“The meek and timid response of the Prime Minister” – YB Kit

That makes me wonder what would have been not meek or timid by Kit’s standards.

How about this “imaginary” one (with some points taken from his speech) –

“I do not agree that the pushing for NEM is necessarily disregarding Malay special rights or “an insult” to the spirit of the NEP. Surely you don’t expect me, as the son of the NEP’s founder, to betray my late father’s struggle or, as leader of UMNO, Malay interest.

However somebody wise once said: that craziness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

As I listen to the speeches of this Congress rejecting the NEM for the NEP, I’ve never come so to grips with that quotation. When we see that Malay equity has remained at 18 per cent for the last ten to 15 years, we must try another way so that an increase can be realised…

So it saddens me that you have brought diffidence and fear to this great debate. Your criticisms of NEM and clinging support for NEP (in its present form) in voices stentorian, even when it has been shown to undermine the nation’s competitiveness and investments, have raised the stakes to a level where we can no longer distinguish the demagogue from the truly inspired….

Even as you are patriots and strong supporters of race you would unwittingly become traitors to the necessary end result – the upliftment of race, the first necessary prerequisite of which is to learn stand with less and less of the help of the crutches and to learn compete with other races on a leveller playing field. For it is only under more equitable conditions of all sharing a common place under the Malaysian Sun, in fairness to all other races who have helped build and developed this country to what it is today that all feel that they have a stake to together, as Malaysians, venture forth in confidence and unity to confront and meet the challenges of Gloablization and beat the rest of the World instead of beat each other, behind the rest of the world….This then is the true meaning of ‘1 Malaysia’ to make inclusive the stake of all under the Malaysian Sun that complements, like hand and glove, the NEM, as an engine of growth, to drive the country from low lying backwaters of economic stagnation to the sunlit uplands of economic prosperity where all especially the Malays, who form the majority, will reap the benefits….Hubris has no place if by reason of it the country loses out because the Malays as majority would lose out most in the only place we call our own if the country goes bankrupt in 9 years due to lack of competitiveness….

They say leadership is where one listen to the people. Change is always uncomfortable but if its necessary for survival, then we must.

It is the sacred duty of leadership then – even at the risk of losing one’s position at the helm – to make tough decisions, to lead and get his people from where they are that is wrong to where they have not been, that is right, even if the followers fear to go and some will rebel and try remove the leader in that process.

So, let me make one thing clear to such of my detractors who are so used to crutches that their bones have grown over them, you can come at me with whatever weapons that you have in your arsenal: you have come face to face with my will as I’ll stay my course in sure belief that there is no weapon as powerful as an idea that has come – the idea of 1 Malaysia inclusive for all and its complement, NEM, that the majority of all right thinking Malaysians will support as the compass pointing the direction to which the great ship of our nation will be steered from the present treacherous waters, through uncharted reefs, to safe harbour.

Groucho Marx once said, “Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men — the other 999 follow women.” I intend to be that one man”.

The tragedy is that once it comes open (from the Govt) that the country has to do something like move way from the NEP and become competitive or become bankrupt, and yet because of right wing groups objections led by TDM the Govt evinces lack of political will to do the necessary (ie apply the medicine), the situation may rapidly from now on deteriorate faster than ever as the market assesses the situation unremediable and capital/investment inflows may revert to flight.