Oleh/By : DATO' SERI DR. MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : SINGAPORE
Tarikh/Date : 01/08/96
Tajuk/Title : THE 30TH SINGAPORE - MALAYSIA
CONGRESS OF MEDICINE
1. I would like to thank the Singapore Academy of
Medicine for the honour to delivery the Prof. G.A.
Ransome oration for this year. I am not really
qualified to give an oration though I have talked my
way to some prominence as a politician. So you must
excuse me if I don't sound erudite and academically
qualified. You must blame those people who insisted
that I deliver this prestigious oration.
2. The subject "Whether Training in Medicine Makes
a Better Politician" is from a list submitted to me
because I really could not think of anything
suitable to talk about. I thought since I am both a
former practitioner of medicine and a current
politician, there would be something that I am
acquainted with about both subjects.
3. Many people had asked me how a doctor (a
medical doctor, not one of those Phds masquerading
as doctors) became a politician. I wondered about
it myself. But being inclined to be facetious, I
invariably implied that actually I was a politician
who qualified as a doctor. I didn't really decide
to be one. But the only available scholarship was
for medicine. I had to take it or become a clerk in
the Kedah Government Service.
4. I couldn't become a clerk because I needed
prestige in order to be accepted as a political
leader. A university qualification would provide
that prestige. I thought law would do fine. It
would take only three years and in those days you
had to study in England. And I did so want to see
the so-called mother of the British Empire.
Unfortunately or fortunately there was no
scholarship available for me. So I went overseas,
i.e. across the Straits of Johore to study medicine.
5. Looking back now I think it was rather good
training for a politician. It started with being
ragged and then ragging others, which at the King
Edward VII College of Medicine tended to be
prolonged. I don't think I really enjoyed being
ragged. But the pay-off is that for at least 5
years I could rag others, which I enjoyed
enormously. I don't know whether I am kidding myself
but I did learn a lot about human nature while being
ragged and while ragging others. A little kindness
for a badgered freshie seems to make such a
difference to him. The same I think applies to most
people who feel harassed by an unkind world. They
appreciate the milk of human kindness much more than
those who had never known what it meant to be poor
and deprived. Practising as a private doctor later,
I learnt to understand and sympathise with the
downtrodden much more easily. I learnt to
understand that the handicapped need to be
compensated, that playing fields are not always
level, and that even when they are level, the size
of the contestants counts.
6. I would prescribe ragging in order to make
doctors and people in general appreciate the
pressure others felt. I would prescribe being
ragged to help cultivate a sense of humility. But
unfortunately far too many of the senior gentlemen
tended to be sadistic and enjoyed inflicting
physical and mental pain. And so we should find
some other ways to instil humility and a sense of
caring among future doctors and people.
7. On the second day of my arrival at the College
I passed the anatomy lab and saw the white shrouds
covering the bodies on the dissecting table. I went
back to my room trembling. I had been brought up to
fear death, most of all the dead bodies. I did not
like to see drawings of human skeletons even. The
idea that I would have to see, touch and dissect
dead human bodies was simply terrifying. I wanted to
give up, to run away. Medicine was not for me.
8. Slowly I calmed down, struggling with my fears.
I would like to say that common sense prevailed and
I overcame my fears. But actually it was the idea
that those petite little medical girls carving up
dead bodies which shamed me. If they could, surely
I could too.
9. The next day I asked a senior gentleman to take
me to the lab and show me the bodies. I saw and I
laid my hand on the body of a man, cold and smelling
of formalin. He was very dead and I couldn't think
of him doing me any harm. I lost my fear then. I
no longer shuddered at the thought of cutting up the
bodies.
10. It was a lesson for me. I could later go to
bed with a human skull, trying to memorise the route
of those confusing cranial nerves. I would fall
asleep and wake up late at night with the skull
grinning at me. I felt no fear. I had no
nightmares.
11. The experience helped to strengthen my nerves.
Later, while serving in Langkawi I suddenly realised
what mortality means for me, but I was able to
overcome fear of death much more quickly. When I had
to have heart surgery the `yes' came easily.
12. Unlike lay people doctors know exactly what
heart surgery meant. It is not edifying to know
that someone would use an electric saw to split your
chest and then stop your heart while they improve on
their needlework. I was scared. But deciding to go
through with it was not difficult. Kuala Lumpur or
the Mayo Clinic made no difference. When your
numbers are up, you go. For me who believes, it is
what Allah wills that matters. If He wills that I
should be on my way, that's it. I tied my
proverbial camel and left the rest to Him.
