Malaysia’s former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad celebrated his 100th birthday by following a lifelong disciplined diet that included a lot of restful eating and working.
“I work constantly, which is the main thing.” Mahathir remarked to Al Jazeera, “I don’t rest myself.”
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I constantly use my body and mind. Keep your mind and body active, he said, and you’ll live longer.
He spent his centenary writing from a desk in Putrajaya City, south of Kuala Lumpur, looking over the country’s political situation, the state of the world, and the upcoming events in Gaza, as he usually does.
After recuperating from a period of exhaustion around the age of his birthday, Mahathir sat down with Al Jazeera for an interview. He predicted that Israel’s brutal treatment of the Palestinian population in Gaza would be a defining moment in human history.
The killing of nearly 66, 000 Palestinians in Gaza by Israel, the majority of them women and children, will be remembered for generations, possibly for “centuries,” according to Mahathir.
“Gaza is terrible. How can this be forgotten, if they killed pregnant mothers, newborns who were just born, young people, boys and girls, men and women, the sick and the poor? he inquired.
According to Mahathir, “It won’t be forgotten for perhaps centuries.”
Mahathir referred to the conflict in Gaza as a genocide, which was comparable to Nazi Germany’s killing of Jews in World War II and the killing of Muslims in Bosnia in the early 1990s. He expressed his shock that Israel’s citizens, who had experienced genocide, could also carry out a genocide.
He said, “I believed people who suffered like that would not want to visit it on other people.” Genocide victims should not “wish their fate would befall other people,” they should say.
He claimed that he was mistaken in the case of Israel.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Mahathir gained a reputation as a vocal critic of Western imperialism and its current exploitation of developing nations through financial capital flows. He was at the height of his power in the 1980s and 1990s.
Mahathir, a steadfast and unwavering supporter of the Palestinian cause, received harsh criticism for making “anti-Semitic” statements alongside his attacks on the West, particularly the United States.
However, he admitted to Al Jazeera that he had a deep sympathizer for the Jewish people when World War II’s Nazis’ horrors became known.
He now claims that Israelis “did not learn anything from their experience.”
He claimed that they want to repeat what happened to them and that they want to do it with Arabs.
He continued, claiming that the only “reasonable” solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people is the establishment of a two-state solution. However, Mahathir claimed that such a solution is still far off and that he would not live to see it, which was greatly aided by the recent recognition of Palestinian statehood by countries like Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom.
“No in my entire life. Too quickly, he claimed.
China is ranked as the world’s number one nation.
Mahathir, a survivor of three heart attacks and the first to win the political clout of Malaysia when he was over 90 years old, held office for a total of 24 years and earned the unquestionable title of Malaysia’s longest-serving leader.
The late Queen Elizabeth II’s grandfather, George V, was the king of England when he was born on July 10, 1925, in Kedah, northern Malaysia, and Malaysia was a British colony known as Malaya.
He resigned for the first time in the 1960s and served as prime minister from 1981 to 2003.
He then unexpectedly resurrected in 2018 when he led a coalition of opposition parties to defeat the long-running Barisan Nasional party to win the 92-year-old incumbent, making him the world’s oldest leader as a result.
After losing support as a result of political machinations within his own political party, Bersatu, he finally stepped down in the shadows in 2020.
Even Mahathir’s critics acknowledged that he laid the economic foundations for Malaysia’s prosperous modern-day agricultural economy in the 1960s, with its recognizable twin Petronas Towers clinging the skyline of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s flourishing modern capital city.
Mahathir, who is 100, continues to be as vocal, sharp, and acerbic as ever despite having lived past the point where the majority of politicians would have shied away from the spotlight.
He also had some unexpected recollections of bygone China and hints for the United States’ future.
His memories of a trip to China in the 1970s, when there were few cars on the streets and the country was “very poor” were among his best-kept recollections.
He claimed that Beijing’s authorities rolled out the red carpet and their “Red Flag” model car to escort him around because he was deputy prime minister of Malaysia at the time.
It was a very large Chinese automobile that China produced for themselves. They referred to it as “The Red Flag,” Mahathir said, citing the fact that it was one of the first Chinese to produce its own vehicles.
China’s economy has advanced a long way, and so has its expanding auto industry, which is competing with Western-produced cars, especially those that use electric vehicles.
Due to its large domestic market and hard-working population, he claimed, China’s surpassing of the US to become the “number one country in the world” is unavoidable.
China will need ten years to match America in terms of progress. China will eventually overtake America, according to Mahathir.
China surpasses Europe and America in terms of size. A sizable market exists there. It has a lot of wealth. And Chinese people are very business savvy, he said, citing his own experiences as a young Chinese immigrant who struggled to make a living in Malaysia. These families were able to improve their lives, provide for their children with a good education, and some of their grandchildren had gone on to become quite wealthy in a generation or two.
America will not be able to compete with other countries, according to the statement.
Mahathir, who spoke to Donald Trump’s administration, said that Trump’s “tariff war” was “very damaging” and that his plans to restart US production would raise costs and open the door for China’s rise.
Trump wants businesses to relocate to America. There are very high salaries there. He predicted that there will be a very different work culture than that of Chinese workers who will work for hours.
“That’s impossible for American workers to do. If the factories are relocated to America in the future, it will cost more, he added.
“America will not be able to compete with the rest of the world.”
Importantly, Trump does not have the opportunity to implement his economic plan, he claimed, because moving manufacturing plants to the US would take at least three to eight years.
Trump will no longer be president after three years, he continued.
Mahathir walks alone, exercises daily, visits his job every day, and treats visitors despite being 100 years old.
When given an invitation to speak as a guest, he uses social media and travels outside of Malaysia.
According to Mahathir, maintaining physical and mental activity and not eating excessive amounts are the keys to longevity.
He told Al Jazeera, “Don’t eat so much.”
The best advice my mother gave me was to “Stop eating when the food tastes good.”
Source: Aljazeera
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