The Boleh-Land that time forgot

Diehard Umno supporters fail to note that BEE, NEM, NEP and the other help-the-bumiputera measures are bywords for cheating, failure and corruption.

COMMENT

When he stepped on the moon, astronaut Neil Armstrong said: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. When Umno president Najib Tun Razak announced his latest economic package for Malays, called the Bumiputera Economic Empowerment agenda (BEE), he might have said: “One small slogan for Najib, one giant leap backwards for Malaysians.”

BEE is not the miracle cure for Malays that Najib will have wished for. The five-decade trial period during which several economic help and preferential treatment packages were tested, has not succeeded in transforming the Malays, morally, physically or economically.

On the other hand, the lack of competition has made Malays more arrogant and lazy. Making the Malays stupid and ignorant suits Najib and his party’s objectives.

Compliant and dependent Malays are easily manipulated. As a race, they are emotive and prone to sentiment. That is why former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad has bent them to his will, as copper wires are able to train the branches of a bonsai tree.

Like men in a trance, Malays have come to believe in the “ketuanan Melayu” craze, where “what is mine is mine, what is yours is also mine”.

Right-minded Malays despair because they know that many bumiputeras are noted for their “kais pagi, makan pagi” (living from hand to mouth) syndrome and the BEE will only make them shy away from hard work.

The book and film, “The Land that Time Forgot” charts the mysterious journey by boat of a group of people who are marooned near a strange island.

The crew emerge from a tropical storm and see prehistoric creatures and humans in many stages of evolution. Having run out of fuel, the leader of the expedition tells his fellow travellers to abandon ship and seek refuge on the island.

As the group heads north, to escape dinosaurs and active volcanoes, they observe humans and discover that the evolution of the human species on the island advances, as they move northwards.

In the Malaysian sequel, dubbed “The Boleh-Land that Time Forgot”, Najib is the anti-hero, and he does not lead his men to safety. Instead, he guides them backwards, into prehistoric times.

Reward for loyalty

It is as Najib pointed out – a land of endless possibilities. Najib and his men return to a world of dinosaurs, in an area of instability caused by earth tremors and active volcanoes.

Uncertainty, fragmentation and a volatile social mix will be the end result of BEE. Najib is being retrogressive and the Malays are reluctant to question Najib’s motives for implementing BEE. They are like the dinosaurs on the island with brains the size of peas.

In the 21st century, issues are debated intelligently, apartheid is not practised and freedom of the press is allowed, unlike on Najib’s island.

Despite Najib’s claims that BEE does not trample on the interests or rights of other groups, BEE is a deliberate snub to the non-Malays to punish them for rejecting Umno in the 13th general election.

BEE is the reward for past loyalty and also a “carrot” to encourage the Malays to remain loyal to Umno.

Malaysians are easily fooled. First, Umno forced gullible Malaysians into flying flags outside homes and business premises and singing the national anthem in cinemas to prove their loyalty to the nation.

When the people beamed with patriotic pride, Umno announced an increase in petrol prices. To reduce the burden of suffering, Umno promised to delay the implementation of the GST. They said protests about these increases would be seen as unpatriotic.

Diehard Umno supporters fail to note that BEE, NEM, NEP and the other help-the-bumiputera measures are bywords for cheating, failure and corruption.

The RM500 BR1M aid is spent in a matter of days, but over the coming months, the recipients will pay many times as much, in the cost of increased goods, services and travel.

Umno wins

Umno’s BEE plan will backfire. Instead of empowering the Malays, Najib has caused much resentment. Any help to the community, should be needs-based and not race-based. His feeble attempt to reform his party and the nation is a dismal failure.

At the lower end of the social spectrum, marauding gangs of thieves, criminals and fraudsters steal from the average Malaysian.

At the top of the social ladder, politicians and their cronies rob the nation’s treasury and the taxpayer. The BEE is another excuse for GLCs and political cronies to mint money for themselves.

Entrepreneurial help, which is given to the Malays, is deemed worthless when these same people cannot compete against the cronies.

How can the small retail shop survive when Najib’s Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia (KR1M) is found on every corner and undercuts ordinary retailers? Allegations of poor product quality remind us of inferior Umno politicians.

How will the non-Malay retailer survive when his successful business is threatened by Malay extremists who are envious of their success and demand even more preferential treatment?

How will our children be educated properly when Umno devalues the examination standards by reducing the pass mark for Malays and introducing an educational quota system?

With Project IC and in GE13, foreigners were granted citizenship, provided they would vote for Umno. Najib treats his own people, the non-Malays of Malaysia, shabbily. Very soon, the DNA of the Malaysian culture will be altered beyond recognition.

Staring into space

Under Umno, there is little point in discussing religious values, when its politicians are corrupt to the core.

Najib claimed that Chin Peng, the former leader of the Communist Party of Malaya had killed thousands of Malayans in the Emergency and should not be remembered for his role in the struggle for the independence of Malaya.

What about the hundreds of thousands killed by the Japanese during WWII? The Japanese killed more people and today, are given the red carpet treatment, whereas Chin Peng’s ashes are not even allowed to cross the Thai border into Malaysia.

In Umno’s way of thinking, those who disagree with their policies are either Chinese or communists.

The BEE disgusts both the non-Malays and the ordinary Malays. Those who can leave for better shores will. Malaysia will have lost its most valuable commodity, its people.

Before long, the banks will call time for Malaysia Berhad and the liquidators will move in. Who will be to blame for the mess made of the country? Chin Peng is dead and the non-Malays and decent Malays will have emigrated.

The apathetic Malays will only be able to stare into space and wish they had acted sooner. They would like to blame the Umno politicians but they, too, will have gone.

The Umno politicians will have decamped to the British Virgin Islands, and other tax havens, where they have parked their money, while they were milking Malaysia of its riches.

Mariam Mokhtar is a FMT columnist.