Ah, Awang Selamat.
One can always depend on you to say the most ridiculous things.
Today, I read that this 'person' (in reality the collective editorial voice of that paragon of journalistic virtue: Utusan Malaysia) wants the 25 Eminent Malays investigated.
Their backgrounds and lifestyles should be put under the microscope, they say.
I guess this is so that the erstwhile 'newspaper' can find out any “dirt” on the 25 and then they will be able to dish it out with orgasmic glee.
In this way they can detract from the fact that respectable individuals, who are essentially conservative people who have served the nation all their working lives, and who I am sure would be happy to spend their retirement in peace with their grandchildren, have felt that this country is in such a poor state that even they have to say something about it.
It is odd that the Utusan feels no need to delve into the murky past of other retirees who have something to say.
I am thinking of course of the noisiest Malaysian retiree in the world, the indestructible and seemingly immortal Dr M.
The longest-serving PM in the country (sometimes I wonder if he is still not serving as PM) has said that Malays are so politically impoverished that they have been reduced to begging from the Chinese to maintain their political power.
Of course I am not of the same ilk as Awang Selamat, so I will not be casting any aspersions on the good doctor’s character. I don’t know him at all. So I will just look at some facts.
Sixty per cent of Parliament is Malay; 63 per cent of the Cabinet is Malay; 60 per cent of the Deputy Ministers are Malay. We have always had a Malay Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister since independence. All the states except Penang have a Malay Chief Minister.
Is this clear grip on political power due to all these Malay men and women going on bended knee to the Chinese community for their favours and blessings?
It seems extremely unlikely, but I must admit that I don’t know. But then I am not as wise and knowledgeable as the great Mahathir.
He must have some secret power to see things that ordinary folk can’t. I wish I could find out what that super power is.
But unlike Utusan and the 25, I respect the old man’s privacy and I have no wish to investigate him.
Dr Azmi Sharom, Associate Professor of Law
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