13. But understanding what mortality means and
being always conscious of it is important for people
as a whole and politicians in particular. The fact
that there is no running away from it and that one
day one has to go, and one cannot take things along
to the other world helps to stave of greed and the
desire to abuse political power, particularly to
abuse it for pecuniary gains. Wealth can only be
enjoyed in this world and the enjoyment can only be
rather temporary. As you get older the sense of
temporariness becomes more acute.
14. Lots of people of course believe that as a
politician I must be corrupt. Why? If they are in
my place they would be corrupt. They would after
all be only obeying the maxim that power corrupts
and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So if they
would accept bribes, surely this guy cannot be a
paragon of virtue and not accept bribes.
15. But I can assure you that mortality, the
temporariness of life in this world, the absolute
awareness that you cannot take it with you act as
great deterrents, at least for me. More than other
members of the human society, doctors understand
death, the finality of it.
16. Believe it or not, conscious of my mortality, I
have always felt that the temporary pleasures of
this world are not really worth the opprobrium and
detestation of people of the future, after I am dead
and buried. I would rather forego filthy lucre made
more so by being ill gotten in order to keep my name
clean. I am not looking for a pedestal in history,
but I hope that my children and grandchildren would
not have cause to be ashamed of me for my avarice
and lack of principle.
17. Of my father's children I inherited more wealth
than the others, not in terms of property but in
terms of education. My brothers and sisters are
poor, which is why many don't even know that I have
two elder sisters and two elder brothers. My
brothers only had secondary education. One sister
had Malay school education and one sister was denied
entry into the Government Girls English School in
Alor Star because she was the daughter of a low
grade Government employee.
18. I went to college, and qualified as a doctor.
So I was more fortunate, richer. Remembering this I
ensure the education and training of my children.
They are able to look after themselves now. They
don't need my help any more. So they don't need a
good inheritance. I don't have to accumulate wealth
for them.
19. I think my training as a doctor helps me get a
better perspective of life and what it all means.
And I think that training is good for a politician.
20. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author and creator
of Sherlock Holmes, was a medical doctor. Clearly a
doctor can make a good author. But the medical
discipline also helps one to become a politician,
sometimes maybe a good politician.
21. When I was doing private practice it struck me
one day, as I was writing down notes regarding a
patient of mine that I was a detective like Sherlock
Holmes. When his client remarked that he did not
know where to begin, Holmes' invariable response was
to advise the client to begin from the beginning.
Where upon the client would narrate what had
happened to him in some detail. Holmes would ask
questions to elicit details.
22. The client was in fact telling Holmes of his
complaints and Holmes then tried to get a coherent
history of these complaints.
23. He could then look for evidence, material
evidence and he did some elementary lab test. And
after further investigations, examing various
possibilities he solved the mystery.
24. Thinking it over I concluded that it was not I
playing at being a detective. It was Holmes who was
playing at being a doctor for the method he used to
solve his mysteries or cases was every bit like
those of a doctor trying to diagnose his patients'
ailments.
25. Naturally Holmes used the medical approach
because he was a creature created by a doctor - Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle.
26. I am not trying to explain that a doctor would
make a good detective or a detective would make a
good doctor. What I am trying to say is that a
doctor is trained to solve problems, his patients'
ailments, through a systematic process of collecting
information, sifting through them, testing, making a
diagnosis and then prescribing the remedy.
27. That is also what a politician is supposed to
do. He has to make an analysis of the problem and
having diagnosed it prescribe a remedy. The problem
may be his own or the community's or the nation's.
He may want to know why he is unpopular and having
discovered why, find a remedy.
28. The community may be at odds with itself,
unstable and incapable of progressing. By the
method of gathering as much information as possible,
doing some tests, for example through a by-election
or passing some laws, a politician, especially one
in power can make a conclusion. A remedy can then
be prescribed.
29. When I wrote `The Malay Dilemma' I was doing
just that. Why did the Malays dislike the Chinese?
The answer was fear - fear of being swamped and
dispossessed by the richer and more worldly Chinese.
Why were the Chinese unfriendly towards the Malays?
