Mahathir's Memoirs: Finally Finished....

It took pakdokter exactly two weeks to finish this 800 or so pages of a book. Considering pakdokter read only about an hour or so a day in the morning and 10 minutes each way on the train on the way to and from work, it was quite a feat. Credit must go to Mahathir - it was interesting and easy reading. Notable points in the remaining chapters were Mahathir's relationship with Rafidah Aziz. Although he had a lot of respect for Rafidah's hard work and able trade negotiations, he did not agree to Rafidah ratifying the Asean trade tariff agreement which put Proton at a disadvantage. Proton had 90% local content whereas the other models assembled in Thailand and Indonesia could get free market access with just a 40% local content. As such it was difficult for Proton to competitively penetrate Asean markets against these global manufacturers. Mahathir also disagreed with Rafidah's management of the AP's for cars. And another major disagreement was on the setting up of Puteri UMNO which Mahathir supported when he saw that Wanita Umno was not as aggressive anymore during election/bye-election campaigns and Wanita Umno appeared to have not attracted the younger and more qualified Malay women into the party.

The difficulties in dealing with Singapore was given a full chapter - and kiasu Singaporeans had never had it so difficult in dealing with Malaysia until Mahathir retired. Mahathir was harsh in his criticisms of Pak Lah over his handling of matters with Singapore - and pakdokter hopes pakNajib will now be able to get a better deal with Singapore than his predecessor.

On education - Mahathir asserted that he would have wished that at least Maths and Science were to be taught in English. These are fast developing subjects that it would be impossible to get enough translators to keep our students in pace with its development. He did not mind the Arts subjects being taught in Malay as to him these are subjects that do not change much over time. However, he failed to get the Malay language 'nationalists' to agree with him and they insisted that all subjects should be taught in Malay.

Mahathir's speech at the OIC Conference was also dealt with in another chapter. This topic was also discussed by Tom Plate - in his book " Dr M : Operation Malaysia".

Now that Mahathir has published his 'Memoirs' and made some not so nice comments about some of the leaders during his era - how pakdokter wished that Rafidah Aziz, Tengku Razaleigh, Daim Zainuddin and maybe even Pak Lah could write their memoirs. Books like these would be great resources for students of political history of Malaysia.

For pakdokter, next book to be read is Lee Kuan Yew's "From 3rd World to 1st World" - a book which was bought way back in 2000 but somehow was left forgotten on the shelves.