SHE is well-known for her outspokenness, her biting columns and her frank opinions.

The family genes matter little these days. Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir is so much her own person, you sometimes forget who her father is. Her relationship with Malaysia's Prime Minister is less obvious when you read her writings.

It is in her regular column in Malaysian newspaper The Star that she boldly questions the government over certain policies and issues.

In an Aug 20 article, titled Not Always Boleh (Malay for can), she lamented how the Malaysia Boleh tagline was getting 'tiresome'.

Instead, she listed things Malaysians still 'tak boleh' (Malay for cannot) do - like not having freedom of speech and not being able to speak up against the authorities.

The article is biting and sarcastic, but succinct. And Datin Paduka Marina, 46, makes no apologies about it.

In a phone interview with The New Paper On Sunday from Kuala Lumpur, she said that of all her articles, this piece garnered 'the highest positive feedback'.

'I got letters, e-mail, SMS. people just come up to me to talk about it. A school teacher asked if she could use it in her class. A preacher wanted to use it in his sermons.

'The response was surprising. It shows that people are reading... Nothing prompted it. I didn't know what else to write so I wrote it.'

Neither do her articles shy from tackling thorny issues, even if they come across sounding anti-government.

In one piece, she slammed local universities for implementing a dress code for undergraduates.

In another, she criticised the Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (the KL city council) for banning the Instant Cafe Theatre group after it presented a show spoofing politicians and government policies.

She has also questioned policies - like condemning the Selangor Menteri Besar's proposal to restrict condom sale.

But Datin Paduka Marina pointed out that her target is not always the government.

'I take other people to task as well. Sometimes it's an NGO, or an opposition party.

'If there is something I disagree with, I don't hesitate to criticise it. I believe that... (as citizens), we have the right to say what we feel.

But does that luxury to speak her mind apply only to her, given the hefty influence of the Mahathir name?

Datin Paduka Marina readily acknowledges that it's easy for people to think that way.

In a Sep 17 article in The Star, she responded to the feedback received for her Not Always Boleh article: '...In the course of talking to people about that column, they repeatedly say one thing: Only you can get away with this.'

I, too, threw this point to the chatty, articulate woman.

She said: 'That's what people like to think, that I can say things like this because I'm his daughter. But it's not a matter of being protected from the government.

'I think it's the other way around. I think because of who I am, I'm often less protected. People do criticise me. I've been hauled to court before.'

In 1996, Datin Paduka Marina appeared in court to defend her column, which said that it was a 'mockery of justice' to prosecute a 15-year-old girl alleged to have had illicit sex with a former Malacca chief minister.

In another incident, when she wrote in protest against the arrest of three beauty pageant contestants by Selangor religious authorities, her column was pinned up in a prayer room with comments scribbled all over in red ink.

She also admitted to making mistakes.

'I mentioned somebody who had been through a court case. I didn't know the case had been cleared. He wrote to me to tell me my mistake and I felt very bad about it after that,' she said.

Detractors aside, Datin Paduka Marina has garnered her own following among the Malaysian public.

A collection of some of her columns since 1991 was published in a book titled In Liberal Doses. When launched in Nov 1997, almost all 6,000 copies were snapped up.

For now, Datin Paduka Marina said she spends almost all her time on her work with the Malaysian Aids Council, which she heads. Writing her fortnightly column is 'a matter of discipline', part of her former career as a journalist with the New Straits Times' magazine division from 1980 to '83.

She added: 'There are certain issues I feel strongly about: Human rights, women's rights... and HIV is one of my pet topics. If an idea comes to mind, I sit down and write. I've always been good in English and my parents write, so maybe I inherited it from them.'

Her viewpoints, however, are entirely her own.

'I do consider myself a liberal. People may think that means I'm Westernised and, outwardly, I guess I do look Westernised,' she said.

'Liberal doesn't mean Westernised. To me, liberal means someone who is open-minded... and able to accept diversity and views that are different.'

Then, in a manner akin to her father's often anti-Western tack, she added:

'Being Western doesn't necessarily mean being liberal. There are many conservative people in the West, like George Bush. It's an artificial concept that only the West can be liberal.'

At the same time, she called it an 'advantage' to have been educated in the West, having studied international relations at the University of Sussex.

She said of her overseas education: 'I don't think you realise your own sense of self until you go somewhere completely different... it allowed me to compare and take the best of East and West.'

OUTSPOKEN over issues, but tight-lipped about her private life.

Before the interview, I had been asked to stay away from questions about Datin Paduka Marina's personal life, and to avoid too many questions about her father, Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Said Datin Paduka Marina, who has three children: 'Yes, I think I'm a pretty private person. I don't see why the media needs to dwell on my family life.'

