In an interview with FMT, Rafidah said of her popular nickname that “I think the moniker is because I say what I want to say, I don’t care who you are.”
She recounted how she confronted Bush during a conference of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders in 2005.
She said she was roped in to represent Malaysia among presidents and prime ministers of member nations, after then prime minister Abdullah Badawi was unable to make a particular meeting.
Bush had joined a discussion on bilateral ties with APEC countries. After all the other leaders had spoken, Rafidah went last, ready to go without any prepared notes.
Pressing her button to speak, she said she was shocked when Bush raised his hand to interrupt.
“(He) said ‘Madame Minister, before you speak, I’d like to say something. My colleagues have reminded me that when you speak, I have to listen.’”
With the rest of the Malaysian delegation on edge, unsure of what was to come, Bush then took out a pen and writing pad and gestured for her to begin.
“Mr President, thank you very much, I have three items to bring up,” she began, before running through Malaysia’s concerns, one of which was the special duties placed against palm oil imports by some American states.
After Bush insisted that those policies were state matters, Rafidah shot back, “we are also a federation, if one of our opposition states have a ban on American policy, we will come and say you can’t do that.”
Bush was silent, she said.
She then ran through Malaysia’s commitment to environmental protection and opposition to illegal deforestation, and contested Bush’s insistence on having labour standards in APEC as it would overlap with the International Labor Organisation.
In defence of Mahathir in Switzerland
Looking even further back, in the midst of the Asian Financial Crisis of the late 1990s, she remembered how during a speech in Basel, the editor of a European paper challenged her with a statement about then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s decision to peg the ringgit to the US dollar.
“He said, ‘you know, your country is a pariah country, your PM is worse than Saddam Hussein.’”
Unfazed, she fired back.
“I said “hey, this pegging is not forever, this is for a short period in order to stabilise the currency. And we have a band within which Bank Negara can operate. Within a certain % it goes up, they come and intervene. If it drops, they intervene.”
She continued to explain that Malaysia would eventually unpeg the ringgit, as well as the other measures Malaysia had implemented to rescue the economy, such as refinancing the banks.
“Why are you looking at the pegging, it is part of the whole package,” she quipped, to the delight of the audience. “When you explain like that, they were clapping.”