Saya dan isteri saya mengucapkan Selamat Menyambut Hari Raya Aidilfitri kepada semua rakyat Malaysia khasnya, kepada pembaca blog ini.
Maaf Zahir Batin.
DR MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
DR SITI HASMAH BT HJ MOHD ALI
ELECTION IN AMERICA
1. I wonder whether people notice it or not, but Presidential candidates of the United States of America, the sole superpower, have all to seek approval from Israel.
2. Mitt Romney, Republican candidate for President has just made the pilgrimage. And he has made a public pledge that he will be even tougher against the Palestinians and Iran than Obama.
3. Soon I am sure Obama will make this pilgrimage and will make more promises to fight for Israel.
THE RACE FACTOR
1. Many have asked me why we cannot do without race-based politics in Malaysia.
2. The short answer is that we all want to remember and be recognised according to our racial origins, the countries of our ancestors came from, the languages we speak, the cultures we belong to.
3. We really don’t want to say we are just Malaysians and nothing else.
PEMBUNUHAN WANITA BERZINA
1. Akhbar melaporkan seorang wanita Afghan ditembak mati kerana didapati bersalah dengan kesalahan berzina.
2. Ia telah dibicara satu jam dan dihukum bunuh. Dengan serta merta ia dibawa keluar, duduk ditepi longkang dengan memberi belakang kepada pembunuhnya.
3. Pembunuh bersenjata senapang mesingan menembaknya berkali-kali dengan dilihat oleh ramai lelaki yang bertepuk sorak perlakuan pembunuhan itu.
4. Badan wanita itu terguling selepas ditembak. Semua kejadian ini dirakam dengan video, termasuk bacaan Quran sebelum tembakan kononnya berkenaan jenayah zina. Tidak disebut nasib lelaki yang berzina dengannya.
5. Saya hanya ingin menarik perhatian kepada peristiwa ini. Saya ingin dengar komen pelawat ke blog saya.
MALAYSIA AND THE WORLD
1. I seldom watch the TV but during my holidays, when I had nothing to do I was forced to watch BBC News.
2. The world is certainly going through terrible times. Greece is bankrupt and Spain, Portugal and Italy are doing badly in their finances. Britain is also going through a depressed economy with scandals plaguing their most respected banks.
3. Everywhere in Europe there are demonstrations by unemployed people. A lot of blame is directed at the capitalist system and the income gap between rich and poor. The latest trend is to “occupy” the main centers of capitalistic activities such as Wall Street in New York and HSBC bank in Hong Kong. This also happened in Australia.
ITALIAN HOLIDAY
1. I have been sailing along the coast of Italy the last few days, staying on the island of Ischia.
2. The Italian coast is rocky but is green with shrubs and dotted with picturesque villas reaching from the beaches right up to the peaks.
3. Invisible from the sea, sturdy narrow tarred roads not only connect all the little coastal and hilltop towns but also all the villas and hotels. The roads make sharp hairpin bends as they ascend the steep hillsides at times projecting out from the cliffs. Italian drivers are as good as F1 drivers, negotiating these bend skilfully, passing the vehicles, including busses coming from the opposite direction with barely any space between them. Throughout several days of being driven along these narrow, sharply curved roads and steep cliffs I did not see a single accident.
TIN CARTEL
1. I was surprised to be asked by a friendly Malaysian interviewer about Malaysia’s tin cartel operations. I thought I had already explained in my memoirs about the tin trading which we carried out soon after I became Prime Minister. I can understand the opposition describing what we did as a cartel. But apparently many Malaysians swallowed the accusations by the Western media that we had cornered the tin market.
2. I don’t know whether people understand what a cartel is. The dictionary defines cartel as an association of competing firms formed to fix price.
3. The Malaysian Government was never a member of any association with anyone to fix tin price. All we did was to appoint a Swiss firm Mark Rich to do the trading for us.
DIKTATOR
1. Gelaran, seperti label untuk barangan berjenama, sukar untuk dikikis. Berasas atau tidak, gelaran kekal sepanjang hayat. Oleh itu gelaran amat berguna dalam politik, terutama gelaran yang memburuk musuh. Buatlah apa pun, musuh pihak yang bergelar tidak akan hentikan mengguna gelaran.
2. Sebagai Perdana Menteri dahulu saya diberi banyak gelaran. Mahazalim, Firaun, diktator adalah antara gelaran yang dicipta oleh musuh politik saya.
3. Apabila saya ditemuramah sekarang, walaupun oleh orang yang tidak bermusuh dengan saya, soalan-soalan mereka ternampak yang mereka agak percaya bahawa gelaran terutama gelaran diktator yang diberi kepada saya adalah tepat dan berasas kepada kepercayaan bahawa saya adalah seorang diktator.
UNITED STATES CLEARS MALAYSIA
1. I am sorry to write again on the wrong things the United States is doing. It will hurt the supporters and apologists of the United States and United States’ Presidents. They will say I was worse when I was Prime Minister. That’s OK.
2. This time I read in the papers that the United States clears more from sanctions (including Malaysia). The reason for this considerateness is because these countries have cut back on oil from Iran.
3. The apologists for the United States will say that the United States have every right to apply sanctions against any country.
THE FEARS OF KIT SIANG
1. I wonder why Lim Kit Siang is so afraid of me. His latest fear is about what he calls “Mahathirism”. I don’t know what is Mahathirism but obviously it conjures in the mind of Kit Siang something fearful. So he has declared his intention to fight Mahathirism.
2. Actually Mahathirism died when Dato Seri (Tun) Abdullah took over from me in 2003. He changed UMNO, the BN and the Government so much that they no longer resemble the institutions I used to know. I had to resign from UMNO.
3. Najib is more friendly but he is not that close to me. He has his own team of advisors. His policies are his own. So why fear Mahathirism. It is dead and gone.