///The Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has said that none of his cabinet ministers except for his deputy Datuk Seri Najib Razak were guaranteed a cabinet position even if they won in the general election.///

PM AAB made a special mention that Najib will once again become a Cabinet minister, but all the others might not be. We know very well that words have lost their meaning coming out of the mouth of AAB. He said that the parliament would not be dissolved ‘tomorrow-13 Feb 2008′, but on 13 February 2008, he announced the dissolution of the Parliament. Either he did not understand what he said, or he lied.

His statement above indicates that the Educaion minister, Kerisman may not be a Cabinet minister, but after the election, Kerisman would not only come back as minister, but also in the same ministry. Ministers other than Najib care not what AAB said when they know well that they were strong enough to know which ministry they want power. Najib might have told AAB that he was not sure who would turn up at the palace to seek nomination for the post of PM, since it had been said publicly that AAB was to be only a one-term PM. Well AAB’s statement allows for the interpretation that Najib could in fact become PM since he is guaranteed a place in the Cabinet.

As for other BN component parties’ ministers-hopeful, they know no pride, and would be willing to be called any name so long as they stand a chance to get crumbs after selling off people of their communities. The souless integrity-defficient opportunists deserve to rot. But then we have sufficient voters who prefer to await death rather than to take a chance to avoid it. We live in an age where the majority rules, and many are willingly contributing to that majority and to be ruled like second class slaves.

MCA and MIC know very well that when they practise racial politics, they will not be able to fight for the rights of the people of their communities when UMNO does not play fair, and when UMNO has the majority. MCA and MIC politicians certainly realise that the so-called power sharing claimed by UMNO was sharing of crumbs at the personal level, and the communities they represented are losing legitimate rights gradually over the years. It is stupity of MCA and MIC to make the same mistakes of engaging in racial politics when the BN formula ensure that the legitimate rights of non-Malays are gradually deprived of over the time. It is a sin that the small number of MCA politicians should make gains in racial politics at the expensse of the community. Instead of leading the communities to move away from race-based politics, MCA made Chinese community capitulate to UMNO so that they can gain wealth albeit leading an despicable life.

Chinese cannot be so ignorant as to continue voting for MCA so that the racist policies of UMNO have the excuse that they had the support of the Chinese community. Instead of awaiting a slow and sure death, non-Malays should not vote for MCA and MIC. The more enlightened Malays are voting for opposition including PAS, so that UMNO cannot do what it pleases. Let us follow their example.

MCA claims that because it is part of the government, it is able to ‘fight’ for the rights of Chinese in the country, and MIC for Indians and UMNO for Malays. If they have to fight, who then do they fight against? Can MCA and MIC fight UMNO when their ministers had to withdraw a memorandum addressed to the prime minister calling attention to a certain issues? When the people in the country are divided by race each being represented by a political party associated by race, it serves to prove that people of different races are not able to coexist in peace, without institutionalised arbitration. The history of Malaysia shows that people of different races were able to live in peace before political parties such as UMNO, MCA and MIC came into being. The formation of race-based political parties did the work of meeting the criterion of ‘racial harmony’ demanded by the British for Independence. Since then, and particularly after may 13, racial polarization grew from strength to strength. UMNO has won the racist battle to discriminate against non-Malays, in the name of fighting for Malays, whereas Chinese and Indians have been marginalised under the leadership of MCA and MIC which claimed to be champions for Chinese and Indians.

Why do MCA and MIC continue playing race-based politics when it is clear that they could neither fight UMNO for the rights of non-Malays, nor appeal to UMNO to be fair to non-Malays? If the leaders of MCA and MIC believe that UMNO would slowly change its way from its racist past, then they are not realistic. Having made the mistake of not pulling out of the government after 1990 when NEP continued beyond 20 years, and having continued to provide the BN government the excuse that policies which discriminate against non-Malays have the support of the non-Malays communities because of their participation in the government, MCA and MIC leaders are sinners of the non-Malays communities.

The simple logic outlined above could not have escaped the notice of the leaders in MCA and MIC, and yet they carry on with serving the interest of UMNO. Why then do MCA and MIC remain component members of BN government? The answer has to be that these so-called leaders do obtain gains at their personal level when the communities whose interest they claim to fight for are losing their rights. They are selling the interest of their communities for their own personal gains.

The Chinese community may be aware that MCA has in fact been a liability to them. But they are still hoping against hope that there might emerge a leader who are worthy of the position of the party. The day will not come because nobody could change the mindset of UMNO when the current race-based political set up allows it to decide how it would choose to squeeze the non-Malays to the level approaching rebellion. To cut loss, we need to bury MCA and MIC.

The non-Malays have a choice of either resigning to the fate that Malaysia is the land for making preparation for migration, or to reclaim the place as a country we can call home. For the latter, we have to initiate change. To change, we have to vote opposition parties so that MCA and MIC cannot be made use of by UMNO to justify its existence as a race-based party. UMNO would lose its moral right to represent Malays when MCA and MIC cease to exist as political parties. The leaders of these parties have vested interest. We have to show them the door. Make MCA and MIC lose all their seats so that they have no claim to any government position. Let UMNO show us how they would govern without MIC and MCA, and we shall make PAS and PKR replace UMNO comes the next general election.

