Mahathir tries hard to deny that he is a racist. He is Malayali, a race found mainly in Kerela, India; but he claims that he had 100% Malay blood running in his veins. He is seen to be fighting for Malays right, after severing his root from his ancestor. So, he has no love for Malayali, but said to love Malay. He is therefore worst than racist; he is an opportunist using race to benefit himself. He is an egomaniac scheming only for his egoism, to enrich his families. He got himself accepted as mercenary for Malays who have been happy to gain unfair advantage through him. What have been unbeknown to Malays were that Mahathir decided his own rewards while the Malay community have to bear the indignity of not gaining the pride sooner, as cherished by the late Tun Ismail.

Malaysia is the only country in the world which gives different rights to different immigrants, the NEWMalays coming through Sabah on project M are bumiputras while those born in the country are said to be linked to the motherland still remain second class. Yet a person who was once PM of Malaysia for 22 years would declare his adherence to a policy which goes against the constitution which he is duty bound to uphold.

Article 8 of the Federal constitution states:
(1) All persons are equal before the law and entitled to equal protection of the law.
(2) Except as expressly authorised by the constitution, there shall be no discrimination against citizens on the ground only of religion, race, descent, place of birth or gender….

The authorised discrimination relates to quotas where reasonable proportion was to be reserved for Malays [like protecting the endangered species]. Mahathir chooses his interpretation to discriminate based on race and religion.

He is a liability to the country. We only hope that Anwar would become PM, if only for Mahathir to emigrate from this country.

The figure quoted by Mahathir has no statistical basis because the government department of statistics could not have conducted a study on the topic; it is not relevant to economic studies. Mahathir tried to divide the country by Malays and non-Malays, and he uses the term bumiputras versus non-bumiputras. The most expensive neighbourhood in Kuala Limpur is the Kenny Hill areas where Najib has his residence, and he is surrounded by very rich people, Malays or non-Malays. Poor non-Malays are also residing in rural areas as much as Malays. There is no way to value small orchard plantations owned by Malays, an eqivalent environment where very rich tycoons in Hong Kong might be able to afford there.

The value of residence lies in its value to the residents, and its resale value. Certainly those who own dwellings on loan have the pay interest on them, the higher the value, the more it costs them to live in. We do not know the percentage of the owners of properties in the urban areas who have not fully paid up the loans; it would be high. We know that properties in urban areas are created on the former rural areas, and as with all new properties they are mortgaged. One wonders how much the net-equity, or sometimes negative equity remains held by owners of properties in urban areas. The prices of properties are what people are willing to pay. The recent subprime problem in USA is because property prices went down. That can happen easily if there is social unrest. Was it the intention of Mahathir to bring down prices in urban areas so that that ratio would look good?

Even the ratio Mahathir said was true about the value of properties in urban rural divides, it cannot be true in racial divide. In Hong Kong where 95% of the population are Chinese, there are certainly difference between the rich and the not-so rich Chinese. Would Mahathir suggest that there should be fights in Hong Kong to have equitable distribution; so that all becomes poor? Would Mahathir say that it was not a problem because they belong to one race? Why then should it be a problem in Malaysia just because government classify the people into bumiputras and non-bumiputras, as though they no longer possess full human intelligence.

For a person who talked about 2020 vision of Bangsa Malaysa to talk now about the value of houses, sum the value up by race, and to claim that Malays are marginalised because of the value on the property, he must have good reason. That reason is to cause trouble in the country so that he might make a political come back through his son.

The government banned discussion of sensitive issue because it is easy to arouse emotion of those who choose not to reason with their head, and to blindly follow the leaders. The topic raised by Mahathir shows that on casual reading he seems to make sense, but on further thought regarding its relevance to people leading their life in a modern world under the rule of law, unlike in the past where collective brute forces are needed to ensure self defence, it amounts to senseless jealousy that hardly has an relevance on a personal basis. Yet it would be difficult to get the ordinary people to analyse rationally the issue before they are clouded with emotions. But unless the matter is discussed publicly the taboo remains, and the people would never be able to rise above the susceptibility to indoctrination; a racial one is worse since good ethic values are forgotten. It would be easy for public figure to garner support on nebulous issues for political gains. The following questions would help:

What does it matter if the person who is exceedingly rich does not belong to one’s own race?

