Written by Hussein Hamid
Friday, 29 July 2011
CPI
Since the early 1980s, the ‘indiscretions’ of elected officials and those in the civil service have become the hallmark of all things Malaysian. This is to the extent that the people now accept corruption, greed and furthering vested interests as colouring all government transactions.
How did this scheme of things come about?
The turning point was 1981. After Mahathir Mohamad became prime minister, compassion for the people and respect for their rights was extinguished. With Mahathir too came the decline of political morality and a corresponding decline in the moral fibre of the civil service.
Malaysians accept that we are now a country in decline without much hope for recovery in the foreseeable future. As if to emphasize this decline, we are continually bombarded with scandal after scandal as if confirming that Malaysia is indeed bereft of any decent political leadership and a country that has lost its way.
The Barisan Nasional government had found it expedient to accelerate the country’s racial divide by granting citizenship to illegal Malay immigrants. Imagine what social harm the massive influx of unskilled and uneducated immigrants would do to any country that is not even able to provide basic welfare and education to its existing citizens.
Project M is surely the act of an irresponsible and self-serving government without regard for anything else but its own political survival.
He who promoted M’sia Inc.
Following the gutter politics example set by this BN government, our society has followed suit.
We have a corrupt and brutal police force which is just short of becoming a willing appendage of Umno.
The corporate world is a willing, eager and generous participant where prudent business practices are cast aside for the more lucrative political patronage. The spoils on offer are breathtakingly profitable for those who participate but they come at the expense of the public.
And where do all these practices lead to? The simple answer is to look at where we are today. We have a government that virtually declared war on its people for wanting a fair, free and open election. We have a government that is prepared to risk the lives of its people in Gebeng, Kuantan for the Lynas corporation (big business against the little people).
We have the Prime Minister talking up a RM4 billion redevelopment of the city riverfront at a time when minimum wages are still just “to be discussed” next year, when subsidies are being “restructured” and when our hardcore poor can still be seen wandering the streets of our capital and major cities, and the elderly are still without adequate care.
What madness is this to prioritise mega projects when matters of affordable housing and putting food on the table for the poor should really come first?
These are some of the reasons why today in Malaysia compassion for others who are less fortunate is no longer a consideration for this BN government. Moral decency has gone the same way as BN has gone – into the abyss.
Mahathir, Father of Apartheid
Are we at the point of no return?
To answer this we need to look at what has happened after Mahathir became PM.
The manner in which Mahathir consciously used race to divide and rule the country would put Malaysia on the same level as South Africa that had used apartheid to ‘manage’ racial inequality.
Initially, as the restructuring of Malaysian society got underway, there were visible images of the Malays getting their share of the nation’s wealth. The non-Malays accepted the necessity of this social re-engineering with grace, and with possibly a pragmatic resignation that this must be the way to go forward if we are to be united.
But much too soon the cosmetic redistribution of wealth amongst the Malays became a grab by Umno politicians of the nation’s wealth for their own keeping. The executive power vested in Umno made it all too easy for them to do, and they did so with gusto.
Greed led to the culture of money politics, and this culture seeped into the consciousness of the Malays in general and Umno in particular.
I would think that the irreversible slide towards this moral decay started when Umno within itself accepted the use of money politics as a means of buying and staying in power.
Thus began the transformation of Umno where power open doors to great wealth. No longer was the party there to fight the battles for the Malays. No longer were the Malays the reason for Umno’s being. Money was the be all and end all, and this new reality brought along with it the troubles and abuses that we have with us presently.
All of it started when Mahathir became our prime minister.
Mahathirism still a scourge
We now have a new generation, maybe even two generations of our young and not too young who will no longer tolerate the government thinking it has the right to pillage and plunder our country’s resources.
With the advent of the electronic media and the Internet, we are made aware of the wrongdoings of this BN government. No longer can they keep secret from us the massive losses incurred in wasteful public spending, excessive infrastructure costs and the all in all incompetence of the BN government of the Mahathir years which still continue to today.
