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I remember clearly during my younger days, each time when the image of DSAI is flashed during primetime news, my father would quickly switched-off the TV and starts to curse the man for being ultra-Malay and anti-Chinese.
Now as I aged towards the half century mark, I fully understand the unhappiness of my father towards the BN led government of which DSAI was part of it. At that time the implementation of the NEP was at its peak: from education to the civil service and from business to religion. It was basically the beginning of the drumming up of the ketuanan Melayu mentality by Umno.
I have three grown-up children now who, like many other grown-ups, are beginning to have a good understanding of the country’s political scenario and start to question on the many political issues we are facing now.
One need not be a rocket scientist to see where this country is heading. I would not like to delve into and repeat the many issues and scandals which all of us are aware but seem not able to do much, except to make noise. Even the humble call of the people for fairness and justice has not only fallen on deaf ears, but responded with threats.
Instead, I would like to pen a few words on the man whom all true Malaysians are hoping can salvage this distressed country from doom.
My father is gone now and it is a pity that he is not able to see DSAI as a changed man. He has changed because he was forcibly pushed down from the top. He has changed because he was humiliated with untold miseries, from the court to prison. And he has changed because he now knows the evils of politics are tearing this country apart.
As the leader of Pakatan Rakyat, which controls five states, DSAI must be seen able to govern with integrity and dignity, by hook but never by crook.
For DSAI to be able to do so, he must get rid of three types of politicians:
1) The racist in the likes of Ahmad Ismail.
2) The evils in the likes of Khir Toyo.
3) The extremist in the likes of Zulkifli Nordin.
The road to Putrajaya for DSAI will not be a smooth one and there will certainly be many hurdles laid with intent to make him fall again. It is imperative for DSAI to tread with extreme caution for another fall will spell disaster for his political career.
With the build-up of people’s power, these hurdles can be removed as soon as it is laid so that the ascension of DSAI to Putrajaya can be hastened.
In the meantime, we will wait.
13 comments:
Changed man my foot, focking chameleon is more like it. Your father was right and is still right about this man.
Then let me re-quote Lee Kuan Yew:
Singaporean politician Lee Kuan Yew of the PAP, who publicly questioned the need for Article 153 in parliament, and called for a "Malaysian Malaysia".
In a speech, Lee Kuan Yew bemoaned what would later be described as the Malaysia social contract:
"According to history, malays began to migrate to Malaysia in noticeable numbers only about 700 years ago. Of the 39% malays in Malaysia today, about one-third are comparatively new immigrants like the secretary-general of Umno, Dato Syed Jaafar, who came to Malaya from Indonesia just before the war at the age of more than thirty. Therefore it is wrong and illogical for a particular racial group to think that they are more justified to be called Malaysians and that the others can become Malaysians only through their favour."
Eventually, and Singapore became an independent nation in 1965, with Lee Kuan Yew as its first prime minister.
Today my son asked me an embarrassing question: Dad, what is a bumi?
I was embarrassed and told him: A bumi is someone who is always right. He was puzzled and asked me candidly: But if he says that 2 + 2 = 6, he should be wrong, shouldn't he?
I told him from my working experience in Malaysia, my son when you are non-malay and Malaysian, you will have to agree for that and even worst with smile. If you dare to argue you will be gently destroyed and degraded in your human dignity.
Whatever is your social position, situation or grade, any bumi even from the remotest kampung, even a mentally disabled bumi will always be right.
And when I grow up what will happen? If you work in public service, you will work for them and see them being promoted and driving huge cars. If you work in private sector, you will have to let them warm their chairs and see them living in peace. As a senior staff, you will have to treat and applause complete arrogant idiots enjoying their mediocrity.
Then he asked, is there many bumi in the world? I told him that in South Africa 30 years ago and in Germany on the late 1930s there were some sorts of them. The last bumi are here.
I told him, do not worry son, you will not have to go through 2 + 2 = 6 always right losers, you will be Australian.
My uncle left Malaysia in the 1970s. He graduated from MIT and did his PhD in Yale on computer science. I dare say, that was when computer science era just starting.
He was a very patriotic man, a scout graduated from Royal Military College. He came back to Malaysia after his PhD to serve this country. Looked for a job in University Malaya. They told him point blank, we have openings, but it is only for bumi.
He left for greener pastures in United States. Has been a US citizen for a few decades now. He has contributed widely to the field of computer science and is still doing so.
He never forgave Malaysia for turning their backs to him. And I guess he never will.
Who wants to stay home and serve here where meritocracy gives way to racial preference? I am a two-time graduate in University Malaya (masters and bachelors degree) and I used to hope that my children could enter a local university someday.
