Malays must be ‘weaned-off’ ‘subsidy mentality

Malays know that Umno has failed them after 53 years of trying, but to put their faith in Pakatan Rakyat they will need something tangible.

COMMENT

Pakatan Rakyat has to convince the Malays that Pakatan, not Umno, should now hold in trust political power in the name of the Malays.

Pakatan must hope that the Malays have evolved to understand that what Pakatan offers to the Malays is a new beginning that may be difficult for the Malays to adjust to now but adjust they must if the Malays are to progress.

I know the non-Malays will not begrudge the Malays what is their due because for our country to progress, the Malays must first be weaned off the “subsidy and Bumiputera” mentality instilled into them by Umno.

For its own selfish purpose, Umno needs to feed this mentality so weaning will take time, at least one generation of Malays, if not two.

The coming second generation of Malays will accept 1Malaysia because they will grow up without Umno’s hegemony. They will grow up knowing nothing of Ketuanan Melayu, special privileges, Bumiputera status, BTN (Biro Tata Negara) or Perkasa.

Money politics and rampant corruption will be something they would have to refer to a dictionary to understand its meaning.

Everywhere they look they will see Malaysians, not Malays and non-Malays.

All this is the responsibility of Pakatan. Pakatan must make this happen if it wants the Malays to give them custody of the political power that the Malays now give to Umno.

I believe the Malays know that Umno has failed them after 53 years of trying.

Malays want change

All those years have made a lot of Umno-Malays wealthy. A lot of those years have also allowed for a lot of abuse of “power” entrusted to Umno by the Malays.

This “power” they used to further Umno’s interest, not the Malays.

Many years of such abuse have brought our country almost to its knees because of what Umno has done to satisfy the craving for power and wealth among its political elites and their cronies.

The Malays know this. The Malays should now want change.

So we ask that Pakatan now go to the Malays with its own offer of Ketuanan Melayu.

Not the Ketuanan Melayu that Umno is offering but the kind that the Malays very much need to bring them to a level playing field with the non-Malays when it comes to eduction, commerce and employment.

A Ketuanan Melayu that the Malays and our country need in order that 1Malaysia starts right… and the healing of our nation’s ills will then start to happen.

Do this and I know that the Malays will not begrudge the other races what is their due in a place they too call home.

CT Ali is a reformist who believes in Pakatan Rakyat’s ideologies. He is a FMT columnist.