The answer was again fear. The British had said
that in independent Malaysia the Malays would have
unlimited political power - and they would take away
what belonged to the Chinese.
30. Having diagnosed fear, the remedy was to remove
it. You are right. It was easier said than done.
The remedy was the New Economic Policy with the
central objective of first, eradicating poverty
among all, I repeat all, racial groups and secondly,
to remove the identification of race with economic
functions -- Malays as padi farmers and fishermen,
Chinese as businessmen and Indians as rubber
tappers. Wealth was to be redistributed not
according to racial composition but reasonably - 30
percent for the Malays who made up more than 50
percent of the population, 40 percent for the
Chinese who made up 32 percent, and 30 percent for
foreigners. The redistribution was not to be
through expropriation from the wealthy - Robinhood
style - but by stimulating economic growth and
distributing the resulting bigger economic cake.
31. No one really believed it of course but over
the years the prescription had been seriously
applied. The different races swallowed the pills and
slowly fear began to dissipate - among the Malays
and among the Chinese.
32. It would seem to have been the correct
diagnosis and the correct prescription. Today
Malaysia is stable, secure and prosperous. The
Malays and the Chinese have not been and are not at
each other's throats. And they are not likely to do
so in the foreseable future. The methodical
approach of the doctors seems to have worked.
33. Well, could not a lawyer have done the same? I
don't really know. Most countries have lawyers for
leaders. Some have succeeded, some haven't.
34. Between doctors and lawyers there is a great
difference in terms of perception.
35. A doctor studies a problem, the disease of the
patient, in order to diagnose what it really is and
to provide the best remedy.
36. A lawyer looks at a problem based on which side
he is on. If he is prosecuting then he sees it only
from the point of view of getting a conviction. He
may know that the defendant is innocent but that is
irrelevant. He must prove that the defendant is
guilty. He looks for those aspects of the
complaints, history and evidence, including lab test
which will prove that the defendant is guilty. If
the evidence are overwhelming that the defendant is
innocent he does not drop the case. He will try to
prove the defendant guilty inspite of everything.
That was what he was hired for and that was what he
would do.
37. But the same lawyer, having left the DPP's
office, looks at this client in a totally different
light. Sure he is guilty as H - L but that is
irrelevant. He must prove his client innocent.
Anyway if he can get around the law, he will do so.
And so many are the criminals who escape their just
deserts while many who may be innocent are made to
pay the price. A good lawyer is one who can get a
conviction or a discharge depending on who engages
him. A lawyer politician would do the same I
suppose.
38. Doctors want to get at the truth so they can
provide a cure. They make mistakes of course and as
the cynics say their victims end six feet down,
whereas with a clever lawyer their victims end six
feet up.
39. Lawyers are not too concerned about the truth.
They determine their goals first, to seek acquittal
or to find the person guilty, and then they work
with this objective in mind.
40. Some years back I told the correspondent of the
greatest British economic magazine, the name of
which I shall not divulge, that I find running a
country quite easy because I am trained as a doctor.
I told him all about Arthur Conan Doyle hoping to
impress him.
41. His subsequent article in that esteemed journal
was full of raw cynicism. He said that, "now Dr.
Mahathir will learn that running Malaysia would not
be as easy as prescribing a cure for his patients."
Well, that was some years ago. For the past eight
years Malaysia has been growing at eight percent
with very low inflation rate. I am sure this growth
would have been attributed by the learned journalist
to an annual series of good luck.
42. But then journalists know more about how to run
a country than all the Presidents and Prime
Ministers put together. Even a cub reporter is
better equipped to rule a nation than any
professional politician. Without journalists to tell
us what to do, we politicians would be utterly lost.
That is why I always read the economic and political
magazines before deciding what not to do to my
country. Malaysia will be safe if we don't do what
the journalists are convinced we should do.
43. Engineers, architects and accountants may make
better politicians than doctors. But I have not
seen many of them leading countries. So I am not in
a position to say who is better, doctors or the rest
of the other professionals.
44. Then of course there was the Italian Lady of
the Night, Cicolina, I think her name was. She was
properly elected and showed her mettle. Also there
is the Bandit Queen. It is difficult to compare
them with doctors since the sample is so small.