Why does it matter whether the Prime Minister belongs to the same race, if he is fair to all races?

What good if the Prime Minister belongs to one’s race if he is corrupt, and serves only his interest?

What does it matter if the sum total of the equity shares added up for one race amounts to certain level when one does not benefit from such ownership?

What relevance is the statistics summed up by race, when the race does not belong to something which one could feel real affiliation? For example, is the definition of race under Article 160 has any meaning when an Arab, Turks, Tunisian, Malayali from Kerela of India are called Malay when they practice Islamic religion?

What does it matter to a person if one among his “race” is successful if he does not, even if success is considered important to himself?

When 100 families among the Malays and NEWMalays owned 90% of the said to be short of 30% equity capital, what good is to the ordinary Malays if the same 100 families and their friends owned more, and be officially known to be equal to the official target of 30%?

///9. Tokoh bukan Melayu yang cuba duduki tempat Melayu (in the shoes of the Malays) jika ikhlas, akan rasa kekecewaan Melayu melihat hampir semua perniagaan dan perusahaan serta kekayaan yang diperolehi darinya dimiliki oleh bukan Melayu. Segala estet rumah mewah juga diduduki oleh bukan Melayu. Sikit benar orang Melayu yang tinggal di estat mewah ini. Lebih ramai yang tinggal di kawasan setinggan.///– Mahathir

The non-Malays believe in Karma; you sow what you harvest. They believe that people are free to set agenda for their life. If they would like to succeed in any endeavour, they work for it. They welcome good opportunities, but they do not gang up to bully others so that they gain advantage with the strength of numbers. Non-Malays believe do not unto others what you do not want others to do unto you. We have a mind which we cannot see the sufferings of others. We feel that those who are poor and downtrodden should be helped; in the modern political language, there should exist a social safety net. We believe that the government has a duty to help the poor satisfy their needs, but the government should not work to satisfy the unsatiable desires which had been made possible through NEP, by contining with the perverted programmes which deviated from the original objectives.

When we possess the commiserating mind to help the hapeless, we would admire people who have achieved success, in spiritual or material sense. When we see rich Malays, we would like to follow their examples of becoming rich, bound by adherance to basic values of ethic and civility. We are motivated by examples of success, but not become jealous of their good tidings, and much less work to dismantle others’ good tidings out of jealousy.

Iado said, in William Shakespeare Othello:

“ Poor and content is rich, and rich enough
But riches fineless is as poor as winter
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend
From Jealousy”

Mahathir, a prime minister of Malaysia for 22 years, promotes jealousy. And worse he promotes jealousy based on racial ground. He does it as a racial mercenary for gains, because he is ethnically based on blood flowing in his veins a Malayali originated from Kerela of India, and he is only trying to arouse the support of Malays for himself, and his son later to flesh out his dream of Malayali political dynasty in Malaysia.

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///7. Fikirkan hanya berkenaan Dasar Ekonomi Baru (DEB). Agihan kekayaan korporat dalam DEB ialah sebanyak 30% bagi bumiputra (walaupun mereka adalah 60% dari penduduk) dan 40% bagi kaum lain serta 30% bagi orang luar. Tetapi setelah diusahakan selama 39 tahun bahagian yang terdapat bagi mereka ialah 20%, sedangkan yang terdapat bagi kaum lain ialah hampir 50%, walaupun mereka hanya 26% dari jumlah penduduk.///– Mahathir

It was never the objective of the NEP to nationalise wealth in the country and distribute them in the proportion as Mahathir tries to imply as if the Malays have been short-changed. The 30% was a target of Malays participation in the business sector. Particiaption in the business sector is nebulous concept , and there was no direct statitical indicator to quantify such participation; since it could be labour, management or capital. The EPU in the 1970s decided to use the share of corporate equity owned by Malays as a proxy for Malays’ participation in the business sector. It is now taken as a measure of wealth owned by Malays in Malaysia. Certainly mega land holdings such as FELDA which was run on a pure corporate basis should have been included in the EPU statistics as part of the 30% has not been included.

