The vision of Dr Mahathir

Three chips on my shoulders
Each one seeking happiness
Grown by my hopeful wishes
Which one will the NEP bless?

Malaysiakini - Mahathir: NEP made some non-Malays rich, too

General MacArthur said “Old soldiers never die they just fade away” but obviously Dr Mahathir hasn’t heard of that or chooses to ignore it wakakaka.

The former PM is still as vocal, if not more than before, not unlike someone south of our borders. Both of them so cherish their own legacies that they insist on preserving them at all cost, even to the extent of interfering in the administrations of their successors.

From my readings and personal observations, Dr M carries three chips on his shoulders. If we start from his ‘Malay Dilemma’ we can gather what his first chip is (my post today), resentment against non-Malays, especially the Chinese, for dominating the nation’s economy and wealth.

I imagine his thinking that it is not fair, taking a very simple example, for Chinese millionaires to be driven around by Malay chauffeurs in a Malay dominated land. Perhaps this resentment manifested in him having a Chinese chauffeur in his earlier years.

Some would say he is racist though some would say it’s only fair (and not racist) for a Malay leader to want to see his own race succeed.

Could it be this first chip on his shoulder convince him that for every Chinese millionaire there should be at least 2 Malay ones, whatever it took, in conformity with the national racial population ratio of 60% Malays and 30% Chinese (current figures – previously, the Chinese ratio was far higher). Thus, could it be then a natural consequence of such belief that he managed the NEP to churn out as many Malay millionaires and eventually billionaires as possible.

He just claims that his NEP had produced not only Malay billionaires but Chinese billionaires as well, but he fails to understand that means diddly squat to many many many Malaysians who have been told to tighten their belts as subsidies reduce, health care costs loom threateningly, cost of essential products rise, etc. Besides, his critics would remind him that those non-Malay billionaires are his cronies, thus it is meaningless to the ordinary non-Malays.

From his wish (my speculation) to see more Malay millionaires/billionaires, his scheme went on to produce as many Malay doctors, engineers, judges, and other professionals as possible, again with whatever it took.

Actually I can emphatize with his aspiration as it’s not a bad one, except for the ‘whatever it took’, but alas, like his erstwhile blue eye boy wakakaka, he suffers from impatience, wanting to see his dreams, vision and programs realized a.s.a.p. (preferably within his watch) so he must have tolerated the 'whatever it took'.

But as with many of Dr M’s policies, plan and programs he didn’t have the full complement of competent staff to carry them out properly, with most lacking his intellect, discipline and will power, and resorting to whatever it took.

I just wonder, hypothetically of course, if he had only entrusted his NEP programs to competent Malaysians (of any ethnicity), how his vision would have been fulfilled. But regrettably, we would never ever know.

As part of his vision, he wanted the Malays to have self confidence and belief in their ability, so I suspect that was the reason for him introducing several programs to enable their development – BTN indoctrination, gimmickry (e.g. climb Mouth Everest, dropped Proton at North Pole, tallest building in the world, Malaysian Book of Records, the space-astronaut programs, etc).

Generally, after a good start, most would gosongsang (the wrong way), for example, the pathetic teh tarik & roti canai ‘show & tell’ in the space program – was that what hundreds of millions of ringgit was supposed to produce?

Expediency and convenience to getting bigangpows and national honours became the suspected objectives of participants. Even swimming the ‘mighty’ Penang channel became something to boast about (and presumably, with an expectation to be rewarded), when hundreds if not thousands of Penang Anglo-Chinese School (later MBS)
students had already swam across the channel year after year during the 1950’s to 1960’s without any federal support or national brouhaha.

That Dr M’s original aim of building confidence and self belief in the Malays had gone humongously astray became crystal clear when Najib lost the plot and tried (unsuccessfully) to send a team to Egypt to cover one of the pyramids, perhaps with Malaysian batik(?).

At least Najib’s gimmick was harmless other than wasting good public money and earning amalunya stinging rebuke from Egypt’s Minister of Antiquity. But the BTN program, instead of building correct confidence and moralistic self belief in Malays became an apparatus of indoctrinating racial hatred.

When one leaves such an indoctrination machine in the hands of incompetents, they would invariably misinterpret the true aim as instead of one to build hatred, intolerance and despise for other races - a couple of school heads amply showed that. Besides, it’s easier to build hatred than true self confidence. The easy though incorrect way has always been the preferred avenue of the incompetents.

When Dr M was about to retire, he cried, didn’t he? Many thought he was a hypocrite. But he was truly crying because he realized his vision to make the nation’s majority UMNO* Malays have belief in their own ability and assume rightful proportion of due rewards (and not just through rent-seeking mentality) was not a complete success.

* From supposedly benefitting all Malaysian Malays to chiefly UMNO Malays is yet another example of how his vision was implemented in a songsang way, hence the criticism that his NEP had only benefitted the Malay super rich.
But look, who was to blame when his policy saw staffing the implementers of his programs with some incompetents instead of the best in the land, and then when they failed, refusing to either punish, and get rid of and replace them? His tolerance of them was legendary.

Ironically, quite a number of them, those he loved greatly and nurtured under his NEP, betrayed him kau kau, wakakaka.

Then he had hoped for AAB and Najib to continue his programs, but he didn’t reckon on the reality of human nature that each man, every man, has his own agenda, objectives and style of governance. Hence, rather than fade away like a good old soldier, he continues to (from behind the scene) direct, control and even managed to have one removed.

To be continued …