I like this Man

I like this man, period! He has placed Malaysia to the hearts and minds of many people globally.

Below is the excerpt of his speech during the ninth convocation of PETRONAS University of Technology on 16 August 2009. The inspiring speech of the Chancellor, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed:

"Now you are going to face life as real people. No longer looking towards your parents for sustenance but you have to work for yourselves now. But even if you work for yourselves I am quite sure you will always remember the people that you owe your success to. Your parents firstly, the university and the members of the academic staff, but more generally to the society in general because without a society that is peaceful and progressive, that is fairly well-developed, there wouldn't be this opportunity for you to study at a prestigious university like Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS. So while you are glad that you have got through, you must never forget that you owe an obligation, to all these people; society in general, your parents, and of course, the university. Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS I think, is well on the way to becoming the best university in Malaysia. But that will depend on a lot of things. Of course the university itself will strive to provide the best education possible for the students coming to this university. But the students themselves have to work in order to make this university better known and highly respected. There are some universities in the UK for example which has become very well-known because of the way they speak. We talk about the Oxford accent. I am not proposing that you have a PETRONAS accent. But I would certainly suggest that when you leave the university and you work, you will show a certain character that will always be associated with the graduates of this university.What are the things that you can do?You must be, not only people with knowledge, but also with upright character. You will be people who always strive for the best and you will always try to contribute as much as possible to whatever organization that you work in. You should show the highest quality in terms of honour and responsibility. If you do all these things; all the graduates from this university put their minds to achieving these things, it will not be reflected only on you but it will be reflected also to the university so that the university will become a university which produces the best graduates not only in terms of their acquiring knowledge but also in terms of their character, their behaviour, their willingness to work hard and above all in whatever endeavour they enter into, they will be successful.Then, people will recognize you and people will go around and say, "Well, he is from Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS". That would mean that we have succeeded in contributing towards making this university a first-class university in this country and also it might be ranked as among the top universities of the world. That is not just the ambition of the university. That is not just the ambition of the country. It should also be your ambition as graduates from this university"

"Many people are very gullible in this country also. If somebody comes along to them and say "We can change a ten-dollar note into a-hundred-dollar note, they are quite willing to invest in such a thing." And how many of them, highly educated people who have been cheated because they were greedy, they wanted to make something out of nothing. When you work, always remember that for whatever you earn, you must deliver, in terms of your service, in terms of your ideas, in terms of your management, in terms of contributing towards the success of whatever organization that you are working with. That should be your creed, your character. So that you will never be accused of cheating people. And then people will say, "Well, he is from Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS. That shouldn't be." So while you have acquired in this university great knowledge which will help you in your life, help you to earn a better living, you should always remember that you have a name to guard. The name of the university must remain clean all the time. Indeed it must remain a great name so that people will look up to this university and people will scramble to get into this university. Because if they get their children into this university, then of course they are going to benefit, and benefit fully."