Tun Razak’s government established government investment corporations to participate in business, and the government intended to hold them in trust for Malays, and the equity shares would be sold to Malays when they were able to own them. It was no yet a transfer of government funds directly into the pockets of Malays.

Soon after Mahathir became PM in 1981, he declared that NEP would have been a success if he could make a Malay millionaire. Mahathir introduced the negotiated tender for governemnt projects and procurements in place of public tender which had been the norm since 1957. We know that Mahathirs had made many Malay billionaires, and his sons and daughters are among the wealthy “Malays”. Najib announced recently that RM 54 billion worth of equity share in the corporate sector had been allocated to Malays since NEP, and at a discount under the aegis of FIC, but only RM 2 billion worth of the share remains in Malay hands. RM 52 billion have been cashed out by Malays, and if they chose to invest their funds overseas or held them in other forms of assets, the non-Malays cannot be held responsible when the share of corportate equity held by Malays in the country fall below the 30% , which they had owned, had they kept them. No body can have the cake and eat it. The government chose not to insist that Malays hold on to their shares, and keep their money in the country, it cannot hold non-Malays responsibile to ensure that Malays have 30% to show.

The NEP was promised by Tun Razak to be in operation for 20 years, at the whims and fancy of UMNO leaders, and now Mahathir said that despite having NEP run for 39 years, the objective had not been met. The truth was the 30% had been met in 1990, but Mahathir chose to rename it as NDP but continued with the discriminating policy. Even now, the share of corporate ownership held by Malays, despite the sell off, was more than 30% according to ASLI’s report issued in 2006. The government has not honoured its commitment to prove ASLI wrong, more than two years after it announced its intention to do so. Mahathir seems to blame non-Malays that NEP had to be implemented for 39 years instead of 20 years. When UMNO steps on your feet, you are blamed for having your feet at the wrong place. How arrogant is UMNO, and Mahathir is its worst example.

At the time of independence in 1957, the proportion of non-Malays in Malaya was closed to 50%. Since NEP from 1970, two million non-Malays emigrated because of the discriminatory basis the policy was implemented. The non-violence ethnic cleansing was quite successful, especially with project M in sabah which have brought in more than a million Muslims who have since become bumiputras and bosses of Sabah. Yes, non-Malay population is decreasing.

The original intention of NEP was to have Malays participate in the business sector. Mahathir consider NEP as a licence distribute wealth built by the efforts of others through government sanctioned robbery. Yet he complained that the non-Malays still owned more than their population share. Why did he not comment about the percentage of foreigners in local population against their percentage share? Only non-Malay Malaysians are susceptable to governement bully, not the foreigners who have strong governments behind them.

///12. Lihat sahaja sejarah perjuangan Melayu. Pada Pilihanraya 1955, diwaktu mereka menguasai 82% dari kawasan-kawasan pilihanraya, mereka rela memberi sejumlah yang tidak kecil dari kawasan – kawasan mereka kepada kaum lain dan mengundi calon dari kaum-kaum ini sehingga menang melawan calon Melayu lain (PAS).

13. Kemudian mereka anugerahkan satu juta kerakyatan tanpa syarat biasa kepada kaum lain sehingga peratusan rakyat Melayu jatuh dari 82% kepada 60%. Siapakah yang lain yang pernah lakukan yang sedemikian?///– Mahathir

It is trite to say lies, damn lies and statistics; and what about those who use statistics to promote skewed views?

The British government was clear that unless there was racial harmony in the country, Malaya would remain a British colony. Malaya without Singapore had a total population of around 7 million in 1955, and 50 percent of them was Malays. The figure of 82% could represent certain electoral constituencies with Malay majority, and when non-Malays were fielded in those constituencies and won presumably with Malay votes against any opponents, the seats stayed with Alliance in computing majority. The hatred Mahathir has for Anwar was not because he was Malay, but because he was his political opponents. The UMNO leaders had non-Malays fielded the constituencies so that they would win against PAS. It was political power that the Alliance government of the time was thinking. It was not the largesse given to the non-Malays as Mahathir tries hard to defame Tunku.

