Who owns Malaysia ?
The debate on Budget 2007 for the Entrepreneur & Cooperative Development Ministry in Parliament today turned chaotic when Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang questioned the accuracy of a figure given by Badruddin Amiruldin (BN-Jerai).
"At the (recently concluded) Umno general assembly, there was a mistake stating that the International Herald Tribute was based in the United Kingdom," said Lim chuckling.
The irritated Badruddin rebutted: "Ini negara kami (This is our country). (You are) samseng (thug) and kurang ajar (rough) ... This is Umno's business. You don't interfere."
Chow Kon Yeow (DAP - Tanjong) then joined the fray and said: "His statement is seditious. He should balik Indonesia (go back to Indonesia)."
Chong Eng (DAP - Bukit Mertajam) said she was afraid the Jerai MP may "run amok".
A shouting match between the backbenchers and Opposition MPs erupted, and Speaker Tan Sri Ramli Ngah Talib adjourned proceedings for lunch break at 1pm.
When the House reconvened at 2.30pm, Chong Eng asked Badruddin to withdraw "negara kami" as it had given the impression that the country belonged to Malays only.
Unfazed, Badruddin continued with his debate, upsetting Lim who retorted that Badruddin's statement had offended the non-Malays.
"You are so petty and narrow-minded. And I am a Malaysian," Lim shouted, adding that the Speaker should make a ruling whether the statement was appropriate.
Baharuddin explained that when he said 'negara kami', it includes all Malaysians. However, his clarification failed to pacify the opposition MPs.
Peace was only restored when Speaker Tan Sri Ramli Ngah Talib ruled that Badruddin had no intention to imply the country belonged to Malays only but to all Malaysians.
Malaysia Boleh!!
RM 50m heist,Nation's biggest robbery, gang hits warehouse in Penang !!
They made it look too easy. Dressed in Rela uniform but armed with drugs, 20 men yesterday pulled off the biggest robbery the country has ever known.
In an hour, they looted almost RM50 million of computer parts from under the noses of security at the Batu Maung Free Commercial Zone.
The robbers knocked out the workers at the Bax Global Logistics Sdn Bhd warehouse by forcing them to drink chloroform.
Then they hauled away 585 cartridges of microchips and computer parts in two lorries, leaving Malaysia Airlines security staff dazed. The zone is managed by MAS.
On the way out, the robbers attacked two Customs officers and a lorry driver at the checkpoint before ripping apart the alarm and snatching their cell phones.
A week before Hari Raya, airport authorities were alerted about an SMS claiming that a major heist would either occur at the KLIA or the Penang International Airport.
Airfreight Forwarders Association of Malaysia chairman Walter Culas said that when the SMS, by an anonymous sender, was forwarded to him last month, he notified the authorities.
“I don't understand how this heist could have happened when the airport authorities had been alerted,” he said yesterday.
He described the incident as the country's biggest airport heist and probably one of the largest ones in the world.
Culas said he had advised Bax Global Logistics to file a RM47mil claim against Malaysia Airlines for negligence and inefficiency.
Malaysian International Chamber of Commerce and Industry northern branch chairman Datuk Nazir Ariff said: “Police should also be transparent in their investigation because we don't want this heist to affect our efforts to attract foreign investors.”
Monday's multi-million-dollar robbery of microchips in northern Penang state, considered the country's biggest heist, would damage Malaysia's investment climate, freight forwarders have warned.
"It will create a negative image about Malaysia among investors. This is not the first time such a robbery has happened. It has been going on for the past 10 years," Walter Culas, chairman of the Airfreight Forwarders Association, told AFP.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi also expressed disappointment over lax security in the cargo complex in Batu Maung, near the Bayan Lepas International Airport, and urged police to nab the robbers quickly.
"Police have to determine if it was an inside job," he said.
An equally furious Penang chief minister Koh Tsu Koon expressed regret over the robbery.
"I am shocked this has happened. It is not only going to affect Penang's image but also jeopardise investor confidence in the state," he said.
Economic growth hit 7.2 percent in 2004 but slowed to 5.2 percent in 2005. Foreign investment also fell in 2005 to 3.97 billion dollars from 4.62 billion dollars the year before.
In previous incidents, robbers escaped with liquid crystal display monitors worth four million ringgit from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport cargo centre last October, while in February 2004 half a million ringgit worth of gold bonding wire was stolen from the same location.
Malaysia to continue affirmative action policy to uplift bumiputras
By Channel NewsAsia's Malaysia Correspondent, Melissa Goh
In 1970, Malaysia put in place an affirmative action-based policy with the aim of uplifting the economically disadvantaged bumiputra or ethnic and indigenous community.
Called the New Economic Policy (NEP), it has recently attracted heated debate in the country.
While many Malays want to keep it going, others, especially non-Malays are saying enough is enough.
In the first of this five-part series from Inside Malaysia, Channel NewsAsia examines the NEP's achievements so far, and how the policies have affected the lives of the country's multi-ethnic community.
The NEP was introduced in Malaysia following racial riots in 1969.
Nearly 200 people lost their lives, although the unofficial figure was said to be a lot higher.
The tragic events shook a nation that had gained independence just 12 years earlier.
Ramon Navaratnam, President of Transparency International Malaysia, said: "The damage done to the Malaysian psyche was very serious and people feared that we had not been sufficiently appreciative of the underlying currents."
As the former Secretary General, Mr Navaratnam was among those who helped to draft the NEP in 1970.
