What keeps the Malays down

Despite the New Economic Policy (NEP), the Malays are not outperforming others nor are they staying ahead. The Malay is not trapped by his success; he is trapped by the feel-good factor and the self-induced mental prison. Successive Umno leaders have managed to relieve Malays of the need to think and to work hard.

So Malays need to come out of their comfort zone(s) and use competitive intelligence to work on their strengths and weaknesses, rather than blame others for their failures.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s administration recently said that the Bumiputera corporate equity stood at 22% and was short of the NEP target of 30%. As everyone knows, the NEP should have ended in 1990, but much of the affirmative action, or pro-Malay, policies are still being pushed through.

For 53 years, Malays are told that they are the rightful “owners” of the land and they are warned not to betray Umno as only Umno will defend their rights and only Umno has their interests at heart.

The Malays are told not to be hoodwinked by Pakatan Rakyat. Umno claim that a Pakatan government will lead to a Malaysia that will be dominated by the Chinese. On the other hand, Umno tells the Chinese that to vote Pakatan, of which PAS is a member, could lead to hudud laws being brought into play.

Umno omitted to tell the rakyat that under Pakatan, the three component parties – DAP, PKR and PAS – have entered into an agreement that any policy decisions require a consensus of the three parties. The Islamic state and the Islamic law of hudud are policy matters. All three parties have to agree on this issue or else it will not be enacted.

These messages, intended to confuse and scare the rakyat, are aimed at the weak and the insecure.

Dominant community

From the sidelines, Dr Mahathir Mohamad has also egged on the rakyat. First, he told them that everyone in the country had to accept the culture and language of the dominant community.

He said, “This country belongs to the Malay race. …..We must be sincere and accept that the country is Tanah Melayu.”

Then he said that Malays would feel less threatened if the country adopted the concept of “Bangsa Malaysia” as that would allow better co-operation between the different races and thus guarantee the future of the country.

Finally, after raising the Malays’ hopes, he deflated their egos by calling them economically weak.

“We must not reject every government effort to help us. We must push away the crutches and realise that we are still limping,” was his warning to the Malays, that they would require assistance to improve their lives.

Thus, the Malay is brainwashed into thinking he is weak and that Pakatan rule will make him lose all his opportunities and rights.

Despite Malay being the dominant language and poor Malays having greater access to education, what sort of quality education have these Malays received?

Have they been able to think, rationalise, evaluate and infer, from the education they received? Or was their education just a token gesture with poor teaching methods based upon learning by rote?

Bible debacle

In the recent crisis over the Malay-language bibles, how much support has there been from the Malay community towards their Christian neighbours? Have the Malays protested loudly and clearly to condemn the actions of the government in the bible debacle?

A consignment of 5,100 bibles (plus a further 35,000) was confiscated over two years ago. The bibles have become a political football with no one minister nor ministry wanting to be made accountable and assuming responsibility.

With the Sarawak election looming, it now appears that Najib has “ordered” the bibles to be released. Is this a directive from APCO to make Najib look like the magnanimous politician?

We are told that Najib’s cousin, Home Minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, stipulated two conditions for the release of the bibles. Each copy needed a serial number and would be stamped with “For Christians Only”.

A serial number carries with it an ominous message. Are these bibles to be assigned a keeper who will be made responsible if the holy book goes astray or is not in his keeping when the enforcement officers come checking?

Is Hishammuddin lacking in sensitivity and respect? What if his holy book, the Quran was defaced in a similar fashion?

Malays must learn to think that they cannot have one set of rules for them and another for the non-Malays. They must learn to empathise with their fellow Malaysians.

Corrupt government

Malays must rationalise that Umno is using them to retain its corrupt government in the next general election.

Malays must evaluate the reasons why Umno is trying to stir the bible issue as a Malay-Islam versus the other religions sentiment.

We are a modern democratic nation with a set of laws and a constitution. What will the Malays infer from the bible issue? Or would they prefer Umno to do their thinking for them?

Mahathir and Umno have made the Malays more egocentric and egotistic. They have nurtured the Malays to be intolerant and lose their true values. The Malays of today are nothing like those of 53 years ago.

This week, the issue of race and religion is again being thrust upon us. Malays must join forces with their Christian brethren and condemn the callous and heinous act by their fellow Muslim ministers. Idris Jala, the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, will no doubt be receiving grief from his fellow Christians for betraying them.

It is time that Malays-Muslims came out of their comfort zones and see off the internal threat to our nation by these corrupt and objectionable ministers.

Umno tells the Malays they deserve more than their fair share of the nation’s wealth not because of hard work or effort, but only by virtue of being a Malay.

What sort of competitive edge is that?

Ignorance, lack of understanding and being ill-informed are what keeps the Malays down. What Umno-BN fears most is the Malay who has liberated his mind and his spirit.


note: Anyone who wishes to see the Indonesian-Malay versions of the holy bible can download a copy from here and here.
Mariam Mokhtar is a petroleum chemist and also an environmental pollution-control scientist.