Instead, he institutionalised race into the system. He preferred to embrace the clear and present danger of race. He went out of his way to celebrate it.

Every step of the way cementing divides among the people while committed to his I am Malay first ethos.

The result is he won a people but they lost their country.

The Mahathir years will be seen as an opportunity lost. What should have been the era an adolescent Malaysia matured, fractured to schools, workplaces and playing fields upholding communalism as a priority.

Mahathir made sure we did not mean Malaysians, and better did not mean for all.

Our neighbours had uglier pasts in the 70s and 80s over race relations and our politicians used to point out that Malaysia was better for minorities since they kept their names and languages, even if battered daily as not actually being from here.

They changed but Malaysia did not. Today, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia present greater inclusivity, but here in Bolehland Mahathir’s obsessive compulsive disorder with race fills our conversations and attitudes.

Mahathir the political alpha

The doctor was 21 when Umno was formed in the aftermath of the Malayan Union. Already by 1964 he was Umno Kedah chairman, 60 years ago.

Perennially a divisive figure, even inside the race-exclusive party, he does not hesitate to stand his ground and somehow get his way.

At the dawn of the 1970s, the first prime minister sacks him from Umno, and he returns to the party in record time. Deaths and miscalculations by others fast-tracked him to run the party and country.

He edged out his first deputy, arrested scores of political opponents, brought out a new Umno when the old one was ruled illegal, and returned to correct the courts which upset him by sacking the judiciary’s chief officer. And that’s just the 1980s.

After a golden economic period in the 1990s which transformed him into a larger-than-life personality, he was ready when the Asian Financial Crisis arrived to end him like it did Indonesian dictator Suharto.

Except it did not. Instead, he sacked and imprisoned his deputy prime minister, adopted an economic plan opposed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and came out again as winner.

Granted that draconian laws and concentrations of power greatly aided him, but he had to muster the physical and mental acuity not to be exhausted from his candle being burnt from ends even unknown.

Gritting my teeth, I cannot fathom another Malaysian from his generation — or even after — coping with the extremities of the challenges.

It was a formidable political journey when he left office in 2003.

Yet, and this is moving into the deep blue sea zone, he resurfaces for Act II.

Incensed by developments, he starts a new party and joins forces with former foes to beat the system he helped build, when Pakatan Harapan ousts Barisan Nasional in 2018.

To return as prime minister at the eager age of 92.

There are huge misgivings about his second administration, but the strength of his new avatar was the ability to lead Malaysia to cross the Rubicon. It will never be the same again, regardless of whether it ends up farther or closer to Mahathir’s leanings.

It is written in the stars

So, the superman’s place is sealed. It is not that Mahathir will be liked or loathed. But that for many decades from now Malaysians will continue to feverishly talk about how to explain and rate Mahathir.

Therefore, as long as there is Malaysia — in his image or not — the discussions about his merits will never be odd or unnecessary.

The chapter to understand and reason Malaysia will have enough lines attributed to the determined and single-minded doctor.

Surely that is enough for all of us to spare a thought for the man on his day.