///Make no mistake about it. By penalizing MCA, MIC, you are only penalizing your own race.///– Shamsul Anuar

That has been the argument of MCA and MIV leaders all along, to justify their position, and to threaten the non-Malays into voting them. That action could not even maintain the status quo of the pre-may 13 days. Since then, the position of non-Malays are getting regressively worse off by the day. When UMNO members begin to sing the same tune, Chinese and Indian Malaysians should realise now that they should have acted to banish MCA and MIC sooner.

It is claimed that UMNO was charitable in allowing non-Malay BN candidates standing in Malay majority areas. When Chinese and Indians are treated as pendatang and lower class citizens by the current crop of UMNO leaders, negating equal and fair treatment for all Malayans as agreed to by the founding fathers of the three race-based parties, charity is not UMNO’s strong province. UMNO needed to allow non-Malay puppets in to be ‘elected’ in the Malay majority areas, just like they elected a log, to give the impression of ‘power-sharing’, that never did happen. That arrangement allows UMNO to decide unilaterally all government policies, after having kept opportunists among MCA and MIC ministers silence over the issues when their personal interests have been taken care of. That explains why non-Malay discriminating policies are said to have been agreed to by the component parties. The same applies to non-Malay based component parties in BN. Those non-race-based parties ran short of the sin of promoting race-based political parties.

If UMNO decides to stop fielding MCA and MIC members in Malays majority areas, then it would have to accept that puppets in MCA and MIC would not be represented. They would then not be able to maintain the status quo of retaining 2/3 parliamentary seats with the existing Malay population, when there are two other major political parties dominated by Malays catering to the enlightened Malays. So UMNO was not charitable in allowing living-dead MCA and MIC candidates standing in safe seats, UMNO needed their body-count.

It is claimed that UMNO would be able to govern without non-Malay political parties. UMNO has not embarked on this route not because it ever cared for the interests of non-Malays in the country. It is because the current political set up allowed UMNO to fool Malays into thinking that NEP and Ketuanan Melayu policies, at the expense of living a subsistence survival, is in their interest. Malays are brainwashed to believe that without UMNO they cannot survive. They therefore live in fear and they support UMNO policies which are against Islamic teaching. In effect, Malays compromise their religious believe just to allow UMN politicians to remain lazy; they do not have to earn their position based on results, and they are allowed to satisfy their greed to steal the country blind, and building dynasties in the process.

When UMNO member who wanted to retain the status quo tries to influence non-Malays not to take a certain action, it says that we are on the right path. Let us bury MCA and MIC on 8 March, and UMNO days as racist will be numbered.

///Perhaps, once a while you should advise Hindraf leaders to do some soul searching. Why not rectify weaknesses in the community. I mean no disrespect to Indians, but surely not everything is the fault of Govt.///– Shamsul Anuar

Yes, they cannot blame it on the government that they were born Indians. Had they been born Malays, their welfare would have been taken care of by government, and some would be made millionaires.

Yes, Hindraf leaaders should do soul searching why had they waited until now to act. They should have acted earlier. Having said that, I think it is better late than never.

They should have qualified the statement in saying that the government undertake non-violence form of ethnic cleansing. In fact without qualifying it everybody knows exactly what ‘ethnic cleansing’ meant. PM AAB though a graduate of Malay studies from University of Malaya, he graduated in early 1960s. It was true that Malays were given concession for admittance to MU in pre-1969 days when they met the minimum entry requirements, they graduated with proper passing grade. His command of the English language should have exceeded the old GCE level, and so he would have understood exactly what Hindraf meant by ‘ethnic cleansing’ .But because PM AAB could not refute the facts cited by Hindraf leaders, he chose to split hair on the use of words. It is true that ethnic cleansing had also been used to describe the violence form of actions the same words carry other meaning as well. PM AAB chose to attribute the word cleansing to a particular type of actions which did not happen in the country, and accused Hindraf of lying, but he refused to admit another form of ‘ethnic cleansing’ currently taking place in country. Of course when PM AAB said a deer is a horse, that would be a horse. He is all powerful, and he can get the Hindraf leaders under ISA for citing facts on what happen in the country.

Internal Security Act is used against people who only described what happen in the country. The delegates at the UMNO general assembly who openly threatened to cause a repeat of May 13 met with applause as if that was UMNO policy. UMNO should have been charged under ISA, and the party outlawed for going against the law. But UMNO said that they should have acted against Hindraf 5 earlier, when there were no threat to national security even at the time of their arrest. UMNO regretted that they had not utilised the law against innocent persons with impunity, and that demonstrated how AAB government conducted selective persecution.

If the Indian community had not been marginalised by UMNO government, they can very well live with whatever perceived weakness, as claimed. Despite the weakness, the Indian community had to bear the burden so that the community that had been officially declared as weak, and needed crutches, would received the assistances. In the name of assisting the weak, the powerful UMNO politicians get the lion share of government funds, give peanuts to ordinary Malays, and made non-Malays subsidize Malays and in the process make non-Malays permanent enemies of Malays.