Only by pursuing meritocracy and improving the country's competitiveness can we get to become a high-income country. And when the majority of Malays can share the fruit of our economic success, even a goreng pisang peddler can look forward to much improved income.
By TAY TIAN YAN, Sin Chew Daily
Translated by DOMINIC LOH
Ibrahim Ali is a type of Malay that places a very high emphasis on himself.
He dismissed Amirsham Abdul Aziz as a traitor of the Malay, because the New Economic Model (NEM) he proposed had betrayed the Malay race.
He said genuine Malays would never turn their back against the New Economic Policy (NEP).
Based on his reasoning, if the government were to go ahead with the New Economic Model, the relevant leaders would no longer qualify as Malays.
In the end, there is only one Malay in this world.
Ibrahim Ali.
Oh yes, plus a handful of other people like Mahathir.
The Malays in these people's eyes are living in a unique space insulated from the outside world, where there are no tests for survival nor challenges.
So long as they confine themselves to this solitary capsule, they are most definitely safe and blessed.
These people believe that their wealth had been pre-destined, not created, and they therefore are entitled to 67% of the national wealth based on the percentage of bumiputras in this country.
Such allocation theory once existed in the communist world, but then how much could be proportioned when a communist state goes bust?
If this country became cash-strapped some day, how much could these people get even if they could claim the entire economic cake?
Ibrahim Ali did not think about this, or he simply rejected the thinking of this issue.
Amirsham is the NEAC chairman. I was there when he was briefing the media about the NEM.
He, too, is a Malay, a whole lot more good-looking and gentleman-like compared to that Ibrahim Ali.
He admitted that the decades-long implementation of NEP had drastically eroded the country's competitiveness.
He told everyone Malaysia had no other options but to transform itself.
The NEM does not define a bumiputra quota, for it is an outdated notion. The bumi quota has failed to help the Malays grow, making them feel complacent and dejected instead, besides exhausting the nation's vast resources.
Only by pursuing meritocracy and improving the country's competitiveness can we get to become a high-income country. And when the majority of Malays can share the fruit of our economic success, even a goreng pisang peddler can look forward to much improved income.
Amirsham is not a politician by training. He is a banking professional who pursues nothing but truth.
He does not speak in a fanciful and inciting manner, but has provided all the necessary evidences to prove his point.
You can say he has done this for the sake of Malaysia, and the Malays.
He belongs to that type of Malay whom I hold in very high regard.
When he proposed the NEM to the prime minister, he said admittingly that this was the furthest his authority could stretch.
In other words, whether the government will accept and implement his proposals will have to be decided by the government itself.
And Ibrahim Ali said in front of Najib that the NEP was drawn up by his late father Tun Abdul Razak, and he was in no position to compromise or give it up.
Najib responded that the NEM was only an economist's proposal, not the government's ultimate stand, and that the government was still consulting the Malays' views.
Indeed, Najib should lend his ears to the Malays... but to people like Ibrahim Ali, or Amirsham?
While no one should overlook the views of the Malays, the views of Malaysians should be more paramount.
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