There are no rights for the Malays, stressed Ariff, just because they came from their mother’s womb. “The Malays have to join the others as well and strive on their own. Nothing comes easy. That’s not the intention of the NEP.”
KUALA LUMPUR: In supporting Najib Abdul Razak as Prime Minister, warns Raub MP Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz, the Malays don’t seem to realise that there’s no such thing as a free luncheon. “Umno was fooling the Malays into thinking that they have self-entitlement rights.”
“They think that they naturally have rights to everything. So, they are naturally jealous of the achievements of others and think that they, given their self-entitlement rights, can simply usurp the achievements of others for themselves.”
This thinking also permeates through the New Economic Policy (NEP) as it was implemented, in a deviated and distorted form, said Ariff in perhaps the last piece before going on an indefinite sabbatical in October. “The Malays belabour in the delusion that with official government support, they have rights to everything, including what belongs to others.”
“The purpose of the NEP (1970-1990) was not to turn all Malays into multimillionaires but to restructure society so that there’s no identification of race with economic function and place of residence; to eradicate poverty irrespective of race or creed; and to ensure that the Orang Asal, Orang Asli and Malays own, control and manage 30 per cent of the corporate wealth of Malaysia, i.e. publicly listed companies, within a 20-year time-frame by 1990.”
There are no rights for the Malays, stressed Ariff, just because they came from their mother’s womb. “The Malays have to join the others as well and strive on their own. Nothing comes easy. That’s not the intention of the NEP.”
The country, he added, has descended into lawlessness as a result under Najib. “There’s something not quite right about a ikan bakar hawker and an ex-military man, noted for staging butt exercises in front of former Bar Council Chairman Ambiga Sreenevasan’s house not so long ago, taking the law into their own hands and threatening about taking to the streets.”
They openly issued threatening statements, he pointed out, and the police virtually looked the other way. “Why not use SOSMA against them? Instead, the Act has been used in a draconian way against Khairuddin Abu Hassan, the sacked Umno Batu Kawan deputy divisional chief. Jamal Mohd Yunos, the ikan bakar man, was only detained briefly overnight.”
“We know what they are all about. They just want to intrude into Chinese areas and behave like gangsters. We are threatened by domestic terrorists.”
Petaling Street, said Ariff is a case in point. “The fact that the Chinese Ambassador made an unprecedented visit to the Chinatown quarter of Kuala Lumpur, to assure traders and tourists alike, underlines the seriousness of the situation.”
The Chinese would not be intimidated by Ali Rustam’s silat exponents, he said. “They can enforce economic sanctions against Malaysia given the two-way trade between Malaysia and China which was expected to touch USD160 billion to USD170 billion in 2017.”
Many traders in Chinatown, said Ariff, were people from Aceh and other Indonesians, Bangladeshis, Myanmarese, Nepalese and others as well. “These people are making use of the opportunities that the Malays could have seized but didn’t. Many licenses in Petaling Street are held by Umno leaders but sub-leased to the Chinese.”
“Is the government going to make a law that the tourists and others who visit Petaling Street must buy only from Malay traders who want to do business in the area? It’s a free market, whether for originals or fakes. If there are fake goods being sold, it’s up to the authorities concerned to act.”
A Prime Minister who was responsible, continued Ariff, would not allow the lunatic fringe to take centre-stage and threaten the nation, affecting the relations between ethnic groups, and compromising national security. “If the Prime Minister allows extremists to do what they like, the nation will be destroyed.”
The bad precedents established by the Prime Minister, said Ariff, are all there for everyone to see. “He got rid of Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and Umno Vice-President Shafie Apdal because he felt threatened by them. They were not at fault.”
The MP warned that almost all the institutions of democracy have been demolished dictatorially by Najib. “All these are signs that Najib doesn’t care what happens to the country as long as he’s safe.”
Briefly, Ariff was delving into the nature of the man, Prime Minister Najib, as well. “Najib even managed to hide his true character from Mahathir Mohamad when the latter was Prime Minister for 22 years (1981-2003). The former Prime Minister regrets pushing for Najib to be Prime Minister.”
Malays may wonder who can be Prime Minister if not Najib, noted the MP. “My answer is that if people like him can become Prime Minister, then anyone can be Prime Minister.”
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