Mahathir’s grand contribution to decline in political morality

Written by Hussein Hamid 

Contributors

Since the early 1980s, the ‘indiscretions’ of elected officials and those in the civil service have become the hallmark of all things Malaysian. This is to the extent that the people now accept corruption, greed and furthering vested interests as colouring all government transactions.

How did this scheme of things come about?

The turning point was 1981. After Mahathir Mohamad became prime minister, compassion for the people and respect for their rights was extinguished. With Mahathir too came the decline of political morality and a corresponding decline in the moral fibre of the civil service.

Malaysians accept that we are now a country in decline without much hope for recovery in the foreseeable future. As if to emphasize this decline, we are continually bombarded with scandal after scandal as if confirming that Malaysia is indeed bereft of any decent political leadership and a country that has lost its way.  

The Barisan Nasional government had found it expedient to accelerate the country’s racial divide by granting citizenship to illegal Malay immigrants. Imagine what social harm the massive influx of unskilled and uneducated immigrants would do to any country that is not even able to provide basic welfare and education to its existing citizens.

Project M is surely the act of an irresponsible and self-serving government without regard for anything else but its own political survival.

He who promoted M’sia Inc.

Following the gutter politics example set by this BN government, our society has followed suit.

We have a corrupt and brutal police force which is just short of becoming a willing appendage of Umno.

The corporate world is a willing, eager and generous participant where prudent business practices are cast aside for the more lucrative political patronage. The spoils on offer are breathtakingly profitable for those who participate but they come at the expense of the public.

And where do all these practices lead to? The simple answer is to look at where we are today. We have a government that virtually declared war on its people for wanting a fair, free and open election. We have a government that is prepared to risk the lives of its people in Gebeng, Kuantan for the Lynas corporation (big business against the little people).

We have the Prime Minister talking up a RM4 billion redevelopment of the city riverfront at a time when minimum wages are still just “to be discussed” next year, when subsidies are being “restructured” and when our hardcore poor can still be seen wandering the streets of our capital and major cities, and the elderly are still without adequate care.

What madness is this to prioritise mega projects when matters of affordable housing and putting food on the table for the poor should really come first?

These are some of the reasons why today in Malaysia compassion for others who are less fortunate is no longer a consideration for this BN government. Moral decency has gone the same way as BN has gone – into the abyss.

Mahathir, Father of Apartheid

Are we at the point of no return?

To answer this we need to look at what has happened after Mahathir became PM.

The manner in which Mahathir consciously used race to divide and rule the country would put Malaysia on the same level as South Africa that had used apartheid to ‘manage’ racial inequality.

Initially, as the restructuring of Malaysian society got underway, there were visible images of the Malays getting their share of the nation’s wealth. The non-Malays accepted the necessity of this social re-engineering with grace, and with possibly a pragmatic resignation that this must be the way to go forward if we are to be united.

But much too soon the cosmetic redistribution of wealth amongst the Malays became a grab by Umno politicians of the nation’s wealth for their own keeping. The executive power vested in Umno made it all too easy for them to do, and they did so with gusto.

Greed led to the culture of money politics, and this culture seeped into the consciousness of the Malays in general and Umno in particular.

I would think that the irreversible slide towards this moral decay started when Umno within itself accepted the use of money politics as a means of buying and staying in power.

Thus began the transformation of Umno where power open doors to great wealth. No longer was the party there to fight the battles for the Malays. No longer were the Malays the reason for Umno’s being. Money was the be all and end all, and this new reality brought along with it the troubles and abuses that we have with us presently.

All of it started when Mahathir became our prime minister.

Mahathirism still a scourge

We now have a new generation, maybe even two generations of our young and not too young who will no longer tolerate the government thinking it has the right to pillage and plunder our country’s resources.

With the advent of the electronic media and the Internet, we are made aware of the wrongdoings of this BN government. No longer can they keep secret from us the massive losses incurred in wasteful public spending, excessive infrastructure costs and the all in all incompetence of the BN government of the Mahathir years which still continue to today.

All the dominance Malaysia once had within the Asean region, if not in the global economy, has now disappeared because of the lack of prudence by this BN government in our times of plenty.

What else does BN need to see before they realise that their past and current policies whether in education, business or racial balance have failed miserably?

Changes must be made now if we are to ever regain our place again amongst our erstwhile peers. Economic reforms and national transformation programmes must be done to address the necessary changes most needed, not for scoring political points or to protect the vested interests of the BN cronies.

It is most urgent to guarantee our economic future.

I cannot see any other way forward for Malaysia then to do away with this self-serving Umno-BN government. What is to come after BN is still to be seen. Much too often human beings have the ability to change for better or for worse when called upon to do so by circumstances of their own making or by factors outside their control.

If BN is voted out of office at the 13th general election, then let those that will take its place understand that the momentum to ensure change rests with the people. Ignore the people at your peril!