Murkriz Mahathir said that he wanted to keep NEP to look after Malays, and other races. If looking after Malays and other races are to be carried out at the same time, there is no need to have NEP. He wants to use NEP to look after Malays, and then a century later, non-Malays. He was acting on his father TDM’s aspiration that maybe after 1000 years when the people somehow become Malays, then they will look after non-Malays when there are none.

TDM spoke with fork tongue, and the son is retracing the father’s actions.

Razak had to create NEP to justify why May 13 had happened.

TDM divided the country into Malays and non-Malays so that he can justify his status as Malay by showing that he was a Malay champion.

Article 153 and the later NEP were meant to creating conditions that Malays would be able to compete with other races. It is like a training course, and once the Malays as a group has achieved an accepted standard of success, they will have to face the real world. That training course is no longer required. The 30% corporate ownership was a passing mark for the Malay community to remove the stigma that it is a community which would not survive on its own without the assistance of the government. Or Tun Ismail said that they would be able to claim their pride as a race.

If any UMNO leader would say that after 50 years of article 153 instead of 15 years, Malays are still not ready to compete with other races, then he is saying that the Malay race has not the basic makeup of a human to compete in the real world. Mamak Malays would be quite ready to claim that because they know the weakness of Malays do not reflect on the mamak, since what run in their veins are not Malay blood, however they want to say it.

Razak claim that NEP was to be for 20 years. It would be logical to believe that he would feel shy to claim that NEP was needed beyond the deadline to monitor the living of Malays so that the share capital would not fall by a fraction of one per cent. That is spoon feeding, and if the head of the community has no confidence that the community could live on their own efforts, then that community is a failed race.

The presence of NEP and article 153 serves to remind the people that they are divided, and what is worse is that the success or failure of any individual person is the collective responsibility of the community. This is especially irrelevant when Malay does represent a pure race in the country. But with the clear division of Malays and non-Malays in government policies politicians could easily exploit them for their own advantage.

The advent of NEP and article 153 has not made the society race-blind. People of different races in the country are keenly aware of the presence of persons of different race or religion. Since they are so sensitive that peopleof different races or religions could be touchy of what they choose to feel sensitive, they mingle around but not communicating. They are polarised in thoughts if not in physical presence. The latest episode of a fracas between students of different races in a national school brought about an assembly of over a thousand non-students around the school on hearing rumours. It demonstrated that they are willing to be counted to contribute to physical actions. But what do they fight for, the honour of the community out of the quarrel of students? Thus NEP after 38 years has not brought the people to accept each other. The acceptance of people of different races as equal Malaysians have to begin from government policies.

If the BN government advocates 1Malaysia now that the Malays have attained the standard to compete freely with other races, then policies which are based on race should stop. This will remove the opportunity for politicians who survived on racist appeal, such as Kairy and Murkriz.

As I said before Najib had the unique opportunity to dismantle the barrier between the race as created by his father through NEP. If Razak had lived long to become a statesman he should have removed NEP. Belatedly Najib should render NEP irrelevant so that the ill thinking of his father in association with the NEP might be ameliorated over time.

The issue of all and one has been used by politicians to motivate their supporters. Article 153 and NEP was supposed to prepare Malays to live in the real world without crutches. The excuse was Chinese and Indians were better off than Malays. UMNO wanted it to mean that every single Chinese or Indian is better off than any Malay. But we know that it is not true. When UMNO claimed that Chinese and Indians were economically ‘richer’ than Malays, they wanted Malays to believe that every Chinese is Lim Gohtong or Robert Kok. That cannot be true.

TDM said that there are Malays drivers for Chinese “towkays” and hence NEP should stay. TDM created the impression that all Malays were drivers for Chinese and all Chinese were “towkays’.

Nobody would believe for a moment that every Malay is worse off than every Chinese or every Indian. So it is not justified that every Malay deserves special treatment under article 153. Thus it is incorrect that any so-called affirmative action should be implemented based on anything other than needs.

NEP was formulated to change the identity of economic function with race. If that idea was mooted because different communities celebrate different festive occasions and to prevent disruption in the services when people take extended period for festive celebrations, sufficient number of persons from each community should be trained to undertake certain key services. There would be no need for the social-engineering project which UMNO claims that NEP was set up to do. But when UMNO said that occupation should not be tied to race, they have not brought down the percentage of Malays in government services since 1969, but instead government services look like an extension of UMNO branch when Malays form more than 90% of the work force compared to about 75%. What was more damaging to the Malays was that the propaganda to change linkage of occupation to race gives them the idea that certain occupations are beneath the dignity of the princes and princesses of the soil. The princes and princesses should not be involved in manual work. Thus Malay families would only accept that their children should only work in air-conditioned environment, whether or not those jobs do bring out their latent talents. Thus when works in the field such as construction and agriculture are taken up by foreign workers, there are tens of thousands of unemployable graduates. That was the outcome of UMNO policy in pushing students who lack the aptitude for further study through the universities. That was the perverted implementation of NEP.

