By Narinder Singh "......Malays are lazy," Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed said recently. The question that begs an answer is "why and what made them so?" If for 22 years Dr Mahathir could not do much in changing them, what will drive them to change their attitude now, at least going by his logic and stand?
Various policies failed to get them to top the nation financially, economically and politically. The Malays have been "malaised" by the very policies implemented by Dr Mahathir himself but now he blames the entire race for falling behind the non-Malays.
He said he is ashamed of them. Well maybe on a personal capacity he could say that but again it does not justify the ignorance he had exhibited when failure was staring at him from his early days of helming the nation.
Why blame them when he had personally played a role in paralysing and debilitating them systematically across at least two generations.
Today the Malays are left behind chasing the minorities for the pie that is slowly but surely getting smaller in all sectors. The entire geopolitical and economic landscape has and is experiencing major paradigm shift in Malaysia.
Unlike during the tenure of Dr Mahathir as the premier, competition is stiff not only locally but also globally. The Malay race cannot be shielded anymore from getting bombarded by external forces.
To make matters worse, the Malays today are far more divided, which Dr Mahathir could not have even envisaged in his lifetime. He claims to be visionary but he missed the sight to foresee the inevitable cast of the internet and its powers.
Above that, the Malays who were deprived of achieving great heights to financial freedom and upper class status platform during Dr Mahathir's time revolted by aligning themselves to opposition parties, especially PAS and PKR.
Politically, Umno may also lose governing power at federal level if they stay disintegrated far too long with equal opportunity promises made by their nemesis Parti Keadilan Rakyat.
Failure of a race cannot be blamed due to the co-existence of another. That is a fact.
When a race is domesticated and protected for prolonged periods, it fails miserably to hunt effectively for better grounds.
If the government of the day continues to resonate on the sentiments of Dr Mahathir – that only if adequate protection can catapult the Malays to higher order in all sectors, then for sure predictably they are doomed further.
This is not about challenging the special rights and the pillars of the Malays and Muslims as enshrined in the Federal Constitution but a fundamental issue of grabbing golden opportunities.
In the moment of weakness within the Malays, the others saw gaps to rake in their wealth using some lazy Malays as Bumiputera fronts to capture multi-million or even billion dollar projects dished out by the Umno government.
That is the second fact. The public will not buy it that Dr Mahathir was not aware of all this. So why is he blaming the entire race when selected cronies were cultivated under his tutelage and they were harvesting the richness for the few Malays while the masses of the Malays were deprived of equality?
Come on, the state of the Malays today is a direct outcome of the concoction that was formulated and fed to them for 22 years by the leader who thought he knew it all for the best of the race.
Nevertheless, today the game has changed drastically but unfortunately the Malays were not prepped for the inevitable. Can they wait for another 22 years? – November 10, 2014.
* Narinder Singh reads The Malaysian Insider.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.
- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/the-malaise-of-the-malays-narinder-singh#sthash.ylNSHNem.dpuf
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