[Mahathir begitu kecewa dengan gambarnya yang telah tersiar seluruh dunia itu. Ia menjejaskan kredibilitinya dan menghancurkan imejnya. Tetapi dia tidak pula mengungkit temuramahnya yang menempelak Anwar dan reformasi yang masih hidup walaupun disiram pemedih mata dan dituduh tidak enak dalam semua berita mereka di dada akhbar perdana.

Dia seharusnya sedar dia telah membuli akhbar tempatan sekian lama. Detik, Ekslusif dan Wasilah dikuburkan dengan kejamnya tetapi akhbar meloya dan makalah lucah dibiarkan pula.

Sikap Mahathir kini mencerminkan mukanya tidaklah setebal mana. Dia sudah terkena tetapi katanya dia tidak ambil perduli jika rakyat membencinya. Soalnya kenapa dia membebel tak tentu fasal pula. Mungkin dia memang sudah dungu agaknya. - Editor]

Time Asia - 11 February 2001

Asia Buzz: A Taste of His Own Medicine

Malaysia's Mahathir says the press doesn't like him, but the feeling's mutual

BY ROBERT HORN

The photo was anything but flattering. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was caught in the harshest of lights on the cover of the January 26 issue of Asiaweek. Every facial sag and wrinkle was exposed. His hunched shoulders, receding hairline and beady eyes gave him a positively Nixonian appearance. And in the mode of the disgraced former United States president, the Prime Minister was certain there was something more sinister than bad taste behind the portrait.

It was a conspiracy

"To find a photo that makes you look as if you are an idiot, is deliberately done," the Prime Minister railed to Malaysia's state-run Bernama news agency. The smiling and friendly interviewers had duped him, he said. "I should have stayed a doctor," he complained bitterly in his interview with Asiaweek, which is owned by TIME's parent company. "When I was practicing I was very popular. People loved me."

Hey doc, take a pill. The article was more than fair, and provided you with a forum to trumpet your achievements not just to the increasing numbers of Malaysians who are fed up with your rule, but to the whole continent. Furthermore, if you feel the press is less than friendly to you, what kind of friend have you been to the press?

During the past year, Mahathir's government has used draconian press licensing laws to shut down three newspapers and magazines -- Detik, Eksklusif and Wasilah -- for such reasons as "imbalanced reporting." Another newspaper, the pro-Islamic Harakah, has had its distribution severely curtailed. Even before all this, the Committee to Protect Journalists, an international press advocacy group, named Mahathir to its 1999 list of Ten Worst Enemies of the Press because of his government's intimidation tactics against the fourth estate.

Mahathir, of course, justifies his bullying of the press by saying it's a necessary part of his program to build a harmonious and prosperous Malaysia. And give the man his due, he has presided over one of the more successful economies in Southeast Asia. Painfully aware that past successes don't guarantee future prosperity, Mahathir has been the driving force behind Malaysia's attempts to transform itself into a high-tech center for the region.

The doctor has his doubters. After all, the key to a high-tech economy is the Internet. Could a leader as control-oriented as Mahathir tolerate a medium whose free-wheeling content sends shivers up the spines of repressive rulers everywhere? Mahathir allayed those concerns by promising not to censor Malaysia's slice of cyberspace.

So he did the next best thing. Upset over critical reporting on a website called Malaysiakini.com (Free Malaysia), he ordered his government to bar the site's reporters from all official functions, press conferences, events, ministries, etc. "I think this new order is a blanket ban," said the website's editor Steven Gan. Malaysiakini isn't some crank site. It won the International Press Institute's 2001 Freedom Award for its independent coverage of Malaysia's political scene.

So with investors already leery about Malaysia because of the Anwar Ibrahim scandal, rampant cronyism and Mahathir's relentless rants against the West, the doctor has scribbled out another bum prescription for the country. Faced with a choice between allowing the freedoms requisite for making Malaysia the region's Internet incubator or strangling any opinions that aren't sycophantic, boot- licking praises of his leadership, he chose the latter.

Mahathir is a man who believes he doesn't need the press. He certainly doesn't need Asiaweek to make him look like an idiot. He's perfectly capable of achieving that on his own, thank you.