All the dominance Malaysia once had within the Asean region, if not in the global economy, has now disappeared because of the lack of prudence by this BN government in our times of plenty.
What else does BN need to see before they realise that their past and current policies whether in education, business or racial balance have failed miserably?
Changes must be made now if we are to ever regain our place again amongst our erstwhile peers. Economic reforms and national transformation programmes must be done to address the necessary changes most needed, not for scoring political points or to protect the vested interests of the BN cronies.
It is most urgent to guarantee our economic future.
I cannot see any other way forward for Malaysia then to do away with this self-serving Umno-BN government. What is to come after BN is still to be seen. Much too often human beings have the ability to change for better or for worse when called upon to do so by circumstances of their own making or by factors outside their control.
If BN is voted out of office at the 13th general election, then let those that will take its place understand that the momentum to ensure change rests with the people. Ignore the people at your peril!
Yes, i notice that the author referred to dr mamak by his name without the stupid decorative term “tong” or “dung” or something. This is very commendable. Bravo! A lot of people still refer to umno idiots and jibby jib by their whatever decorative description. They dont deserve those description and we must not acknowledge them. So dr mamak is dr mamak to me regardless of whether he is dung or tong or something. And jibby jib is plain jibby jib. Just drop his whatever (wot?) “darker (darko?) series” title.
Ignore the People who voted for a change…PR will have only one term managing the country.
That’s a promise.
Race and Religion politics….divide to rule…apply double standards…encouraging corruptions…arrest without trials…controlling the power of Rulers…approve projects costing billions with billions overpriced in each project..and many more…all are Mahathir’s ideas.
Became so popular as cronies..stooges and selected Muslims became instant millionaires…thus using money to tempt and win …making him a Dictator for 22 years.
Najib is merely a house keeper to protect the corrupted lot…which he must do so……as he has one notch above others…a suspected murderer.
Sad to say that Mahadhir had dangerously opened the floodgate for despotism to sneak into a once peaceful democratic Malaysia. Just look at some past events: detaining journalists under ISA, crushing of peaceful Bersih 2.0 rally and detaining the PSM 6 under arbitrary EO. Aren’t these signs of a despotic state?
Like it or not, the biggest threat to Malay-Muslim is not Chinese, Jews, Christians, Communist, Globalisation, Free Markets, Singapore etc.. Their biggest threat are the Mahathirist – those that follow and believe the ideas of Mahathir.
Its difficult for Malays to understand because its also true that Mahathir probably brought the greatest change to Malays. What most Malays, with the exception of a minority, don’t get is that the changes brought by Mahathir would have happened with our without Mahathir.
However, the nature of less developed communities that their champions inevitably fails them – the price of catching up in progress is relentless and there is just that much any champion can do. Hence it the nature of these champions like Mahathir to become irrelevant even a burden eventually no matter how big their contribution. The price for a catching up to others is seldom so simple as an idea or a person and require relentless willingness to change and adapt to different idea and different leaders in different stages. Such is the nature of governance and development.
The writer missed out mentioning that we are paying’protection’ prices for our cars just that Mahatir’s proton can survive. Otherwise all of us can drive branded imported cars whose quality give us much comfort and protection in accidents – but not the proton. Thanks again to Dr. M.
Don’t talk to me about Mhathir.
That name is just too disgusting!
How can anyone be so obviously evil? SO really evil. Unadulterated evil.
God save his soul from the devils’ jaws.
Sorry people a little diversion.
Just finished developing a site (crucial pages are now up and running). It helps people to calculate legal fees and disbursements and stamp duties in property transactions i.e. sale and purchase, loan and lease/tenancy.
The idea is so that interested buyer browsing through the net for properties could also very quickly determine (est) the extra costs he would need to bear by way of legal costs for the purchase and the loan and the stamp duties involved. Cumulatively these sums add up quite a bit.
I think this is way better than reading something on dr mamak. And dont forget the service (site) is free of charge.
