YOURSAY | 'The Malays are not poor and helpless as Malay leaders persistently proclaim.'

Call me racist but Malays are in decline and it's our fault - Dr M

Quigonbond: It is sad that Tun M (Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad) has to perpetuate the notion that ‘Malays’ are poor, in need of aid, lazy, etc.

The 30 percent of Malays who voted for Pakatan Harapan didn’t just come from the middle-upper class. They come from poor communities as well, just like non-Malays from poor communities. All they want is some help to get them out of poverty.

That would be a big welcome compared to platitudes about race protection but nothing trickling down to them after 60 years.

It is the middle-upper-class Malays (read: BN politicians) who have had easy lives and are screaming for Malay special privileges.

Tun, if you really want to fix the problem, then focus on the poor and stop separating needs with race. You must also think of the 30 percent minorities, many of whom are also poor.

Bersatu also has to quit being a racist party and quit its agenda to dominate Harapan by dancing to race and religion protection rhetoric. It has levers of power now that can be used to recondition people’s thinking, based on need instead of race. Use these levers instead of constantly giving in to a corrosive mindset.

In the end, any bumiputera policy that only lets bumi compete among themselves is doomed to fail, so you might as well start with a clean slate and do the right thing by all Malaysians. Otherwise, Malaysians will see this as Bersatu repackaging Umno bumi policy to grease its own pockets.

Other Harapan parties must also not be afraid to speak up because if you don’t, then you are letting Bersatu set the tune and it will be your own fault if they wrestle the leadership position from you in Harapan, soon.

The window to act correctly is closing on this issue. We have this one chance to shift the paradigm while Harapan is seen as clean and relatively more progressive while Umno is in disarray and PAS has nothing to show on economic development, so that whatever painful prescriptions, the voters are still with Harapan.

Prudent: Not all the Malays are in decline. In the place where I live in Kuala Lumpur, the Malays have the best furnished and biggest houses and drive the biggest and flashiest late model cars. They are not in decline.

Of course, not all Malays are that rich and those who are poor need help but not handouts. So do the non-Malays who are really poor. So please go for affirmative action regardless of race.

And you can never justify special affirmative action for Malays alone. If you do that, you will be repeating what Umno did for 61 years and will very likely end up with the same result - unbridled kleptocracy.

1Citizen: First, they needed Umno to look after their interests. Now after more than 70 years, Umno has failed and they need a new Umno in the form of Bersatu.

If they keep electing the same or similar leaders, in less than 70 years, they will need another Umno/Bersatu.

Please don't blame the Malays; they are where they are because of their (Malay) leaders, who should take the blame.

Where are the men of principles? I would like to see Mahathir publicly admit that he has made mistakes too. That would be a good, honest start to Malaysia Baru. Oh, how I wish!

Db56f03b: I think the Malays, in general, have become much better off compared to 30 years ago. There is a distinct middle-class who are better educated.

Having said that, it also true that things should have been better. Two reasons. One is corruption - ergo, the incompetence and corrupt behaviour of the old government. Corruption eats away at our soul.

The other is extreme religious ideology. It doesn't help the efforts of nation- building if these fanatics think it is ‘haram’ to even shake the hands of people of a different faith. We could do without such wackos in the country.

You can take away the ‘tongkat’, but if the two evils continue to persist, the Malays and the nation can never move forward.

Fair Play: The ‘tongkat’ was designed to assist the majority community to compete on a level playing field in all departments of commerce and industry, education and personal development at some point in time in the future.

Sadly, perhaps by design more than by accident, the ‘tongkat’ has become a permanent fixture in the psyche of the majority community to hold them in rein. It is worse than being addicted to drugs because with drug addiction, you can give them the cold-turkey treatment.

And the political leaders of the majority community had inexplicably sealed the fate, and more importantly, the vision and direction of their community, by overplaying their role as nannies for too long.

Worse still, they made a few billionaires in the process, hoping these few would share their wealth with the rest. Now, who in his or her right mind would want to share their ‘hard-earned’ wealth with others in their community?

But I still wish both Mahathir and Bersatu president Muhyiddin Yassin well and success in their endeavour. I just hope it is not too late.

Monty: Mahathir and his party and government should take serious note of the many pertinent observations made by readers here. The Malays are not poor and helpless as Malay leaders persistently proclaim.

They have made significant economic and educational progress. And many own assets worth over millions of ringgit, far exceeding the average non-Malay, thanks mainly to Mahathir and the NEP.

Indeed, Malay politicians use the poor Malays and Islam as their argument for political gain. The question is how to deal with those Malays still requiring support and I humbly suggest that you lump these Malays with the poor Indians, Chinese and others who need help, and provide support to all of them equally.

And you will find these Malays working harder to compete with non-Malays. The Malays are not stupid. They can, and will, succeed given the right environment.

Abasir: They keep saying and doing the same thing over and over again while waiting for different results.

Give them Herschel backpacks to cater to their insatiable need for freebies; allow them to "lepas stim" by provoking others after Friday prayers; let them run riot periodically for imagined slights; allow them to feast on ‘ketuanan Melayu/Islam’ by jam-packing them into the civil service and government-linked companies (GLCs); create all-Malay universities so that they never learn to compete with others; always laud the greatness of Bahasa Melayu as the language of knowledge and the Quran as the only thing anyone needs to know; set up unlicensed/unregulated tahfiz hovels to facilitate practices that are best hidden; never address the scourge of incest/teenage pregnancies and abandoned wives; continually worry them about the threat posed by other races; keep citing fake statistics about Malay poverty when the purchase of luxury vehicles, houses and goods by Malays has gone through the roof; and yes... never fail to form all-Malay parties and communes where they can reinforce each other's phobias and remain where they are most comfortable and deluded.

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