He says the Malays, who form a majority of the country's population, felt that they were being marginalised.
"At that time, the ownership of the economy and the income distribution were very severely skewed. Malays were the poorest. The question raised was - what's the use of political power when you don't have economic power?"
In contrast, the Chinese community was concentrated in urban areas and were primarily involved business.
The other minority group, the Indians, were largely in the rubber estates.
The affirmative action policies of the NEP were therefore aimed at correcting the socio-economic imbalances - to remove the correlation between race identity and economic functions.
Besides eradicating poverty, another objective was to raise the bumiputra corporate equity ownership to at least 30 percent by 1990.
But more than three decades on, the NEP targets have not been fully met.
The UMNO-led government says the 1997 financial crisis is to be blamed for severe losses to bumiputra investors. They also say there have been leakages and abuses in the system.
"A lot of these people did not keep what they have for investment and many sold it as soon as they got it. So it became 'easy come easy go'," Mr Navaratnam said.
The NEP was to have ended in 1990. But because of its limited success, the government decided to extend it.
However, it gave the assurance that it would not pursue the target at the expense of the non-Malays.
Najib Razak, Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, said: "We will endeavour to make the necessary correction over time but in the process of correcting, we will not be unfair to the other races or the other communities."
Still, Mr Navaratnam feels that such an affirmative action policy cannot continue indefinitely. "We must have a plan of phasing out the NEP; phasing out the subsidy mentality."
However, at the recently concluded UMNO general assembly, Prime Minister Abdullah promised that as long as there is economic disparity, the affirmative actions policy will continue.
He said the original 20-year timeframe was just too short for the bumiputras to play catch up with the other races.
Mediocre Followers Have Mediocre Leaders
BY M Bakri Musa
Prime Minister Abdullah’s inept leadership is only half the problem. Leaders do not exist in a vacuum; they are there because of their followers. Mediocre followers tolerate and thus encourage mediocre leaders.
The flip side to Abdullah’s incompetence is that it also reflects on the caliber of his followers. Abdullah’s most proximate followers are his ministers, followed by UMNO Supreme Council members, then UMNO members, and last, the citizens.
His ministers meet Abdullah at least once a week during their regular cabinet meetings. UMNO Supreme Council members get to counsel their President at least monthly. Ordinary party members get to voice their views through their chosen delegates once a year during their General Assembly. Lastly, voters get to pass their collective judgment every five years during general elections.
The leader-follower dynamics with Abdullah is less of “monkey see, monkey do,” more of a bunch of drunken sailors recklessly egging on their equally drunk bumbling skipper. When their ship ultimately plows onto a treacherous rock and destroys everything, it matters not who is at fault.
Followers’ Feedback
The finesse, effectiveness, and consequences of the feedback vary with the various levels of followers. The citizens’ (at least the voters) weapon is the ultimate. While it is the most effective and consequential, it is also very crude. Their decision is simple: keep or reject. There is little subtlety or nuances, as President Bush and his cohorts in the Republican Party found out much to their chagrin recently.
Equally effective but much less crude and therefore potentially more beneficial would be the voices of party members. Former Prime Minister Thatcher was rudely reminded of this reality not too long ago when she was unceremoniously booted out even though she had successfully led her party to three successive electoral victories. Today, Labor Party member are none too subtly reminding Prime Minister Blair that he is fast overstaying his welcome. Like Thatcher, Blair too successfully led his party through three elections. If party members neglect or shy away from their responsibility, rest assured that voters would be more than willing to send the rude message a la Bush.
UMNO members have at least two avenues to register their sentiments about their leader: through their delegates to the General Assembly, and through their Supreme Council members.
The recently concluded UMNO General Assembly, like recent ones, was nothing more than bodek sessions, undisguised orgy of adulation for the leader, funded by ill-gotten “money politics” or even the state treasury. Gone are the days when even the most revered UMNO leaders were routinely challenged. We yearn for the era when one brave Sulaiman Palestin would consistently put his name on the ballot to challenge the exalted party president of the day. Where have the singa (lions) that would have roared into the leaders’ ears gone? Where are the halia (ginger) that would at least give a pungent taste to the leaders’ greedy bite?
If the delegates have failed, well, they can be readily excused. After all they are not the party’s top leaders or its cream. UMNO still has its Majlis Tertinggi (Supreme Council), the party’s elite, men and women who are professionals and party veterans. These individuals have gone round the block once or twice. Surely it would be tough to pass wool over their collective eyes.
This particular Supreme Council was constituted since the last leadership conference over a year ago. Meaning, they have had over a dozen meetings with the party president. Surely there must have been at least one courageous soul on at least one brave occasion who dared tell the party president that he is donning a bark loincloth and not sarong pelakat (cheap cotton wrap), much less samping sutra (silk cummerbund) as the man fancies himself wearing. Perhaps they have collectively deluded themselves that their obviously near-naked emperor is immaculately attired.
It could very well be that members of the Majlis Tertinggi, or MT, have gone the way of the membership. Or as one blogger put it, gone “empty,” to match its initials. In UMNO, instead of the cream rising to the top as in cheese making, it is the crud and debris that have risen to the top, as with dirty laundry in a washing machine.
If party members and leaders have failed to apprise Abdullah of his mediocre performance, then surely there are his ministers who meet him regularly and who could perform that necessary chore, either gently or not so gently. After all it is the future of the nation, not that of any individual. The stakes are high and responsibility awesome.