NEP had the target of Malays owning 30% of equity capital in corporate sector. ASLI’s report issued in 2006 proved that that target had long been surpassed. That was independently confirmed by academicians in Malaysian universities. AAB and Najib were more interested to accept that government failed rather than celebrated their success in having achieved the target set for NEP. They promised in December 2006 that EPU would show the methodology and to prove that ASLI was wrong. Two years have passed, and ASLI’s report has not been technically challenged by EPU methodology, and one can only conclude that the 30% target had indeed been achieved. Any government who cares to honour its promise would have declared that NEP is over.

If NEP was to be government’s action on social-engineering so that the country can live in an environment of social and economic development, then every Malaysian, Malay, Chinese and others would have benefited. As it is NEP has shown to people that returns do not commensurate with efforts put in. Some people sow while others reap the benefit. For example when companies have proven to be successful, they have to give up 30% of the profitable shares for others simply because the beneficiaries belong to the ‘protected race’. That is against the ethic of just and fairness. When university admission is said to be based on merits; using different standards of matriculation and HSC on par, those who get admitted know well that meritocracy was in name but not in fact, and that in real life cheating is a way forward. Such teaching of treachery can only have adverse effect on the students, who are future leaders of the country, to aspire to be person of integrity.

TDM confirmed that the AP scheme was part of the NEP programme. We also know that each AP was worth around 20 thousand ringgit. They were supposed to be given to chosen Malays so that they can become rich; as TDM claimed that so long as he made one Malay millionaire, he had succeeded in implementing NEP. He did not see any Malay driver driving for Chinese towkay then, I suppose. We hear of the hundreds of thousands of APs issued every year, around a thousand Malays were given some APs. TDM’s son got a few hundred APs a year. But there are fewer than five persons who share half of the total, say 50,000 APs a year. At 20,000 ringgit one AP, the five persons share 1,000 million ringgit windfall a year. God knows how many years have they been enjoying the windfall. The value of APs issued over the 30 years since it started in 1980s amounted to at least 30 billion ringgit. APs could have been sold and realised as government revenue. But they were given out to selected Malays; one wonders how many of them are mamaks.

AP system makes cars in Malaysia cost more, and motorists did not pay the higher price as government revenue. They pay it as profit to the people selected by Mahathirs during his 22 years as PM. Obviously APs cannot be given to every Malay, so not all Malays benefited from NEP in APs execution, but worse every Malay why owns a car pay more for it so that some Malays would become rich, and that his wealth would hopefully be included in the computation of Malays share of equity in the corporate sector to make Malays proud. There are of course other means to make some Malays rich. The government has the right and power to collect taxes and to use earning of natural resources, such as from Petronas. Government funds are used to pay for projects which are supposedly for the benefit of Malaysians. But at times such projects are to serve the ego of the powers-that-be. Malaysian government used to have open tender for projects and procurement so that one ringgit will get at least 80 sens worth of goods or services. But since TDM’s abolishment of public tender, we hear for example a case where 30,000 ringgit was paid for less than 3,000 ringgit worth of renovation in a school. That was a small project which was nevertheless brought to cabinet for decision. We had also a medium size case involving the planned construction of the crooked bridge from Johor to its border at bridge-end causeway. The 1.2 billion ringgit bridge was awarded without tender. Had a tender been called, it could have been cancelled before any work had started. But because TDM did not call for tender, AAB government had to pay 1.2 billion ringgit for cancelling the project. That was no loss eventually, since part of the objective was to make a crony rich. The high price government pays for projects means that money which should have brought the citizens goods, services and conveniences became wealth trusted in the hands of cronies by UMNOputras. They were done in the name of NEP.

NEP was created because it was said to prevent a repeat of May 13. May 13 was said to have happened because of economic disparity between the races. It was not because the non-Malays were pendatang and they were not converted in to Malays or assimilated into Malays. It was not because Chinese and Indians chose to be educated in vernacular schools. It was not because Chinese and Indians did not show loyalty to the Sultans and the King, or that the non-Mulsims did not show sensitivity to the practise of the Islamic religion. The riots were said to be caused by Malays feeling jealous of the economic success of non-Malays. So NEP was established to make Malays rich, as if the sense of jealousy is a respectable reaction for demanding policy direction. We know now that May 13 was not a spontaneous reaction to economic disparity whether that existed or not.

NEP has divided the people in the country and had caused exodus of good citizens who could have otherwise continued to contribute to the economic development of the country. Having found a convenient way to enrich themselves, and yet exempted from accountability for the power of government, and ensured of continued support to perpetual rule, UMNO would not forgo NEP when the 20-year term was up in 1991. To keep NEP, UMNO has cultivated their members to the mindset of Ketuanan Melayu, and they threaten to unleash May 13 to defend NEP. That confirms only that may 13 was indeed orchestrated.

Not all Malays benefited from NEP in its perverted implementation. Without NEP and with accountability, citizens of all races should be able to avail whatever assistance now provided to Malays, and extended to all citizens, and more. It gives back the pride of Muslims who can stand tall living in an environment of fairness and justice advocated by Islam. Yes, Malays will have to forgo the sense of ketuanan which is against the teaching of any religion at all. But they retain the pride of self reliance and never have to say grateful to TDM. Surely the Malay community does not have to be rescued by mamak!