Malays must avoid being a Broken People

By Joe Fernandez
If Malays want to avoid being a Broken People, they and others as well, should not get into rhetoric and polemics and the politics of disruption and distraction.

The media, in that sense, is doing a great disservice to the people. They should focus on helping make a difference for the better, not run back and forth between Mahathir Mohamad and Anwar Ibrahim to manufacture news. Every fart from Mahathir is in the news.

We should focus on what brings us together as a people.

The first step here is not to accept the authorities forcing non-Muslims to convert and become murtads, their spouses as well, when they marry Muslims. The children of parents who are both Muslim and non-Muslim are being denied Malaysian personal documents, even birth certificates, by the National Registration Department (NRD). This is unconstitutional, and thereby unlawful and illegal. Quite a number of stateless Indians are in this category.

I was speaking in the earlier email, on leadership and management, not only as a management and economics graduate but from experience as a senior manager not so long ago, and currently a mature student doing law as an educationist, consultant and semi-retired journalist.

Many leaders and managers don't know what leadership and management are all about (definition, role, functions, strategies, responsibilities, obligations, duties), what is authority, delineation, delegation, responsibility (as distinct from responsibilities), prerogative and discretionary powers, insubordination, service, power, mvimoga (motto, vision, mission, objectives, goals, activities)incorporating plans and programmes.

This is the reason why many leaders and managers in Malaysia are appaling failures and are reduced to kulitfication, sycophancy, and politicking to cover up their failures, save face and survive. They swear by self-preservation. These are the people driving Malay companies and GLCs to bankruptcy and dependent on perennial government bail-outs.

If we knew what leadership and management were all about, some people wouldn't insist that the Prime Minister must be a Malay and Muslim for all eternity. We wouldn't insist on the quota system and the like and swear by racism, prejudice and opportunism.

We wouldn't tolerate the lack of goodwill.

We would accept a Culture of the Brightest and Best from around the world, as in America, leading the way for all of us.

While education should be liberalised and democraticised and made available to all, how can the Government hand out degrees left, right and centre to any Tom, Dick and Harry even in critical disciplines and impose restrictions on non-Malays and non-Muslims in this field under the policy of "state secret"? This is unprecedented in world history.

Thanks to Mahathir, who by the way was not qualified to enter the Medical Faculty of Universiti Malaya in Singapore and had the worst marks among the five Malays accepted by the University on British advice, the private sector doesn't accept any Malay with a degree from a Government university. Those taken in are not because of qualification but kulitfication.

Having said all that, I wouldn't worry so much about the NEP and Article 153 of the Federal Constitution.

I even advised Waythamoorthy many times that he must not call for Article 153 to be abolished. It's politically incorrect.

It's not really necessary for its removal, no easy matter, from the Constitution.

However, I would agree with Waytha if he says that he sees no reason why the Malays should be covered by Article 153.

The Malay-speaking communities in Malaya -- Bugis, Javanese, Minang, Acehnese, Arab Muslims, Indian Muslims etc -- are not Orang Asal (Original People). They are a nation bound by language and religion and existing as a people without territory in Malaya and South Thailand. It's evident in the "Malay as a nation" definition in the Federal Constitution.

I am not saying all this because my family is Orang Asal and most of my relatives on both sides are Orang Asal.

The Malays are not the only nation in Malaysia. The Orang Asal, Indians and Chinese are nations too.

Bumiputera (sons of the soil) is an administrative fig leaf created as an umbrella term by Tunku Abdul Rahman to allow the Malays to be included in the same category as Orang Asal for the political purpose of Government handouts meant only for them and at the expense of others. The Orang Asal are already Orang Asal. They don't need terms like Native and Bumiputera to describe them. Incidentally, the Orang Asal don't benefit from the Bumiputera term unless they are Muslims or agree to become Muslims. This tantamounts to ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide and a defiance and violation of the Malaysia Agreement.

In fact, all citizens who are born in Malaysia are Bumiputera.

All citizens by operation of law and born in Malaysia are Natives.

This spirit can be found in the uncodified Federal Constitution of Malaysia. What we have now is the codified Constitution of Malaya being passed off as the codified Constitution of Malaysia.

What we should focus on, as I advised Waythamoorthy, is on Umno usurping the power of the King over Article 153, and the deviations and distortions in the implementation of the said Article and the NEP.

What we should focus on is abuse of the terms Bumiputera, Islam, Syariah, Syariah Court, Fatwa and Article 3 of the Federal Constitution.

What we should focus on is administrative laws -- not law at all but government policies in action -- which are anti non-Malay minorities and therefore unconstitutional, and thereby unlawful and illegal.

What we should focus on is Umno twisting and turning every issue into a racial and religious issue in order to scare the Malays in Malaya, the 55 per cent majority community, into circling the wagons and gathering under one political platform -- Umno and Ketuanan Melayu -- to splinter the 45 per cent non-Malay minorities.

Ketuanan Melayu (Malay political supremacy and dominance) is a sick combination of Apartheid (Waytha is right), Nazism, Fascism, Communism, Political Islam, and the anti-upward social mobility of the evil Caste System of ancient India.

It's ketuanan Melayuism which has facilitated the distortions and deviations in the implementation of Article 153 and NEP, making them into Sapu Bersih clauses.