In the best parliamentary tradition, ministers have been known to resign to express their disagreement or displeasure with the prime minister, as the late Robin Cook did to Tony Blair, and Paul O’Neill to Bush. The stature of those ministers soared following their resignation.
The fact that none of Abdullah’s ministers have resigned in protest means only one thing: they interpret Abdullah’s incompetence as otherwise. Meaning, those ministers are equally incompetent.
Blindly Carrying Water
Prime Minister Abdullah has boldly declared his intention not only to continue but also to serve a second and probably even a third term. Such presumption! Obviously his followers, from his cabinet ministers to Supreme Council and ordinary UMNO members, have been his enablers in feeding his delusion that he has been doing a swell job.
Abdullah saw fit to warn his followers “not to test him!” Obviously this Imam, undoubtedly encouraged by his enablers, has also successfully deluded himself into believing that he is divinely destined to lead the nation. Do not challenge Allah’s wish, he seems to imply!
That leaves only one set of follower to pass their collective judgment on him: the voters. If in their collective wisdom Malaysians renew Abdullah’s mandate, then the aphorism that people deserve their leaders would have been proven true again.
As the citizens’ weapon is crude and consequential, its effects could not be readily predictable. When British voters booted out the old Labor Party and put in Thatcher’s Conservative government, that event transformed Britain, for the better.
When Malaysian voters decided to teach the old Alliance government a lesson in the 1969 elections, the results were devastating to the nation. Following the debacle, there were strong voices within UMNO castigating the leadership, but that was after the event. Had those brave souls delivered their message earlier, the leaders might have been persuaded to change their ways and the nation would have been spared that horrible tragedy.
People have a way of expressing their sentiments, with or without elections. When the Iranians were fed up with their Shah, they used their ultimate weapon: they got rid of him. The uppermost question on their mind was on getting rid of him, not on the consequences of that decision. Thus they paid no heed on who would succeed him or the ensuing policy shifts. Today, the Iranians are still paying the price. That is what happens when you wield the ultimate weapon; you cannot always predict the consequences.
Had the Shah’s advisors, ministers, and other proximate followers counseled him earlier when he could still mend his ways, his fate and theirs, as well as those of the Iranian people, would have been far different.
Abdullah saw fit to characterize those who criticize him as engaging in fitnah, a Quranic reference meaning betraying the faith. It would not be the first or the last time for a politician to seek refuge in religion. Abdullah should instead heed the beautiful verse in the Quran to the effect that when you see a wrong being perpetrated, you should use your hand to stop it. Failing that, then you use your tongue, meaning voice your disapproval. At the very least you should disapprove of it in your heart, knowing fully well that Allah is least pleased with this option.
I may not convince Abdullah or his supporters through my fingers at keyboard, at least I have done my part in registering my disapproval.
There are consequences to the followers’ inaction and remaining silent, or worse, in praising a mediocre and incompetent performance. Abdullah’s ministers and those in UMNO Supreme Council may rationalize their support for him on grounds of “personal and party loyalty,” “not rocking the boat,” “working within the system,” or plain selfish attempts at clinging to power and position. Regardless, the effects are the same.
When you blindly carry water behind your bumbling leader, you will be wet whenever he stumbles. Worse, you may even end up drowning in your own pail.
Abdullah’s ministers, Supreme Council members, and UMNO delegates ought to be reminded of this stark reality.
Malay Nationalism and Post-Industrial Tribalism
(Lim Kit Siang Sharing Azly’s “Illuminations” on his blog)
ILLUMINATIONS
Umno Perlis delegate Hashim Suboh was quoted in a New Straits Times report yesterday as saying at the end of the debate on economy and education issues that “Datuk Hisham has unsheathed his keris, waved his keris, kissed his keris. We want to ask Datuk Hisham when is he going to use it?” … The Perlis delegate made the remark while saying “force must be used against those who refused to abide by the social contract” in relation to Hishammuddin’s alleged weakness in dealing with demands from the Chinese schools. —- Malaysiakini report, November 18, 2006
That delegate’s remark is an embarrassment to the peace-loving people of Perlis, let alone represent what the Malay is, intellectually. The Malays of Perlis elect their representative not to misrepresent them with a false image of myopia and paranoia, or amuk and latah. It shows how ill-prepared one is in dealing with sensitive issues. It is telling the people of Perlis that they need better leaders with better command of the vocabulary of peace and better understanding of what ‘social contract’ means. A close reading of the Enlightenment thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau would help the delegate write sensible speeches.
This bring us to the following questions:
What is a Malay? What is a Malaysian? What is a nationalist? What is a ‘nation’? How are we becoming “re-tribalized” in this world of increasing restlessness over a range of issues that are not being resolved by the current regime. These are burning questions as we become more mature in discussing race relations in Malaysia – almost 40 years after the incident of May 13, 1969.
Ernest Renan, Anthony Smith, Benedict Anderson, Harry Benda, and John Funston – major scholars of nationalism—would agree that UMNO does not have an ideology except to sustain its elusive political superiority via the production of post-industrial materials and human beings.
Even the word “National Front” (Barisan Nasional) is elusive. It is surviving as long as means to cling on to power – by all means necessary – becomes more efficient and sophisticated. Its survival lies in the way people are divided, conquered, and mutated into ‘post-industrial tribes’; market-segmented-differentiatedly-sophisticated enclaves that are produced out of the need for the free market economy to transform Malays and Malaysians into consumers of useless goods and ideology.