But with sliding university ranking and invisible barriers to keep non-malay students away, I have changed my mind. If I have the opportunity and money avails itself, I will send my children to overseas universities and ask them to emigrate there. We can rot and die here, but not the children.
This brain drain is not a problem to Umno at all. In fact, Umno is happy to see more and more of our talents leaving. Their power base will then be more secure.
All this started with Dr Mahathir. He believed that a half competent malay was better than a fully competent non-malay to serve the nation. This is clearly reflected in the progressive exclusion of non-malays from teaching profession academia, public service and other areas in the public sector as well GLCs since the early 1980s.
During Dr Mahathir's ethnic cleansing of the Malaysia public service, thousands of qualified non-malays left the country for Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, etc. Such departure was view positively by Dr Mahathir - it meant that there were more positions available for malays. That short-term thinking has had dire consequences.
During the regional economic boom of 1990s, Malaysia prospered. There was plenty of money. Incompetence and corruption did not matter - a failure could always be rectified through bailout; high costs (e.g. Proton) could always be neutralised through subsidies (for export) or higher prices (for local consumption).
The scenario today is different. Competition is stiff. Newcomers such as Vietnam are breathing down our neck. Giants (India and China) have awakened and are marching unimpeded.
Malaysia needs to exploit all its resources to meet the global challenge. Ignoring 40% of its most valuable resource (e.g. human capital - Indians, Chinese and East Malaysians) is no way to meet the challenge.
Badawi needs to put in place a policy for exploiting the most valuable resource Malaysia has - its people, including the Indians, Chinese and others. Otherwise, this resource will move away to the competitors of Malaysia.
If deployed properly, the talents will be a source of competitive advantage. If not deployed appropriately, the talents will become a source of relative competitive disadvantage for Malaysia when they end up in other countries.
Majority of the non-malays work in multinational companies. With the rate our government and GLCs pissing off these MNCs! These MNCs are moving out of Malaysia.
Get real! Why majority of the non-malays don't work inside GLCs? What do you think they would do when these MNCs are gone? Work in GLCs or emigrate outside Malaysia?
Some of my friends are always skeptical of Singapore.
Of course, Singapore intention is to protect their own interests (isn't what a government is for) - talented people are very mobile nowadays. Singapore also encounters brain drain to the West (US, EU, Australia), so they need new talents to come in.
They prefer Malaysians, as there are cultural ties - easy to adapt to the environment (multiracialism, language, weather, etc), like their Mr Everest climbers.
But they also welcome white mans, Thais, Indians, and Hong Kong Chinese too etc. Just take a MRT ride or go to the housing estate - you see many foreigners (not the illegal immigrant type).
We have our own national interests and should protect it, but we have more outflow of talent than inflow. Just see how we treat the economist who had a different method of calculating the bumi ratio of the economy - how to attract talent?
Some of my Malaysian friends have been offered citizenship and a few have accepted……….so those talents not going back to Malaysia.
Singapore is following US policy, US still attracted the best brains from all over the world regardless of color, check out the composition of employment in term of nationality in Silicon Valley and Nasa, you will know why it succeed, America is land of immigrants.
Umno policy is that if Umno cannot have it no other Malaysian should have it. Umno prefers a Mat Salleh (because that is a temporary situation) to have it rather than any other non-Umno Malaysian to have it.
I have been advising my relatives and friends for a long time since years ago - to encourage their children to apply for a Singapore scholarship to attend a university in Singapore even it that means she/he has to serve Singapore for 10 years.
At least, that will provide him for the future. So what is 10 years! He is free to utilise his talent as he pleases after that 10 years. I have 3 nephews who got Singapore scholarships, then served the Singapore government and are now working and being successful in Hong Kong and America.
They are heads of multinational companies. They will never be allowed to succeed in Malaysia because there is identification of race with jobs. All jobs even slightly connected with the Umno government must have malay employees. That is the new NEP.
Dear Malaysians, I don't understand why the brains should not leave this country. The malays are definitely feel threaten by these brains, so we rather let them leave the country.
Malaysia pays peanuts and racially biased! That is why! Simple as that! Go to England, Australia and even the US hospitals and take a count of how many Malaysian born doctors are there, good doctors, man!
I traveled the world over and have lived in UK, Australia and the US. I have talked and met to these doctors. They not being unpatriotic, it is the Malaysia that is not doing the right thing!
I think Singapore should attack Malaysia and expand its territory to southern Johor. All the Indians and Chinese should migrate to southern Johor, and together with Singapore, forms a new Singapore.
Ex-Malaysians in exiles like myself will support this feasible plan. I am sure millions of overseas and mainland Chinese and Indians are excited about my suggestion.
