Looking for Tun Razak and Tun Ismail's Clones

People become hypocrites when they write on someone who is already dead. Then, you can use the dead for any purposes that you desire. You exaggerate and embellish. And you can be excused for that.

The dead cannot answer and Malaysians in general hold deep respect for the departed. They are mostly inclined to remember the good parts and are forgiving about shortcomings. Certainly criticising them, is taboo. We are circumspect about making reference to the dead. Perhaps that’s part of our Malaysian psyche of deference for the dearly departed.

That is how I see the adulation given by a writer in The Malaysian Insider. He declares pompously:- WANTED A STATESMAN IN THE CLASS OF TUN RAZAK AND TUN DR ISMAIL.

Both died a long time ago. What’s left are perhaps our over generous interpretations of what they accomplished. Or think they had accomplished. He of course dismisses the existence of the greatest statesman that ever lived in Malaysia- Tun Dr Mahathir.

Indeed, it has become fashionable for all and sundry, to run down Tun Mahathir. Understandably that’s because the Tun is no longer the PM. Otherwise, these very same people will sing like canaries smothering the Tun with lavish praises.

I am not sure, when making the comparison, the writer is not behaving in the same manner as Malaysians treating the departed. We have no stomach defiling the dead and we rush quickly to speak only of good deeds. Hence, using the dead, we conveniently use them as yardstick by which to measure the worth of a political leader.

Not too long ago, wasn’t it Abdullah who said, that he was the ideological progeny of Tun Razak while Dato Najib was the biological progeny? That was said in one seminar on the Legacy of Tun Razak. Thus by that measurement, considering what Pak Lah failed to accomplish, then he is an abject failure?

So really, this piece by the Malaysian insider, needles not Tun Mahathir, but poor Pak Lah.