Post-industrial tribalism is a natural social reproduction of the power of the media to shape consciousness, and to create newer forms of consumerist human beings. Nationalism, including Malay nationalism of the Mahathirst era, is an artificial construct that needs the power of “othering” and “production of enemies” and “boogeymen and boogeywomen” for ideological sustainability.
But what is “nationalism” and does “Malay nationalism” actually exist in this century? Does the idea of ‘natio’ or “nation” or “a people” survives merely on linguistic, territorial, religious homogeneity when these are also subject to the sociological interrogations of subjectivity and relativity?
Nationalism is a psychological and cultural construct useful and effective when deployed under certain economic conditions. It is now ineffective as a tool of mass mobilization when nations have gained “independence” from the colonizers and when the “enemy” is no longer visible. All that exist in this post-industrial, globalized, borderless, and mediated age of cybernetic capitalism is the idea of “post-industrial tribes” that live and thrive on chaos and complexity and on materials and goods produced by local and international capitalists.
Revise the old formula
We are in the 21st. century. About three years from now, we will arrive at the year 2010. The non-Malays and non-Bumiputras have come a long way into being accepted as full-fledged Malaysians, by virtue of the ethics, rights and responsibilities of citizenship. They ought to be given equal opportunity in the name of social justice, racial tolerance, and the alleviation of poverty.
Bright and hard-working Malaysians regardless of racial origin who now call themselves Malaysians must be given all the opportunities that have been given to Malays since forty years back.
Islam and other religions require this form of social justice to be applied to the lives of human beings. Islam does not discriminate one on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, creed, nor national origin. It is race-based politics, borne out of the elusiveness of nationalism, that creates post-industrial tribalistic leaders; leaders that will design post-industrial tribalistic policies. It is the philosophy of greed, facilitated by free enterprise runamuck that will evolvingly force leaders of each race to threaten each other over the control of the economic pie.
The claim of ‘civilizational Islam’ or “Islam Hadhari” must be backed with a philosophy of development that restructure society no longer on the basis of newer forms of post-industrial tribalism that accords the political elites with the best opportunity to amass more wealth, but to redesign the economic system based on an efficient and sound socialistic economic system. It might even require political will to curb human enthusiasm of acquiring more and more of the things they do not need. In short, it should curb temptations to out-consume each other in the name of greed.
To be civilized means to wake up to the possibilities of humanism and not to be plunged into a world of more sophisticated racism. The universal principle of humanism requires the privileged few to re-examine the policies of national development that prioritize the creation of more real estate projects than the construction of programs that meets basic needs of all races and classes of peoples. To civilize a nation means to de-tribalize the citizens into a polity that will learn to share the wealth of this nation by accepting this land as the “earth of mankind” (bumi manusia) rather that a land belonging to this or that race.
In a multi-racial multi-religious country such as Malaysia, nationalism is a complex yet withering concept. In a globalized world of globally- and government-linked companies this concept of “fatherland” or “motherland” is a powerful weapon of the wealthy to mount arguments that hide the real intention of empire-building. The lifestyle of the country’s rich and famous require nationalist sentiments to be played up so that the more the rights are “protected” the more the political-economically rich few will have their sustained control over the people, territories, natural resources, and information.
This, I think is the picture of post-industrial tribalism we are seeing as a mutation of the development, appropriation, and imitation of the Malay feudalistic mentality. The clear and present danger in our post-industrial tribalistic world lies in old formula we are wrongly using.
The essential question now is – as a ‘Malaysian nation’/Bangsa Malaysia haven’t we agreed upon a common history and a common destiny?
Malaysian politics has been seized by fears of racial and religious violence after some fiery speeches at a meeting of the nation's pro-Muslim ruling party.
n May 1969, hundreds of people were killed in race riots that many people in political power today, including the premier, believe could happen again if tensions get out of control.
Malaysia Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Tun Mahathir IT heist Asia racial violence
"At the (recently concluded) Umno general assembly, there was a mistake stating that the International Herald Tribute was based in the United Kingdom," said Lim chuckling.
The irritated Badruddin rebutted: "Ini negara kami (This is our country). (You are) samseng (thug) and kurang ajar (rough) ... This is Umno's business. You don't interfere."
Chow Kon Yeow (DAP - Tanjong) then joined the fray and said: "His statement is seditious. He should balik Indonesia (go back to Indonesia)."
Chong Eng (DAP - Bukit Mertajam) said she was afraid the Jerai MP may "run amok".
A shouting match between the backbenchers and Opposition MPs erupted, and Speaker Tan Sri Ramli Ngah Talib adjourned proceedings for lunch break at 1pm.
When the House reconvened at 2.30pm, Chong Eng asked Badruddin to withdraw "negara kami" as it had given the impression that the country belonged to Malays only.
Unfazed, Badruddin continued with his debate, upsetting Lim who retorted that Badruddin's statement had offended the non-Malays.
"You are so petty and narrow-minded. And I am a Malaysian," Lim shouted, adding that the Speaker should make a ruling whether the statement was appropriate.
Baharuddin explained that when he said 'negara kami', it includes all Malaysians. However, his clarification failed to pacify the opposition MPs.
Peace was only restored when Speaker Tan Sri Ramli Ngah Talib ruled that Badruddin had no intention to imply the country belonged to Malays only but to all Malaysians.
Malaysia Boleh!!
RM 50m heist,Nation's biggest robbery, gang hits warehouse in Penang !!
