Dr mahathir muhammad biography bible verses

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is famous for his forthright statements to other world leaders. In March , Mahathir wrote a letter to then UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that was blunt even by his standards.

Unlike a lot of his angry letters, this one wasn’t published.

Mahathir’s letter was about Salman Rushdie’s controversial book, The Satanic Verses. He wrote:

I do not think I am a Muslim fanatic.

Dr mahathir muhammad biography bible verses pdf

Yet I find I cannot condone the writings of Salman Rushdie in his book […] And I find the attitude of the “Western Democracies” most patronising, arrogant and insensitive.

In , the UK government declassified many of its Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) files on the diplomatic upheaval over the novel.

Mahathir’s letter to Thatcher is one of hundreds of unpublished diplomatic documents I have seen in visits to the UK National Archives since then.

My full analysis of this letter, and Thatcher’s response to it, has just been published in the Review of Intern