Also, he has come away with the impression that young people feel changing the government is not going to solve the ills besetting the nation, such as corruption and abuse of power.
The PPBM chairman said in his blog today that he came away from the session with the feeling that the young believed the problem lay with the system and that “if the system is right, then everything will be fine”.
His advice to young Malaysians is that they should not be apathetic but should work to change the government, or else they may regret it later.
Dr Mahathir and DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang had engaged the group of young Malaysians for about two hours at a forum in Petaling Jaya on Tuesday.
The former prime minister said that he and Lim had wanted to find out what was “bugging” younger Malaysians.
While the young people asked very intelligent questions, Dr Mahathir said, he was a “little” disappointed that the questions were mainly about past alleged misdeeds of Barisan Nasional governments.
“There was hardly any reference to the present and the future. The main focus was on Ops Lalang.
“On corruption, the assumption seems to be that any new government would do all the things that Najib (Razak) has done and is doing as long as the systems remain the same. There seems to be a belief that if the system is right then everything will be fine.”
The forum participants, he said, felt that changing the government would not result in Prime Minister Najib Razak losing his “great power” and neither would it put a stop to corruption taking place.
“The implication seems to be that voting in the election would not resolve the problems facing the country. This being so voting would be an exercise in futility.
“In other words let the present government continue, let Najib be the prime minister. It reflects the aphorism ‘better the devil you know than the angel you don’t’.
“Against this, the opposition coalition’s efforts will come to naught especially with many young Malaysians. The coalition is prejudged as guilty before the fact.”
The 92-year-old leader said young Malaysians appeared to see no difference between the past and the present, adding “but then our perception of things is based on what we see around us in our lifetime and not before we are born”.
While the older generation was born when Malaysia was a European colony or in the early years of independence, he noted, the young saw Malaysia long after independence and when the country had already developed much.
The perception of young Malaysians was that corruption in the past was no different from corruption now and that change that brought back the government of the past represented no change at all, he said.
“The old, on the other hand, see the difference between the old and the new. They see that in the past no one categorised Malaysia as among the ten most corrupt countries in the world as it is now. No one called Malaysia a kleptocracy. No one was worried about national debt reaching one trillion ringgit… There was no 1MDB scandal and no RM2.6 billion in the PM’s account.
“Instead they saw Malaysia was among the tigers of Asia, the best developed of the developing countries emerging after freedom from colonial rule, the model for the developing world and many other accolades.”
For the young, however, the years of the past were nothing to be proud of. It was normal for the country to develop, but there was corruption, the Internal Security Act, detention without trial and restrictions on press freedom.
For the young, going by the views expressed at the forum, all these would remain even if a new government was in place.
“Even if promises are made that these will be amended or abolished, what guarantee is there that these will be done? The systems will still be there. And there is no guarantee a new prime minister with a new government will not steal money, corrupt the people and abuse his power.
“This difference in the perceptions of old and young needs to be recognised and appreciated if the aspiring challengers against Najib wish to mobilise youths to help in the attempt to overthrow Najib and his kleptocratic government.”
The veteran politician ended by noting that the future belonged to these young Malaysians, and that “their refusal to help change the government will be very detrimental to them”.