When all the Muslim brothers from Uganda, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia etc etc, become bumis and enjoy the handout from NEP, there will be the day when the malays realize that they are being marginalize by its own Umno policy.
You can start counting the increasing numbers of Mamak in politics!
In Malaysia, we Malaysian Chinese just need to compete with fellow Malaysians only (where mostly lazy people). Easy to become rich - as we are governed by stupid and lazy people.
We can easily own several houses, luxury condos, own a bungalow at good location, as own and drive luxury cars in Malaysia.
In Singapore, not so easy, we have to compete with Singapore Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese, China Chinese and Taiwan Chinese. Not easy to become rich as Singapore government too smart.
Malaysia will continue to lose its talents not only to Singapore, and other countries but the Umno malays don't give a damn. Their thinking is so long as the malays benefit, the country can go to the pigs and dogs.
They hold the entrenched view that it is better for Malaysia to be another Zimbabwe or Nepal if being in the ranks of Singapore and Japan means malays losing out to the others.
Lim Keng Yaik said that Singapore was a small country, so it was easily to govern. In fact, it is not so. Because of its size, it lacks most of the factors of production that we learn in economics.
Land is scarce, and its domestic market is small. However, it recognises that what it has is its labours. No wonder that it is wooing all the brains from Malaysia, since Malaysia does not appreciate them.
Instead, Malaysia seems to be attracting the top criminals as shown by the sharp increase in crime rate. Malaysia with its oil, tin, rubber, oil palm etc, will forever not be able to beat a small country like Singapore because of its incompetent leaders and their cronies who are only interested in their own pockets.
Before the NEP, UM was one of the top universities in the world. After the NEP, it has become trash because it rejects the best minds. The only pro of NEP is if you are in Umno or a friend of theirs.
All the Singaporeans I have met were very nice to me and treat me like one of theirs. We are the same people and I am always in favour of reunification with Singapore.
The Chinese came to Malaya more than 1000 years ago, while the Indians came here almost 1030 years ago.
Kota Gelanggi and Lembah Bujang are proof of these early settlements.
I have suggested in the past that Chinese Malaysians should just gather their wealth and leave Malaysia and let malays them become backwards.
Singapore is desperately looking for skilled foreign workers due to dwindling birthrates. Many Indians are working over there. Seriously Chinese Malaysians should look into moving to Singapore.
I am sure China can make good use of the wealth of Chinese Malaysians. Is there any policy the China government have enacted to encourage overseas Chinese to come back and make China their home once again?
That will teach the Malaysians a lesson. Their economy will crumble and will put them back 50 years.
I am a 10th generation Chinese in Malaysia and my ancestors and I have known only Malaysia as our home.
And yet everyday, I hear malays calling me 'pendatang' and unpatriotic. I find this totally unacceptable because I am a law-abiding citizen who pays my taxes diligently. Citizens should not be treated differently based on race.
Similarly, if an ethnic Chinese student has performed well, he should be awarded scholarship just as an ethnic malay student who has performed equally well is awarded one. Is it too difficult to understand that not all Chinese are rich and not all malays are poor?
If a malay feels that he has the right to call me 'pendatang' and tell me to migrate because he feels his ancestors have been here long enough, by the same logic, I too have the same right to do that to him.
Orang Asli is the general name given to different groups of indigenous people of this land. Take the Negrito, for instance. They are definitely not the same as the malays. The languages of the Negrito and Senoi are related to the indigenous languages of Burma, Indochina and Thailand.
The only group of Orang Asli which shares similarities with those whom we know as the malays of today are the Proto-malays, who had arrived at this land much later than the Negrito and Senoi.
Those whom we know as malays today are Deutro-malays who arrived even later. Thus, malays are also outsiders who migrated to this land just like the non-malays. The only difference is the malays migrated earlier.
However, this sweeping statement that all malays and Orang Asli are one and the same cannot stand since only a minority of Orang Asli have become Muslims and there are even fewer who have fulfilled all three constitutional requirements.
True enough, Article 153 of the 1957 Federal Constitution does provide for the special position of malays, natives of Sabah and Sarawak, and other marginalised groups.
However, what this special position means is open for debate.
Some believe it merely meant socio-economic position, one that changes dynamically and hence can be renegotiated.
Further, pre-independence documents - the Cobbold Commission Report, the Federation of Malaya Constitutional Proposals and the Reid Commission Report - reveal that this position was meant to be temporary.
The "special right" of malays was therefore understood not as a God-given mark, but recognition of socio-economic status until such a time this could be elevated.