She has a 16-year-old daughter, Ineza, from her first marriage to a Frenchman. They divorced about 10 years ago.

She married her second husband - Indonesian photographer Tara Sosrowardoyo - in 1998. She has a 15-year-old stepson from this second marriage. The couple also have a four-year-old daughter.

'Many people are surprised that I have remarried... But it's a fact of life.'

She was equally candid when asked about her relationship with her father.

Said Datin Paduka Marina, the eldest of five children: 'I won't say we are completely close in that we don't talk to each other every day. But if I had a problem and it was something I thought my father can advise me on, I would talk to him.

'We're a naturally close and affectionate family. But we all lead independent lives. We all do our own thing.'

She added: '(My parents) are an enormous inspiration to me. They're very principled, very honest and they stress on hard work.

'They taught me that nothing is free in life. In my upbringing, they have been very strict about being truthful and fair.'

No, she won't miss her father as Prime Minister when he steps down next month.

Yes, she hopes to see more of him in his retirement.

And, no, she will not enter politics.

She said: 'I'm interested... only as an observer. I'm not interested in party politics. It's better to... be in a position where you don't owe anyone anything. You can say what you want, you don't have to toe the party line - even if you don't agree.'

By MARINA MAHATHIR

AS we reach our 46th birthday and cries of Malaysia Boleh ring out, we should really reflect on this a bit.

I am one of those who always find these constant shouts of Malaysia Boleh a bit tiresome.

Not to be a spoilsport or anything, it's just that sometimes our focus on what we boleh (can) seems rather shallow.

I have great admiration for Malaysians who can sail solo around the world, climb Everest, explore Antarctica and brave the English Channel.

These are truly great feats and the glory achieved by them reflect on us, and motivate others to... do similar things.

What I have some problem with are the types of Malaysia Boleh feats (to do) with creating the longest popiah, the most number of teh tarik pulls, the most number of sticks of satay eaten...

No doubt everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame but, after that, what? Will the person who ate the most number of durians ever be featured in Hari Ini dalam Sejarah (this day in history)?

As we all scramble to get into some book of records for things we boleh do, I wonder if we ever reflect on the things we tak boleh (cannot) do?

Here is a partial list, in no particular order:

We tak boleh talk about many things because they are deemed too sensitive for some unknown people's ears. Thus, there are so many things swept under the carpet now that we can hardly walk without tripping.

We tak boleh complain about how some people in authority behave.

We tak boleh show affection to our loved ones in public because some
people think it's
obscene.

The women among us tak boleh feel safe in public because if something happens to us, it's always our fault.

We tak boleh be trusted to decide for ourselves whether a movie is good or bad. We women tak boleh look at pictures of women's bodies in women's magazines; they have to be blacked out.

Young people tak boleh be given information about the many bad things that could happen to them even though this could save their lives.

Universities tak boleh be left with more women students because this may lead to a very empowered population of women. And, what's more, they may start demanding that women be given vice-chancellor posts!

We tak boleh ask why the authorities have some ruling or other because then they may actually have to think of a good reason for them.

We tak boleh... talk about religion, even though sometimes the implementation of religious rulings can make our lives miserable.

We tak boleh complain when cars are triple parked on Fridays because, hey, what is a human law when they're breaking it to commune with God?

We tak boleh be sure anything we do will be judged on its own merits; we must get some VIP to help us.

We tak boleh excel in many things, including sports, because someone will tell us why we tak boleh do it (too difficult, not nice, not feminine, too much work, no money in it, etc).

We tak boleh point out the contradictions in our society because it's, well, embarrassing... We tak boleh teach our kids to think because they may ask us too many questions.

We tak boleh act as if we would like to think about things, too, and then give our opinion.

We tak boleh trust our young people even though one day... they will take over the country (unless we turn them into clones of us, of course).

We tak boleh deny the fact that Siti Nurhaliza is a lot more influential than most politicians (who else can sell out a lipstick by just mentioning it?)...

We tak boleh talk back, unless we couch it in polite terms. Never mind that the person we want to talk back to has been very rude.

Every day, it seems, we are encouraged to do things to prove we are the best, biggest, brightest. But rarely are we ever encouraged to be thinking and compassionate human beings with opinions of our own, especially if those opinions are different from the norm.

Are we to show Malaysia Boleh only in harmless non-threatening ways, even
though these often have no long-term
benefit? Or should we really be
challenging ourselves in our
minds and hearts?

- Courtesy of The Star