They made it look too easy. Dressed in Rela uniform but armed with drugs, 20 men yesterday pulled off the biggest robbery the country has ever known.
In an hour, they looted almost RM50 million of computer parts from under the noses of security at the Batu Maung Free Commercial Zone.
The robbers knocked out the workers at the Bax Global Logistics Sdn Bhd warehouse by forcing them to drink chloroform.
Then they hauled away 585 cartridges of microchips and computer parts in two lorries, leaving Malaysia Airlines security staff dazed. The zone is managed by MAS.
On the way out, the robbers attacked two Customs officers and a lorry driver at the checkpoint before ripping apart the alarm and snatching their cell phones.
A week before Hari Raya, airport authorities were alerted about an SMS claiming that a major heist would either occur at the KLIA or the Penang International Airport.
Airfreight Forwarders Association of Malaysia chairman Walter Culas said that when the SMS, by an anonymous sender, was forwarded to him last month, he notified the authorities.
“I don't understand how this heist could have happened when the airport authorities had been alerted,” he said yesterday.
He described the incident as the country's biggest airport heist and probably one of the largest ones in the world.
Culas said he had advised Bax Global Logistics to file a RM47mil claim against Malaysia Airlines for negligence and inefficiency.
Malaysian International Chamber of Commerce and Industry northern branch chairman Datuk Nazir Ariff said: “Police should also be transparent in their investigation because we don't want this heist to affect our efforts to attract foreign investors.”
Monday's multi-million-dollar robbery of microchips in northern Penang state, considered the country's biggest heist, would damage Malaysia's investment climate, freight forwarders have warned.
"It will create a negative image about Malaysia among investors. This is not the first time such a robbery has happened. It has been going on for the past 10 years," Walter Culas, chairman of the Airfreight Forwarders Association, told AFP.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi also expressed disappointment over lax security in the cargo complex in Batu Maung, near the Bayan Lepas International Airport, and urged police to nab the robbers quickly.
"Police have to determine if it was an inside job," he said.
An equally furious Penang chief minister Koh Tsu Koon expressed regret over the robbery.
"I am shocked this has happened. It is not only going to affect Penang's image but also jeopardise investor confidence in the state," he said.
Economic growth hit 7.2 percent in 2004 but slowed to 5.2 percent in 2005. Foreign investment also fell in 2005 to 3.97 billion dollars from 4.62 billion dollars the year before.
In previous incidents, robbers escaped with liquid crystal display monitors worth four million ringgit from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport cargo centre last October, while in February 2004 half a million ringgit worth of gold bonding wire was stolen from the same location.
**********
Malaysia to continue affirmative action policy to uplift bumiputras
By Channel NewsAsia's Malaysia Correspondent, Melissa Goh
In 1970, Malaysia put in place an affirmative action-based policy with the aim of uplifting the economically disadvantaged bumiputra or ethnic and indigenous community.
Called the New Economic Policy (NEP), it has recently attracted heated debate in the country.
While many Malays want to keep it going, others, especially non-Malays are saying enough is enough.
In the first of this five-part series from Inside Malaysia, Channel NewsAsia examines the NEP's achievements so far, and how the policies have affected the lives of the country's multi-ethnic community.
The NEP was introduced in Malaysia following racial riots in 1969.
Nearly 200 people lost their lives, although the unofficial figure was said to be a lot higher.
The tragic events shook a nation that had gained independence just 12 years earlier.
Ramon Navaratnam, President of Transparency International Malaysia, said: "The damage done to the Malaysian psyche was very serious and people feared that we had not been sufficiently appreciative of the underlying currents."
As the former Secretary General, Mr Navaratnam was among those who helped to draft the NEP in 1970.
He says the Malays, who form a majority of the country's population, felt that they were being marginalised.
"At that time, the ownership of the economy and the income distribution were very severely skewed. Malays were the poorest. The question raised was - what's the use of political power when you don't have economic power?"
In contrast, the Chinese community was concentrated in urban areas and were primarily involved business.
The other minority group, the Indians, were largely in the rubber estates.
The affirmative action policies of the NEP were therefore aimed at correcting the socio-economic imbalances - to remove the correlation between race identity and economic functions.
Besides eradicating poverty, another objective was to raise the bumiputra corporate equity ownership to at least 30 percent by 1990.
But more than three decades on, the NEP targets have not been fully met.
The UMNO-led government says the 1997 financial crisis is to be blamed for severe losses to bumiputra investors. They also say there have been leakages and abuses in the system.
"A lot of these people did not keep what they have for investment and many sold it as soon as they got it. So it became 'easy come easy go'," Mr Navaratnam said.
The NEP was to have ended in 1990. But because of its limited success, the government decided to extend it.
However, it gave the assurance that it would not pursue the target at the expense of the non-Malays.
Najib Razak, Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, said: "We will endeavour to make the necessary correction over time but in the process of correcting, we will not be unfair to the other races or the other communities."
Still, Mr Navaratnam feels that such an affirmative action policy cannot continue indefinitely. "We must have a plan of phasing out the NEP; phasing out the subsidy mentality."
However, at the recently concluded UMNO general assembly, Prime Minister Abdullah promised that as long as there is economic disparity, the affirmative actions policy will continue.
He said the original 20-year timeframe was just too short for the bumiputras to play catch up with the other races.
**********
Mediocre Followers Have Mediocre Leaders
BY M Bakri Musa
Prime Minister Abdullah’s inept leadership is only half the problem. Leaders do not exist in a vacuum; they are there because of their followers. Mediocre followers tolerate and thus encourage mediocre leaders.