Here. the site: http://www.bluecal.biz
Oops the site seems to behave better here:
http://bluecal.biz/
///The turning point was 1981. After Mahathir Mohamad became prime minister, compassion for the people and respect for their rights was extinguished. With Mahathir too came the decline of political morality and a corresponding decline in the moral fibre of the civil service.///–Hussein Hamid
Dr Ling Liong Sik, the person who was MCA president for decades, Transport minister for ages, and defendant to the charge of lying or misleading the Prime Minister in PKFZ land purchase said that Mamakthir was the greatest gift of God to Malaysia. The gift in the form of a Satan, has turned Malaysia into hell. It is Malaysians’ Khama that the grandson of a Calicut Kaka-Mamak Indian alone should undo all the good other immigrants brought to this land.
///Initially, as the restructuring of Malaysian society got underway, there were visible images of the Malays getting their share of the nation’s wealth. The non-Malays accepted the necessity of this social re-engineering with grace, and with possibly a pragmatic resignation that this must be the way to go forward if we are to be united.///–Hussein Hamid
The non-Malays did not and do not accept the need for social re-engineering since they knew very well that it was all an excuse advanced by UMNO leaders to justify the May 13 incident which was a front for the coup d’etat. That was why those who had the prescience that the UMNO government would never honour their promise started to leave Malaysian shores, because the reason for the so-called social engineering was just an excuse for power grab and the greed of those opportunists knew no bound.
Mahathir planned to make the Malays the supreme race in Malaysia by making use of other races and intimidating them under the well defined constitution.It worked well because he had the police ,the army and his own intelligence to get things done.The immigrants did not understand what is citizenship means as such they thought they were slaves to the Malays.Utterances like “balik India and Cina” were commonly used and the turning point came when the army and the police were used to kill the Chinese and the Indians during the May 69 incident.From that day onwards the Malay leaders realised that it was easy for them to rule if that threat is still reminded. Rustam ,the Malacca CM, told Ambiga to go back to India.(If India and China does not buy oil palm from Malaysia, Najib will not enjoy the support of the FELDA).It worked to a certain extent till the new generation of Malays got educated and they became the catalyst of change.That change came when the internet was introduced for transmitting information became a tool to run down the government.That was a mistake Mahathir made as claimed.He knew that the next stage was the ICT world and the Malays will be hopelessly left out if he does not take the lead.He had built monuments and brought mega projects which had benefitted him and his cronies.(We have now Burma as a glaring example of a nation which is selling its raw materials to China and India to survive.The people are under oppression and the situation is getting worse.)Under such condition Mahathir liberalised the intenet but he dug the grave for UMNO and the BN .The Malays according to Mahathir cannot be on their own.They need props and they also easily forget.All these were proven wrong because we have now seen through Bersih that the races think well and come together to bring down the UMNO/BN government. Although Mahathir is a “crook” he had brought about a change that no Malaysian can deny.He had introduced the Internet which paved the way for the opposition to tell the truth and the decline and the impending downfall of UMNO/BN in the next election.The Malays should not feel sorry that their leaders had brought about their destruction but now should learn to work as hard as anybody to bring the slow slipping nation back to its glory.We should not discuss anymore about the Prime Ministers
of the past till Najib as their contribution was to the slow death of the Malay race and disuniting the races.The new era Prime Minister will be one who does not discuss citizenship and never talk about race.He will think himself as Malaysian and allow meritrocracy to thrive.
This mamak is evil, probably the re-incarnation of the Devil himself. A man who is prepared to destroy a nation for his own selfishness, and gain. He tells lies with a straight face, full of deceit and arrogance. Even when his time is passed, he refuses to allow the nation to go on.
Badawi’s claim to history would be, that he got rid of the evil Mamak.
Anyway, lets not waste time on the evil one. He will get what he deserves, in the here after.
We need to change the tenant at Putrajaya
Also father of the Thai, Indonesian and some say Philippines car industry.