It's all the Malays gathering under Umno and the two-third majority in Parliament which has facilitated the ruling elite, a tiny minority, to run up the National Debt Burden so that they can put their hands in the National Cookie Jar, at the expense of us all, under the guise of affirmative action and bringing so-called development to the people.

Putrajaya rules Sabah and Sarawak through local Muslim proxies, their non-Muslim stooges, and rogue elements who issue MyKads to illegal immigrants and pad the electoral rolls with them, marginalising and disenfranchising the Orang Asal and other citizens -- especially local Muslims including Orang Asal -- in the process.

The Malays in Malaya should take a good, long, hard look at the Chinese and Singapore and not continue on the path of self-destruction and Malaysia's eventual bankruptcy, like a nuclear bomb ticking away, laid out for them by Umno Baru under Mahathir.

The Umno Baru leaders especially Mahathir and Family, in a desperate bid to survive and continue to leech off the people as parasites and bloodsuckers, are poisoning the minds of the Malays behind closed doors against the Chinese.

The Malays, as a people with maruah, should not allow this charade to continue.

The way things are going with Mahathir still around, the next May 13 won't be between Malay and Chinese. It will be between Malay and Malay. Malays (Umno) will be killing Malays (PKR) and/or vice versa. The Opposition will not allow BN to form the Federal Government if the latter gets less votes collectively nationwide than the former in the forthcoming 13th GE and/or less than 50 per cent of the votes.

Umno Baru will probably use the illegal immigrants from Madura, Indonesia, to do their dirty job as Mahathir did during the Kampung Medan killings of Indians. This is ethnic cleansing and genocide which has so far gone punished. Mahathir, along with Harun Idris and Razak, were involved in fomenting the searing Sino-Malay Fri 13 May, 1969 race riots. Mahathir had just lost in Kubang Pasu to Pas when the Chinese voted against the Alliance. Penang had fallen to the Opposition and Selangor and Perak were 50:50. May 13 was used to create BN.

No nation in the world talks about a national car, about this or that race having so many per cent of this or that, high income economy, developed nation status, Towering Malay; demi bangsa, agama, negara; pemimpin yang di sanjung tinggi, pemimpin yang menjadi contoh kepada negara lain, negara yang menjadi contoh kepada negara membangun, economy dan negara yang pesat membangun, negara maju, best administrative service in the world, best police in the world, cleanest electoral rolls in the world, Tongkat Ali ini itu, Kacip Fatimah ini itu etc etc.

Why do the Malays allow all this? Why do the Malays allow themselves to be ridiculed, humiliated and insulted in this manner?

It's because of the womb to tomb dependency syndrome foisted on them over the last 56 years by Umno.

We all know what happened to the Indians in America after the US Government foisted the dependency syndrome on them.

A once proud people, warriors, became a Broken People.

Do the Malays want to become a Broken People?

Don't be lulled into complacency by the developed nation status by 2020 mantra of Umno.

This is a Great Lie!

In 1990, Mahathir said that he had worked out that Malaya/Malaysia had been growing on the average at 6.3 per cent per annum since 1957.

So, he reckoned that if Malaysia could grow at 7 per cent per annum over a 30 year period, 1990 to 2020, the economy would grow eight-fold and we would emerge as a developed nation. Wawasan 2020! Perfect vision. Is that utopia? No wonder Tengku Razaleigh described Wawasan 2020 as a gimmick during one talk in Australia during which he charged that Umno leaders were awarding Government contracts to themselves.

The US by the way is a developed nation, the richest country in the world, but it has a National Debt Burden equivalent to its US$ 16 trillion GDP -- fortunately 90 per cent of it denominated locally -- poverty, homelessness etc etc

Malaysia has never grown at 7 per cent per annum since 1990.

In 1997 the Asian Currency Crisis intervened to send our growth rate into negative territory, many businesses into bankruptcy forcing government bailouts, the ringgit dropped to RM 5 to US$ 1 etc etc.

So, how is Malaysia going to be a developed nation by 2020 since the 1997 crisis flushed all the 1990 projections of one man down the toilet bowl.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak initially didn't mention developed nation status when he took over. Instead, he harped on a new gimmick: High Income Nation.

More recently, he has been mentioning both developed nation status and High Income Economy by 2020.

Mohd Nor Yakop, the man responsible for listening to Mahathir's hare-brained ideas and losing billions of Bank Negara reserves on the forex market, even thinks Malaysia will achieve Mahathir's vision of a developed nation status well before 2020.

I put it to you that Umno leaders think that we are morons and can continue to ridicule and humiliate us and insult our intelligence in this manner.

Mohd Nor Yakop is a bugger who never learnt to count just like his master Mahathir.

Joe Fernandez is a graduate mature student of law and an educationist, among others, who loves to write especially Submissions for Clients wishing to Act in Person. He feels compelled, as a semi-retired journalist, to put pen to paper -- or rather the fingers to the computer keyboard -- whenever something doesn't quite jell with his weltanschauung (worldview). He shuttles between points in the Golden Heart of Borneo formed by the Sabah west coast, Labuan, Brunei, northern Sarawak and the watershed region in Borneo where three nations meet.