The year before, he said: “Where are our faults? There are many. The first is we do not work as hard as others. Not only that, we also do not pay attention to our responsibilities. We don’t pay attention before deciding to do something.

“We lack mastery of the knowledge and information needed to make good decisions. I dare to say that we are lazy. We like to hand over our jobs to other people.”

The old maverick has always thought that Malay culture was deficient in some way - “This is our culture. We do not know what is hardship, we only want things to be easy.” 

And let us face facts. Being a non-Malay in this country, with all the systemic discrimination we face, it is better than being a Malay.

Look, I did not say this, the old maverick did - “The Chinese in Malaysia have no special rights, they experience discrimination. But they are more successful than us.”

What does this tell us? It tells us that the prime minister has no problem reminding the Malay community that their privilege and entitlements rest on a community - the Chinese - which is discriminated against, thereby setting up a narrative of resentment and self-aggrandisement when it comes to the state-created racial role in this country.

The former prime minister seems to take perverse pleasure in lecturing the Malays about the system he and the Malay political elite continue to enable, while at the same time claiming to be a truth-teller to and of the Malay community.

The reality is that when it comes to “foreigners” in this country, the economic threat is not from the Chinese or Indians, but rather the influx of diverse foreign labour and the black economy it sustains, which is a threat to working and middle-class Malays.

Add to this a religious bureaucracy that stifles the entrepreneurial spirit of the community and impedes cross-sectional commercial interaction and what you have is a community that, locally at least, is marginalised from their fellow Malaysians and the greater worldwide economic terrain.

Royalty and religion

That is his view when it comes to the race part of the almighty 3Rs. But what about the royal institution, the sacred cow of Malay culture and tradition?

Well, much ink has been spilled on that, but in 2014 he said that foreigners were profiting when sultans reigned supreme.

He wrote: “The prime minister in particular must be firm and not be swayed by customary adats or deference to the rulers.”

From reportage - “Mahathir, who served as prime minister from 1981 to 2003, oversaw moves to curb the monarchs’ powers by introducing a special court to hear charges against them.

“Under his premiership, reforms were also introduced to have bills passed by Parliament to automatically become law within two months even if the monarchs refused to endorse them.”

Then, of course, there is religion. Back in the day, when Mahathir hated PAS, he decided that Malaysia was an Islamic state.

The DAP, of course, made a fuss, which of course they would not do now, but times were different then.

The interesting part is not that Mahathir called this country an Islamic state (and, apparently, even the then Pope agreed with him) but rather how he defined this country as an Islamic state, which was in opposition to interpretations of the religion made by “political ulamas”.

From reportage - “He also said that Malaysia is a country which practises fundamental teachings of Islam and not interpretations of Islam made by the political ulama (religious teachers).”

But do not be fooled folks, since religion and the Malay race are not mutually exclusive, what Mahathir is probably implying is that the only way non-Malays could ever identify or confidently say that they are 100 percent Malay is to convert to Islam.

And there it is. Read the more than 79 brickbats heaped on the senile old racist here.....