The Malays: changing mental landscapes

Actually, the Malays have nothing to be proud of. We have to understand and accept our weaknesses. We are lacking in so many things. As I see it, the Malays are going backward. The Malay mind has to be revamped and re-programmed. We cannot go forward using the current mind-set.

What can people like Ibrahim Ali help to advance the Malays? What happen to our government servants? Every decisions, however minor, has to be brought and decided by committees. What's the use of sending them to Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, etc. Where is the delegation of duties in the government? even buying stationeries has to go to the committee. You can see the quality of Malay university professors talking on TV talk shows. They talk to please their hosts and to protect their positions, rather than truth and facts.

I am not sure when the gentleman says we have nothing to be proud of, he means he isn't proud to be a Malay. I hope it isn't that. Perhaps he means to say, we have no economic achievements to be proud of.

His- " we are so lacking in so many things and " as I see it, the Malays are going backward". That reflect his real meaning.

Why is that so? He has partially answered by inferring that the problem lies in the Malay mind which has to be revamped and re-programmed. We cannot be proud of the current mindset.

The mindset.

Our mindset- we think the solution is to put a few gold coins in our pocket. We want as a matter of right, irrespective of the meritorious qualifications we invested in, a 30% this and that. The contractors want 30% of open tenders. Why should we the other Malays agree to that? You get the 30%, that doesn't solve the Malay economic problem. The contractors demand the same thing year in and year out.

That way, we haven't targeted the fundamental point of how to sort out Malay economic problem. You cannot solve by appointing some Malays as directors here and there, chairman here and there, chairmen of GLCs who have the habit of losing money at that. You don't solve by appointing retired civil servants to prominent corporate positions.

I was talking to a very senior UMNO veteran who has walked and still walks with people in the corridors of power about this proclivity of appointing retired civil servants to prominent corporate posts. I mentioned Tan Sri Ahmad Sarji- he is good I said. Good at what? Came the answer. He hasn't done a single day of business using his own money and his only forte is apple polishing. He is- like you said( saying that to me) good at writing P Ramlee songs only. You don't appoint people who have no inkling about how business is run.

Nor can you solve the Malay economic question by reserving 30% of open tenders to Malays. Why do we have to give them contracts if each time, they do nothing but engaged in tricks as mentioned by a commentator who was an ex JKR engineer? Furthermore, that strategy has been proven wrong and will not work. It has already been proven by the disappearing RM 52 billion worth of shares that were cashed out.

You can't solve by doing things half way. Or in the famous words of our once Great Helmsman, half past six measures that sadly, were also some of his doings. You have to move a generation on the learning curve, get educated, be more competitive, like to work hard. You sort out the problem by enhancing earning capacity. That comes through hard work, be more clever than the other chap, be better than the other bloke. Move a generation- that's the strategy. Not move sections of people. That strategy has been proven wrong.

That's why I think the PM has lost an opportunity. He got spooked by Ibrahim Ali. He should have put his foot down and declare we still have affirmative action policies which are going to be played with new rules. The elements of the NEM must be spelled out. It's basically a good idea to place Malays on a different footing. A new environment demanding adjustments from a whole generation.

So the Malay gentleman at the age of 65, has got on to something. That shouting rights here and there get us nowhere. The rights to a 30% share in corporate equity saw RM 52 billion gone up in smoke( I mean in Havana cigar smoke). That's equivalent of giving the recipient of that pink forms or free shares, a gold coin without telling the chap how the gold coin is earned. That's equivalent to giving the chap a fish without telling him the fish is gotten by the fishing rod, by the fishing net, by boats going out to sea. The solution is to increase earning capacity or in the spirit of using fanciful terms such as ecosystem, enhancing capacity. But you don't achieve enhancing capacity by wishing it, you achieve that through being clever, being better, working harder, being more disciplined, motivated, desirous of all round improvements. In the end, we have to answer this question- how does having ' a right' improve our economic performance? We don't achieve all that, insisting it as a right, that this government give us everything we need from cradle to grave. School bags for our children, bicycles for our children etc.