The flip side to Abdullah’s incompetence is that it also reflects on the caliber of his followers. Abdullah’s most proximate followers are his ministers, followed by UMNO Supreme Council members, then UMNO members, and last, the citizens.
His ministers meet Abdullah at least once a week during their regular cabinet meetings. UMNO Supreme Council members get to counsel their President at least monthly. Ordinary party members get to voice their views through their chosen delegates once a year during their General Assembly. Lastly, voters get to pass their collective judgment every five years during general elections.
The leader-follower dynamics with Abdullah is less of “monkey see, monkey do,” more of a bunch of drunken sailors recklessly egging on their equally drunk bumbling skipper. When their ship ultimately plows onto a treacherous rock and destroys everything, it matters not who is at fault.
Followers’ Feedback
The finesse, effectiveness, and consequences of the feedback vary with the various levels of followers. The citizens’ (at least the voters) weapon is the ultimate. While it is the most effective and consequential, it is also very crude. Their decision is simple: keep or reject. There is little subtlety or nuances, as President Bush and his cohorts in the Republican Party found out much to their chagrin recently.
Equally effective but much less crude and therefore potentially more beneficial would be the voices of party members. Former Prime Minister Thatcher was rudely reminded of this reality not too long ago when she was unceremoniously booted out even though she had successfully led her party to three successive electoral victories. Today, Labor Party member are none too subtly reminding Prime Minister Blair that he is fast overstaying his welcome. Like Thatcher, Blair too successfully led his party through three elections. If party members neglect or shy away from their responsibility, rest assured that voters would be more than willing to send the rude message a la Bush.
UMNO members have at least two avenues to register their sentiments about their leader: through their delegates to the General Assembly, and through their Supreme Council members.
The recently concluded UMNO General Assembly, like recent ones, was nothing more than bodek sessions, undisguised orgy of adulation for the leader, funded by ill-gotten “money politics” or even the state treasury. Gone are the days when even the most revered UMNO leaders were routinely challenged. We yearn for the era when one brave Sulaiman Palestin would consistently put his name on the ballot to challenge the exalted party president of the day. Where have the singa (lions) that would have roared into the leaders’ ears gone? Where are the halia (ginger) that would at least give a pungent taste to the leaders’ greedy bite?
If the delegates have failed, well, they can be readily excused. After all they are not the party’s top leaders or its cream. UMNO still has its Majlis Tertinggi (Supreme Council), the party’s elite, men and women who are professionals and party veterans. These individuals have gone round the block once or twice. Surely it would be tough to pass wool over their collective eyes.
This particular Supreme Council was constituted since the last leadership conference over a year ago. Meaning, they have had over a dozen meetings with the party president. Surely there must have been at least one courageous soul on at least one brave occasion who dared tell the party president that he is donning a bark loincloth and not sarong pelakat (cheap cotton wrap), much less samping sutra (silk cummerbund) as the man fancies himself wearing. Perhaps they have collectively deluded themselves that their obviously near-naked emperor is immaculately attired.
It could very well be that members of the Majlis Tertinggi, or MT, have gone the way of the membership. Or as one blogger put it, gone “empty,” to match its initials. In UMNO, instead of the cream rising to the top as in cheese making, it is the crud and debris that have risen to the top, as with dirty laundry in a washing machine.
If party members and leaders have failed to apprise Abdullah of his mediocre performance, then surely there are his ministers who meet him regularly and who could perform that necessary chore, either gently or not so gently. After all it is the future of the nation, not that of any individual. The stakes are high and responsibility awesome.
In the best parliamentary tradition, ministers have been known to resign to express their disagreement or displeasure with the prime minister, as the late Robin Cook did to Tony Blair, and Paul O’Neill to Bush. The stature of those ministers soared following their resignation.
The fact that none of Abdullah’s ministers have resigned in protest means only one thing: they interpret Abdullah’s incompetence as otherwise. Meaning, those ministers are equally incompetent.
Blindly Carrying Water
Prime Minister Abdullah has boldly declared his intention not only to continue but also to serve a second and probably even a third term. Such presumption! Obviously his followers, from his cabinet ministers to Supreme Council and ordinary UMNO members, have been his enablers in feeding his delusion that he has been doing a swell job.
Abdullah saw fit to warn his followers “not to test him!” Obviously this Imam, undoubtedly encouraged by his enablers, has also successfully deluded himself into believing that he is divinely destined to lead the nation. Do not challenge Allah’s wish, he seems to imply!
That leaves only one set of follower to pass their collective judgment on him: the voters. If in their collective wisdom Malaysians renew Abdullah’s mandate, then the aphorism that people deserve their leaders would have been proven true again.
As the citizens’ weapon is crude and consequential, its effects could not be readily predictable. When British voters booted out the old Labor Party and put in Thatcher’s Conservative government, that event transformed Britain, for the better.
When Malaysian voters decided to teach the old Alliance government a lesson in the 1969 elections, the results were devastating to the nation. Following the debacle, there were strong voices within UMNO castigating the leadership, but that was after the event. Had those brave souls delivered their message earlier, the leaders might have been persuaded to change their ways and the nation would have been spared that horrible tragedy.
