Irene bashing by Perkasa shows how PARANOID & OUT OF IDEAS Umno is

Perkasa, which in any other civilized nation would be ridiculed by decent society, has once again stepped forward in a hysterical defence of a political illusion long passed off as reality in Malaysia.

Hence, the public bashing that activist Irene Fernandez has to endure in Perkasa’s diarrhoea of words over a study linked to her, Washing the Tigers: Addressing Discrimination and Inequality in Malaysia.

Umno continues to remain in a state of denial that it can no longer be business as usual. Therein lies a death wish like that harboured by the Nazis until the very end in pursuit of their 1,000-year Reich or by the white minority apartheid regime in South Africa.

The days of the 'Shahrizat Jalils' who could with impunity shrug off allegations and try to 'walk off' with a quarter billion ringgit of the people’s sweat from the Public Treasury are numbered.

The Government can no longer afford to dole out millions of the peoples money to politicians disguising their mischief as so-called Bumiputera businesses.

The country can no longer afford to put up with a situation where those in power, the fat cats in tow, continue to plunder the Public Treasury under the guise of bringing development to the people and bailouts for troubled corporations in incestuous relationships with their political masters.

Jealousy of Chinese In business Umno’s political ideology

Umno’s jealousy of the Chinese in business, its nearest to a political ideology, will bite the dust before being cast into the dustbin of history. This is the writing on the wall that Perkasa wants to mask with its Irene F bashing.

It’s no wonder therefore that the poodle desperately continues the old Umno line of twisting and turning every issue in Malaysia into a racial and religious one to scare the Malay-speaking communities – Bugis, Javanese, Minang, Acehnese, and Indian Muslims -- into circling the wagons and gathering under one political platform i.e. Umno.

Perkasa and Umno continue under the delusion that total Malay unity is still possible to continue to underwrite their fabulous lifestyles, a thieving one, at the expense of the nation. The fact that the country can no longer afford to suffer the crippling National Debt Burden created by their antics in politics seems to elude them.

The bottomline is that the Irene F-linked study confirms the long-held views in Malaysia that distortions and deviations in the implementation of the Special Position clauses in the Constitution has robbed the Orang Asal and the Malay-speaking communities of a golden opportunity to uplift themselves within a 15 year time-frame.

The Special Position clause, while protecting the legitimate interests of the non-Malays, provided for the beneficiaries to enjoy a reasonable proportion in four specific areas only viz. jobs in the civil service; intake into institutions of higher learning owned by the government; state scholarships; and opportunities from the government to do business.

Umno usurped power of King over Special Position clause

The Special Position clause was subverted by Umno elites into a sapu bersih – clean sweep – one, Special Privileges, covering in perpetuity every aspect of life in Malaysia.

This travesty of justice covered a multitude of sins against the nation in general and the underclass in particular.

The latter grew with the numbers cast into the shanty towns by the fragmentation of the estates in the plantation sector. However, they had to bear the brunt of administrative laws which denied them even cendol licences by the local authorities on the grounds that they were not Bumiputera, “sons of the soil”. The fact of the matter is that all citizens by operation of law are Bumiputera. But that’s another story.

Had Umno not usurped the power of the King vis-à-vis the Special Position clause, the beneficiary communities would have enjoyed the fruits of independence and development. Today, they have nothing more than the proverbial shirts on their backs.

This is especially true of the Orang Asal – the Orang Asli, Dayak, Dusun and Murut – who live in grinding poverty for the most part in nothing more than ramshackle huts and continue to be subject to the indignity of their lands being taken away. The Dusuns and Muruts, to add insult to injury, suffer from their politics being neutralized, marginalized and disenfranchised by the continuing influx of illegal immigrants.

Malaysia’s new political dawn without arch villains Umno, MCA, MIC

A new political dawn for Malaysia, as proposed by the Irene F-linked study, cannot be entrusted to Umno or MCA and MIC, its lapdogs.

Both MCA and MIC were never about the people.

The departing British, to ensure their interest, mooted the formation of MCA and MIC to protect the ruling Malay elite – read Umno -- from themselves. Indian and Chinese elites covered themselves well while looking out for the British.

It was British Resident Sir Frank Swettenham who came up with the philosophy that has driven Malaysian politics ever since independence. Swettenham observed: “The Malay (the elite) will not hesitate to harm you even though he will suffer even greater harm in the process. We need to protect the Malay from himself.”

It was the failure of the MIC to look out for the community, especially the underclass dispossed by the estates, which brought Hindraf Makkal Sakthi to the streets of Kuala Lumpur on 25 Nov, 2007 and helped set the stage for the political tsunami of Sat 8 Mar, 2008.

Umno, like MCA and MIC, is incapable of change, incapable of re-inventing itself, as evident in Perkasa’s outburst against Irene F over the Study.

The people can only wait impatiently for the 13^th General Election to send this trio of arch villains, the bane of all Malaysian, packing into the sunset.

Malaysia Chronicle