Actors and comedians too have run for office and
have succeeded. One actor became the President of a
great country. In politics a lot of people get a
chance to act and I am sure actors act better. If
you think democracy is a joke, electing comedians
would complement your views. In politics there are
many jokers.
45. You see, to become an office boy you need some
educational qualification or certificate. To become
a politician you need no qualification at all.
Illiterates and dropouts may rise to any level in
the political hierarchy and may do very well.
46. But doctors do have many advantages. Diseases
do not recognise ranks or sex or occupation or age.
From the day you are born to the day you make your
exit you cannot but have contact with doctors. Only
the complete imbeciles among them would fail to
understand something about human nature. And in a
democratic system knowing human nature helps
politicians to succeed.
47. I was a General Practitioner and I met a fair
section of the people who later on became my voters.
There were thousands of them. Lawyers, architects,
accountants, engineers do get to meet people but by
comparison with doctors their clients are small in
number. Besides, they do not bare their hearts to
other professionals as they do to doctors.
48. Ordinary people are only interested in
themselves. This is particularly so with patients.
If you listen to a conversation between two patients
as they wait their turns to see the doctor, you will
understand how uninterested they are in each other's
problem.
49. The conversation will go somewhat like this:
A. I have this excruciating pain in the
stomach;
B. Yes, mine is worse. A pain in the stomach
is alright but I have this terrible headache
which makes me want to commit suicide.
A. Oh, but my stomach pain is different.
B. Yes, yes of course, But this is......
50. And so it goes on, the one not really
hearing the other, each only concerned about
his own private pain, completely convinced that
he is worse than the other. There is no
sympathy - no real sympathy for the other, each
wishing that the other would appreciate that
his ailment is far more serious.
51. We are all like that. We are not really
interested in other people's medical problem. Then
your turn comes to see the doctor, you discover that
here is a person who is totally absorbed with your
complaint. Not only does he listen to your tales of
sorrow but he actually asks questions about them.
You can feel he is not only interested but he is
actually concerned. So different from all the
others, who only want to tell you about their
complaints, as if you don't have your own to worry
about.
52. And you warm up to the doctor. Great people,
doctors. If they stand for election, why, I would
certainly vote for them.
53. And the doctors eventually learn to understand
people, their problems, their trials and
tribulations. I know how unpleasant was the life in
the villages where my patients lived. They had no
roads, no water, no electricity, no schools, no
health clinics no nothing. I learnt how to
sympathise with them, to really feel for them, to
want to do something for them. If they had no
money, they could pay later. If they didn't, you
really shouldn't be so insistent. After all as
private practitioners you were already earning more
than you were earning as Medical Officers.
54. Understanding human nature can be extremely
helpful for politicians. In a democracy where
popularity determines whether you succeed or fail,
it is even more important. It is not just about
getting votes. It is also about getting the support
for the things you want to do which you think is
good for the people and the nation.
55. One would have thought that if what you want to
do is good for the people they would support you.
But very frequently they don't. To win them over
you have to understand them, their thinking and
their priorities.
56. Providing a school for a village seems like a
welcome project. But there is the question of the
exact location, whose land you have to acquire,
where the teachers have to live and all kinds of
details. If you don't heed the views of these people
you will not only be unable to get you school built
but you will lose support in the process. Yes it is
important to understand people and doctors
understand them better than most other
professionals.
57. As I said running a nation involves solving
problems. Developing a nation also involves solving
a thousand and one problems. So does managing
foreign relations, internal affairs etc. All of
them have to be handled methodically. And doctors
have a tidy mind even if their cluttered desks
suggest otherwise. Using the methods of diagnosis
and treatment with which doctors are familiar, other
problems can be resolved and straightened.
58. So I think doctors with their training make
better politicians. May be not the best but pretty
good anyway. At least as a doctor I think so.
Admittedly, I am biassed. But then everyone is
biassed.
59. I hope more doctors will take up politics. We
have four doctors in the Malaysian Cabinet. But I
don't foresee a rush among you to forsake medicine.
Politics doesn't pay half as well i.e. if you are
straight. If money is what you go for, avoid
politics like the plague. If you don't you may rise
to the top and then probably land in a court facing
charges of corruption or abuse of power, medical
training notwithstanding.
60. I have said a mouthful and now I should shut
up.
61. Thank you for the honour of speaking at this
Prof. G.A. Ransome oration by the Academy of
Medicine of Singapore.
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