The most important asset of a country is not its natural resources, but rather its human resources. This is especially true in a knowledge-based economy, which of course, will be the trend in the future if not already the trend in most of the western countries.
My daughter, who is in her final year medicine in Auckland, told me that a team of Singapore recruitment officers have just visited Auckland and talked to the Malaysian students there, offering jobs and training prospects for the final year students once they graduate.
My daughter also told me that over the last few years, quite a lot of her Malaysian seniors, after graduating from medical courses in New Zealand, have gone to Singapore to work as house officers and subsequently stayed back in Singapore for their postgraduate training. Similar teams are sent to Australia and UK for recruiting Malaysians there to work in Singapore.
About a year ago, Reuters reported: "Malaysia is counting on bright, ambitious people like Tan Chye Ling for its future, to lead it away from manufacturing and into the knowledge age."
But the 32-year-old scientist, a postgraduate in molecular biology, is not counting on Malaysia to look after her future.
"I felt very suppressed in Malaysia," said Tan, who moved to neighbouring Singapore, the region's pacesetter for biotech investment, after a decade of research and study in Malaysia.
"I have benefited from the better research environment and salary scheme here. Things are much smoother," she said by phone from the National University of Singapore where she is studying allergies and dust mites. Tan estimates that 60 percent of the research teams she works with in Singapore are from Malaysia, despite her country's efforts over several years to develop a biotech industry.
There is a serious problem facing Malaysia and that is the problem of "brain drain". Why are Malaysians overseas not coming back to work? Well, pay may be part of the reasons but it is not the main reason.
Singapore recruitment teams offer Malaysian medical students a salary which is a few times what they would expect to get in Malaysia S$40000 a year for houseman after tax (equivalent to RM86000) which is about five times the pay of a houseman in Malaysia.
But as I say, pay is not the main problem. The living expense overseas is high. And for a person working overseas, the loneliness and the stress level is also high. So not everyone opts to work overseas because of the pay. Many would not mind to work for a lesser pay if they can stay near to their loved ones. So why do people choose to work overseas, away from their loved ones?
Malaysia has many research centres and state-of-the-arts hospitals, which may even be the envy of many overseas countries. But hardware alone would not attract these experts to come home.
In the medical field, I have so many classmates/friends working overseas, many in world-renowned centres. Why do they do that? Some of my classmates and friends did come back as specialists. After working a few years (many only lasted a few months), most got disillusioned and went off again.
There is really not much prospect of career advancement here. How many can hope to become a professor even when they are an acknowledged expert in their field? How many of them can blend into the local team where the work attitude is vastly different from that overseas? How many of them can have a say about how things are to be run? On the other hands, lesser beings are being promoted to professorship for doing much less.
There is an unwritten rule that even if the person is very good, the head of the team has to be someone from a certain ethnic group who may not be even half as good as him. In everyday life, some become disillusioned with the corruption, the red tape and the "tidak apa" attitude of officialdom.
For an overseas doctor applying to work back home, the application can take up to six months to get approved, whereas Singapore sends teams overseas to recruit them on the spot and offering them jobs immediately as long as they pass their final examinations. See the difference?
It is the sense of being appreciated and being wanted that make these people stay overseas. Back here, they are often made to feel that they are of a lower class. They do not feel appreciated and they do not feel wanted. That is the main reason.
For those with children, the education system further puts them off. Even school children can feel being discriminated against and one glaring example is the two system pre-university education.
All these make them pack their bags and off they go again, leaving behind their parents, perhaps their siblings, the friends they grew up together with and their favourite food that is often not available overseas. No one likes to be away from home but circumstances and a sense of being recognised for their worth make them go away. It is really sad.
Parents spend big sums of money on educating their children but the ones who benefit most are the Singaporeans, the Americans, the Australians, the British and so on.
As long as race politics is not done away with, this problem of "brain drain" will continue and Malaysia will always trail behind the advanced countries no matter how many Putrajaya and Twin Towers we build.
· The Malaysia Constitution has been amended some 690 times. The USA has been in existence for more than 200 years and their constitution was only amended 27 times.
· Because of the overwhelming power available to the executive, the judiciary has been corrupted and emasculated, the legislature has been reduced to a rubber stamp, the power of the Agung has been clipped.
· The legal system is a sad joke, serving only further the desires of the ruling group.
Thanks for all the comments.
So much has been said about the NEP and the ketuanan Melayu which are truly dividing the people.
A day will come when a Barack Obama of Malaysia will emerged to unite and change this country.
Do not blame the malays for they are not at fault. The culprit are those UMNO Malays.
Non bumi should pity and think of a way to help the malay brothers. Get rid of UMNO warlords and criminals.
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