The UMNO leaders of the days had to decide whether they wanted to pursue independence, or to remain the British subjects. The found the Chinese and Indian community leaders at the time agreeable to work towards independence, and agreeing to the provisions in the constitution of Malaya. Whatever they agreed to, they had the intention to honour them. It is irresponsible of the succeeding leaders of UMNO to decide not to honour the agreement in full, and to jerry-pick issues as though founding members and early leaders of UMNO, including the late father of Najib were selling out to non—Malays. It was as though the good fortune of Malays that a Malayali from Kerela of India, who by Satan’s will, descended upon Malaysia to help the Malays realise how weak their leaders were half a century ago.

UMNO had by its population and by normal parliamentary democratic practices more power than it ought to have. There is a person who now finds it opportune to fan racist sentiment, and he chooses to justify why the people should be divided by race. Australian and Californian governments have recently expressed regret for racist policies they forefather imposed on migrants. Here in Malaysia where migrants had been associating freely as equal with the earlier migrants, and the Orang Asli, the natives of the land, until a decade after independence, we find five decades later, a person who had absolute power and who practised racial discrimination for 22 years, finds it proper to give justification why racial discrimination is in order. Political leaders around the world progress with time, UMNO leader of past prominence regresses.

Everything under the sun is relative; longevity is good, until that is associated with a person who happens to be the greatest liability of the society.

///17. Apakah gamaknya perasaan tokoh yang meletak diri di tempat orang Melayu, terhadap semua korban ini? Apakah dia masih fikir yang orang Melayu harus korban segala-gala yang dituntut daripada mereka?///– Mahathir

The only persons who are sacrificed are the Orang Asli; even their land was known as Tanah Melayu. The ordinary Malays sacrificed their good name so that UMNOputras could enrich themselves, and the success they achieved through their efforts were not recognised by UMNO leaders as such, to them the Malays owed UMNO the gratitude for what they achieved. The earlier migrants to Malaya did not have conflicts with the later immigrants. For without the efforts put in by all residents of the country, the urbanisation might not have reached the stage, at the time of independence. The indiscriminate deforestation and building of concrete jungles were the results of corrupt practices presided over by UMNO-led government

18. Dengan rencana ini saya tetap akan di cap sebagai racist oleh racist bukan Melayu. Tetapi kalau mereka sanggup menerima yang benar, mereka boleh banding korban orang Melayu pemilik asal negara ini dengan korban mereka untuk kepentingan negara ini.

It would be singing praises to call Mahathir a racist. He would be a racist if he had cared about the pride of the Malay community, like the late Tun Ismail would. To repeat, Tun Ismail said that Malays would give up Article 153 on their own, when they no longer required them, out of pride. Mahathir was only a mercenary, using the issue of race to advance his political interests. If he was a true racist, he would care about Indians’ lives in this country, rather than Malays which he was allowed to be associated only after the 1957 constitution provided the loop hole in article 160. It might be closer to describe him a racial opportunist.

///19. Saya berpendapat jika negara ini hendak aman dan maju, agihan kekayaan dan kualiti hidup semua kaum hendaklah adil (fair) walaupun tidak sama (unequal). Janganlah hendaknya mana-mana pihak atau kaum tanggung beban kemiskinan yang keterlaluan, sementara kaum lain hidup mewah. Mengumpan sokongan dengan mengambil hak satu kaum untuk diberi kepada kaum lain bukanlah caranya – lebih-lebih lagi mengambil dari yang kurang berada untuk diberi kepada yang sudah lebih berada.///– Mahathir

A commiserating government cares about the people, and they cannot bear to see the suffering of others. When leaders can bear to see the sufferings of one race and not the others, they were only doing it to win the support of those who benefited. That divides the people, and the process would ensure that the people themselves stay divided, and to take side to ensure that their interests are protected. That is why polarisation persisted in this country, and will continue to be so when unequal treatments of the population are legally allowed.

The unequal treatment in early days after independence was to create level playing grounds. Mahathir makes the blatant attempt to justify it based on entitlement.