People have a way of expressing their sentiments, with or without elections. When the Iranians were fed up with their Shah, they used their ultimate weapon: they got rid of him. The uppermost question on their mind was on getting rid of him, not on the consequences of that decision. Thus they paid no heed on who would succeed him or the ensuing policy shifts. Today, the Iranians are still paying the price. That is what happens when you wield the ultimate weapon; you cannot always predict the consequences.
Had the Shah’s advisors, ministers, and other proximate followers counseled him earlier when he could still mend his ways, his fate and theirs, as well as those of the Iranian people, would have been far different.
Abdullah saw fit to characterize those who criticize him as engaging in fitnah, a Quranic reference meaning betraying the faith. It would not be the first or the last time for a politician to seek refuge in religion. Abdullah should instead heed the beautiful verse in the Quran to the effect that when you see a wrong being perpetrated, you should use your hand to stop it. Failing that, then you use your tongue, meaning voice your disapproval. At the very least you should disapprove of it in your heart, knowing fully well that Allah is least pleased with this option.
I may not convince Abdullah or his supporters through my fingers at keyboard, at least I have done my part in registering my disapproval.
There are consequences to the followers’ inaction and remaining silent, or worse, in praising a mediocre and incompetent performance. Abdullah’s ministers and those in UMNO Supreme Council may rationalize their support for him on grounds of “personal and party loyalty,” “not rocking the boat,” “working within the system,” or plain selfish attempts at clinging to power and position. Regardless, the effects are the same.
When you blindly carry water behind your bumbling leader, you will be wet whenever he stumbles. Worse, you may even end up drowning in your own pail.
Abdullah’s ministers, Supreme Council members, and UMNO delegates ought to be reminded of this stark reality.
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Malay Nationalism and Post-Industrial Tribalism
(Lim Kit Siang Sharing Azly’s “Illuminations” on his blog)
ILLUMINATIONS
Umno Perlis delegate Hashim Suboh was quoted in a New Straits Times report yesterday as saying at the end of the debate on economy and education issues that “Datuk Hisham has unsheathed his keris, waved his keris, kissed his keris. We want to ask Datuk Hisham when is he going to use it?” … The Perlis delegate made the remark while saying “force must be used against those who refused to abide by the social contract” in relation to Hishammuddin’s alleged weakness in dealing with demands from the Chinese schools. —- Malaysiakini report, November 18, 2006
That delegate’s remark is an embarrassment to the peace-loving people of Perlis, let alone represent what the Malay is, intellectually. The Malays of Perlis elect their representative not to misrepresent them with a false image of myopia and paranoia, or amuk and latah. It shows how ill-prepared one is in dealing with sensitive issues. It is telling the people of Perlis that they need better leaders with better command of the vocabulary of peace and better understanding of what ‘social contract’ means. A close reading of the Enlightenment thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau would help the delegate write sensible speeches.
This bring us to the following questions:
What is a Malay? What is a Malaysian? What is a nationalist? What is a ‘nation’? How are we becoming “re-tribalized” in this world of increasing restlessness over a range of issues that are not being resolved by the current regime. These are burning questions as we become more mature in discussing race relations in Malaysia – almost 40 years after the incident of May 13, 1969.
Ernest Renan, Anthony Smith, Benedict Anderson, Harry Benda, and John Funston – major scholars of nationalism—would agree that UMNO does not have an ideology except to sustain its elusive political superiority via the production of post-industrial materials and human beings.
Even the word “National Front” (Barisan Nasional) is elusive. It is surviving as long as means to cling on to power – by all means necessary – becomes more efficient and sophisticated. Its survival lies in the way people are divided, conquered, and mutated into ‘post-industrial tribes’; market-segmented-differentiatedly-sophisticated enclaves that are produced out of the need for the free market economy to transform Malays and Malaysians into consumers of useless goods and ideology.
Post-industrial tribalism is a natural social reproduction of the power of the media to shape consciousness, and to create newer forms of consumerist human beings. Nationalism, including Malay nationalism of the Mahathirst era, is an artificial construct that needs the power of “othering” and “production of enemies” and “boogeymen and boogeywomen” for ideological sustainability.
But what is “nationalism” and does “Malay nationalism” actually exist in this century? Does the idea of ‘natio’ or “nation” or “a people” survives merely on linguistic, territorial, religious homogeneity when these are also subject to the sociological interrogations of subjectivity and relativity?
Nationalism is a psychological and cultural construct useful and effective when deployed under certain economic conditions. It is now ineffective as a tool of mass mobilization when nations have gained “independence” from the colonizers and when the “enemy” is no longer visible. All that exist in this post-industrial, globalized, borderless, and mediated age of cybernetic capitalism is the idea of “post-industrial tribes” that live and thrive on chaos and complexity and on materials and goods produced by local and international capitalists.
Revise the old formula
We are in the 21st. century. About three years from now, we will arrive at the year 2010. The non-Malays and non-Bumiputras have come a long way into being accepted as full-fledged Malaysians, by virtue of the ethics, rights and responsibilities of citizenship. They ought to be given equal opportunity in the name of social justice, racial tolerance, and the alleviation of poverty.
Bright and hard-working Malaysians regardless of racial origin who now call themselves Malaysians must be given all the opportunities that have been given to Malays since forty years back.
Islam and other religions require this form of social justice to be applied to the lives of human beings. Islam does not discriminate one on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, creed, nor national origin. It is race-based politics, borne out of the elusiveness of nationalism, that creates post-industrial tribalistic leaders; leaders that will design post-industrial tribalistic policies. It is the philosophy of greed, facilitated by free enterprise runamuck that will evolvingly force leaders of each race to threaten each other over the control of the economic pie.
