No amount of explanation by anyone can ever alter my resentment with the former prime minister over what he did to this nation during his 22 years in power. He wasted our wealth on projects that ended up costing twice as much. He promoted and encouraged corrupt practices by deciding what the media could report on; who could be prosecuted and who needed protection. Yet, I still turned up to listen to his lecture last Saturday in Taman Melawati.
He suggested that the 'scenic bridge' was cancelled because someone could not sell one billion cubic meters of sand to Singapore. I wondered why he should criticise a business decision that favoured politicians when his successor was only following in his footsteps.
He questioned the rationale for selling MV Augusta for a miserable one euro; I wondered why he did not provide his quantified rationale for buying MV Augusta for 70 million euros in the first place.
He demanded an explanation on why thousands of APs were issued to a select group of people; I wondered why he did not curtail the practice when he was the boss of the lady from whom he now demanded the explanation.
As he spoke, I wondered why he was not in Kamunting or why he had accused his sacked deputy prime minister of selling state secrets to foreign agents one day, and of engaging in sodomy the next day.
Then, it crystallised before my third eye the genuine fear of Mahathir - that someone could well be on the way to eventually becoming the prime minister of this country with the assistance of a foreign country that wants a PM who is friendly to them. After all, for 22 years, they were looked upon by this Mahathir as a mere red dot on the map.
Maybe that particular someone already has in mind his line-up of cabinet ministers and deputy prime minister. And maybe that is why a 51-year-old minister who once called his colleague a 'bloody racist' 28 times in Parliament in June 2005 took offence over Mahathir's insinuations last Saturday and is now calling upon 81-year-old Dr Mahathir to 'be a jantan' and resign from Umno.