Challenge to Mahathir to a public debate on “Whether after 57 years of UMNO government and six UMNO Prime Ministers, Malays have lost political power and become beggars in their own land”

Yesterday, former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir repeated ad nauseam his politics of fear, hate and lies that Malays have lost political power and have become beggars in their own land.

Does Mahathir really believe such garbage, that after 57 years of UMNO Government and six UMNO Prime Ministers – with him ruling for 22 years or 39% of these 57 years as the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia – that the Malays have lost political power and become beggars in their own land?

If so, then this is the most powerful reason why the Malays and even Malaysians must throw UMNO out of Putrajaya in the 14GE, for there can be no greater indictment of the failures of 57 years of UMNO rule under six UMNO Prime Ministers (including his 22 years as PM) than the fate Mahathir insists the Malays have been reduced to – stripped of political power to become beggars in their own land!
But does this fearsome scenario tally with reality?

Malaysia had not only been ruled by the UMNO Government under six UMNO Prime Ministers for 57 years, the DPMs, the heavy-weight Cabinet Ministers like Finance, Home and Education; the Attorney-General; heads of the civil service, judiciary, the police, the armed forces and the army, navy and air force; secretaries-general of all important and the overwhelming majority of ministries; heads of key government departments and statutory bodies, the Vice Chancellors of all public universities – they are all helmed by Malays.

The UMNO mouthpiece, Utusan Malaysia, recently quoted the Public Service Department (JPA) director of organizational development Datuk Norzam Mohd Nor as saying that a whopping 60 per cent of chief executives helming government statutory bodies appear to have little knowledge about their agencies.

Is this fault to be laid at the doors of the Chinese in Malaysia?

Mahathir said Malays have lost political power. Have the PM, DPMs, the heavy-weight UMNO Ministers, heads of civil service, judiciary, police, armed forces, secretaries-general and heads of departments, university vice chancellors become puppets of the Chinese at their beck and call?

Only crazies would answer in the affirmative, and it is unthinkable that Mahathir, having been Prime Minister for 22 years, could believe such garbage.

I challenge Mahahtir to a public debate on whether the Malays have lost political power and been reduced to be beggars in their own land after 57 years of UMNO government under six UMNO Prime Ministers.

As as former and longest-serving Prime Minister, Mahathir should be a benign and constructive influence in Malaysian life and politics. But he has become an evil influence who not only claimed he did not understand what Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia policy was all about, but have openly repudiated his own policy of Bangsa Malaysia and Vision 2020.

Mahathir is not in retirement but is hyper-active in speaking engagements to continue his fear-mongering, incitement of hate and spreading of lies.

I await Mahahir’s answer to my challenge to a public debate on “Whether after 57 years of UMNO Government under six UMNO Prime Ministers, Malays have lost political power and have become beggars in their own land?”

Mahathir’s repetition yesterday ad nauseam that Malays have lost political power and have become beggars in their own land is not because he believed in such garbage, or that dementia is at work with Mahathir but it represents the last gasp of Mahathirism to prevent the politics of inclusion replacing the politics of exclusion in Malaysia.

He has become patron of the extremist and racist Perkasa who clearly approves of their Friday demonstrations, one in Penang where uncouth, coarse and vulgar language were used, abusing the Penang Chief Minister as “holy pig (babi cuci)” and “wild boar (babi hutan)” and the Penang Exco Member for Islamic Affairs as a “pondan” together with threats and other uncivilized conduct and in Ipoh at the DAP Perak headquarters, tearing a Christmas banner and assaulting the DAP Assemblyman for Tebing Tinggi Ong Boon Piow.

I am shocked that Mahathir could approve of such gangsterish misconduct by Perkasa, showing his approval of their demonstration but silent on their boorish behaviour.

Whatever my differences with UMNO leaders in my 48 years of politics, I have always treated Mahathir and all the other five UMNO Prime Ministers with the greatest of respect, not only as due to their high office, but to set an example of rational and civilised political discourse in Malaysia politics.

I feel sad that Mahathir has degenerated to a stage where he could look with approval at the gangsterish and boorish misconduct of the Perkasa demonstrators in Penang and Ipoh last Friday.

Yesterday, Malaysia lost a towering Malaysian – Tan Sri Ani Arope, who quit as TNB executive chairman in 1996 as he was not prepared to be a cipher and kowtow to then PM Mahathir’s demand that TNB sign lopsided deals with independent power producers where TNB was forced to buy electricity generated by the IPPs at a significantly higher price.

One thought struck me yesterday – who would have made a better Prime Minister for Malaysia in the nineties, Mahathir or Ani Arope?

In his book, “Memoirs of Tan Sri Ani Arope”, Ani said that although the issue of special rights for Malays and other bumiputeras is and will always be a delicate issue, Malaysians will view the whole matter in a different light if these rights will benefit Malays and other bumiputeras who truly deserve them.

He said: “However, it appears that these rights have been skewered to benefit the privileged Malays. The rural folk and those who really need help are getting the smallest of crumbs, if at all.”

He said Malaysia does not need ”party loyalists, but people who are sensible, temperate, sober and well-judging persons to guide us through this tumultuous political time.”

He warned that some ultra-Malay groups were disturbing the race harmony in the country who need to perpetuate prejudice and bigotry, “because these, whether real, perceived or invented, are the reasons that justify the existence of these extreme chauvinistic groups”.

This was why I tweeted yesterday: “No doubt TS Ani Arope would have endorsed Open Letter by 25 Eminent Malays. He is not just eminent but Great Penangite and Malaysian!|

In fact I further tweeted:

“TS Ani Arope deserves Tunship. Call on PM Najib to recommend conferment of posthumous Tun-ship on TS Ani Arope who is real people’s hero!

“Great if someone can start people’s movement urging PM Najib 2recommend bestowal of posthumous Tunship to TS Ani Arope for national services.”