The claim of ‘civilizational Islam’ or “Islam Hadhari” must be backed with a philosophy of development that restructure society no longer on the basis of newer forms of post-industrial tribalism that accords the political elites with the best opportunity to amass more wealth, but to redesign the economic system based on an efficient and sound socialistic economic system. It might even require political will to curb human enthusiasm of acquiring more and more of the things they do not need. In short, it should curb temptations to out-consume each other in the name of greed.
To be civilized means to wake up to the possibilities of humanism and not to be plunged into a world of more sophisticated racism. The universal principle of humanism requires the privileged few to re-examine the policies of national development that prioritize the creation of more real estate projects than the construction of programs that meets basic needs of all races and classes of peoples. To civilize a nation means to de-tribalize the citizens into a polity that will learn to share the wealth of this nation by accepting this land as the “earth of mankind” (bumi manusia) rather that a land belonging to this or that race.
In a multi-racial multi-religious country such as Malaysia, nationalism is a complex yet withering concept. In a globalized world of globally- and government-linked companies this concept of “fatherland” or “motherland” is a powerful weapon of the wealthy to mount arguments that hide the real intention of empire-building. The lifestyle of the country’s rich and famous require nationalist sentiments to be played up so that the more the rights are “protected” the more the political-economically rich few will have their sustained control over the people, territories, natural resources, and information.
This, I think is the picture of post-industrial tribalism we are seeing as a mutation of the development, appropriation, and imitation of the Malay feudalistic mentality. The clear and present danger in our post-industrial tribalistic world lies in old formula we are wrongly using.
The essential question now is – as a ‘Malaysian nation’/Bangsa Malaysia haven’t we agreed upon a common history and a common destiny?
**********
ANALYSIS - Fears of racial violence stalk Malaysian politics
Malaysian politics has been seized by fears of racial and religious violence after some fiery speeches at a meeting of the nation's pro-Muslim ruling party.
Some delegates at last week's meeting shocked Malaysia's non-Muslims with a call to sever the heads of non-believers and veiled talk of using a knife on the party's political opponents.
"There were even exhortations to violence," the Sun newspaper said in a commentary on the meeting of the main ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO).
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi disowned such sentiments in his speech to the meeting, but political analysts described the rhetoric as extraordinary, even for a party known for its occasional outbursts of Malay or Muslim chauvinism.
"Despite earlier warnings against racial slants in their speeches, racist remarks were made and the Chinese seemed to be openly identified as the target of some delegates' anger," wrote the Sun's veteran political writer, Zainon Ahmad.
Malaysia's politically dominant ethnic Malays, who make up a slim majority of the population and are overwhelmingly Muslim, have a history of tension with the ethnic Chinese, who dominate business and are much wealthier than their Malay compatriots.n May 1969, hundreds of people were killed in race riots that many people in political power today, including the premier, believe could happen again if tensions get out of control.
Four decades later, race relations are being tested by a feeling among Muslims that Islam worldwide is threatened, a fear among non-Muslims that Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise and by debate over the real wealth gap between Malays and Chinese.
There is also a growing feeling inside the multi-racial ruling coalition, which is dominated by UMNO, that a three-year-old push by the premier to allow more room for public debate on religious and racial affairs has gone too far.
"He's realised the Pandora's box is opened, and he's made statements to the effect that his tolerance should not be tested," Terence Chong, a political analyst at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, told Reuters.
"His government came into power with a desire to differentiate itself from the previous administration, but gradually realised it needed support from the grassroots and has taken the path of least resistance," Chong said.
CLOSING PANDORA'S BOX
The premier plans to meet editors of Malay and Chinese-language newspapers in the next few weeks to ask them to be careful with the debate, a source close to government said.
"I think what he's going to tell them is use your common sense -- don't do anything inflammatory."
The government has also said it might stop televising the annual UMNO assembly after this year's speeches were beamed live into the nation's living rooms for the first time.
But Abdullah could find it tough to rein in public debate, especially on the Internet, given the strength of feeling.
The opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP), whose supporters are mostly ethnic Chinese, said the UMNO meeting had been the worst in decades from the standpoint of nation-building.
"If a Malaysian Chinese or Indian politician had warned of riots, being prepared to shed blood or even going amok, the Internal Security Act would have been invoked," veteran DAP opposition leader Lim Kit Siang told a dinner on Friday night.
That same day, police in the northern state of Penang fired warning shots to break up a scuffle between ethnic Chinese protesters and municipal officials attempting to demolish a Taoist temple said to have been built without planning approval.
The protesters complained that police had not allowed them time to retrieve statues of gods and other precious religious items from the temple before demolition.
"I think there is always a danger in such situations," political analyst Chong said.
"All you need is a few troublemakers. All you need is a quick scuffle. And very quickly it goes down a slippery slope."
But civil rights activist Chandra Muzaffar said Malaysia's internal security forces were quick to snuff out disturbances.
"When the intelligence services get a whiff of these things, they act very quickly. Why else do you think we haven't had any major crises for several years?" he said.
But he said it was dangerous to close the lid too firmly on debate of religious and racial issues.
"I would rather that they vent their feelings at a meeting like this, because in the context of Malaysian political culture, if they're all bottled up, then one fine day it all erupts."
(Additional reporting by Mark Bendeich- Reuter)
Malaysia Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Tun Mahathir IT heist Asia racial violence
Labels: Politic - Local
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