(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
colourful male attire of silk, satin and thread of gold. Occidental coats and ties are
discarded and something of the atmosphere of a true Malay country is recaptured.
In the same article, in what was to pre empt the meaning of globalization four decades thence
as manifested in ceremonial dresses, Dr. Mahathir notes that
the pereman with the tengkolok or headkerchief and the kris presents the perfect picture
of the habitual dress of well-to-do Malays in the days before Occidental dress swept the
East and destroyed its colour and glamour.
That was published on 28 November 1948. He was then 23 years old, having spent more
than a year in Singapore. Seeing what was happening in the British colony, he feared the
erasure of Malay identity by the West. Relocating from the fringes of empire to the
commercial centre of colonial Malaya, Mahathir encountered a completely different world in
Singapore. 16 In an interview with Wain on 20 March 2007, Dr. Mahathir told him that
Singapore opened his eyes to the possibilities of modernization and confirmed his worst fears
about the Malays being dispossessed of their own country. He recalled
They were so very far ahead of us – hugh urban community, very sophisticated and
very rich people – whereas I came from Alor Star, where the Malays in particular were
very poor. 17
Dr.Mahathir also wrote articles to a number of journals. One of which is Intisari, a journal
published by the Malaysian Sociological Institute. In the 1962 issue of the journal, he wrote
on “The Bases of National Unity.” This article later became chapter six in The Malay
dilemma (1970). The article was Dr. Mahathir’s survey of nation and nationhood. Here he
displays the meaning of loyalty towards and unity of a nation. Dr. Mahathir derives sources
on the concepts and processes of nation-building from Europe. Essentially, it was a short
course on European history, where he weaves through Imperial Rome, early city-states and
principalities through the unification of Italy by Garibaldi. He then moves on to the English
experiment in Cromwell, the French Revolution, the American The Thirteen Colonies and the
Swiss example of unity induced by external forces. For Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir argues, the
lessons of history were not available.
Obviously we have to look towards other multi-racial nations for guidance in this matter
and the United States and Australia offer the most clear-cut precedents. The choice of
English in these two countries is governed by the fact that the English-speaking settlers
were the first to establish effective and internationally recognised governments. In both
countries there were aboriginal people but these people had not been able to delineate
their country, to govern and to be internationally recognised.
16 John Funston (1998) “Political Careers of Mahathir Mohamad and Anwar Ibrahim: Parallel, Intersecting and
Conflicting Lives”, IKMAS Working Papers , Institute of Malaysian and International Studies, Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia, no. 15, July: i-­‐iv, 1-­‐32,. Cited in Wain, p. 11.
17 Interview with Barry Wain, 20 March 2007, in Wain, ibid.
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