By Kee Thuan Chye
Malaysiakini
Najib the vendor of half-baked spin was at it again a few days ago when he said the Chinese owed their success to Barisan Nasional (BN).
At a 1Malaysia open house, he said BN formulated good policies and ensured there was harmony in the country and an environment that “allowed the Chinese to make a good living”.
Najib had the cheek to say this.
He of course wants the Chinese to be thankful to BN and therefore vote for the coalition at the upcoming general election. But his half-baked spin completely ignores the other side of the story.
For instance, the Chinese also owe it to BN that they became second-class citizens in their own country because of BN’s discriminatory policies – and, let’s not forget, practices.
As a result, the Chinese have to work harder to succeed. To get places in Malaysian public universities. To have their children score the highest number of As and still not get accepted to do, say, Medicine in these institutions. And therefore be forced to send them overseas, at much higher cost.
The Chinese owe it to BN that they were compelled to leave Malaysia to seek fairer opportunities overseas, some never to return, and thereby contributing to a huge brain drain for which Malaysia is now paying the price.
Many who are now settled overseas may indeed be thankful that they left, but I’m sure Najib is not looking to them for gratitude. Some of them won’t be eligible for voting, anyway, having taken citizenships in their countries of adoption.
The Chinese also owe it to BN that to take on business projects of sizable proportions, they have to pay kickbacks – some to BN bigwigs themselves, some to their cronies.
The Chinese owe it to BN that they find it virtually impossible to rise to the highest echelons of public service – in the judiciary, the military, the police, the universities, the civil service. Not because they don’t have the merit to fill these positions; in fact, they do, which therefore makes it even more unjust and painful.
Can Najib name a single Chinese vice-chancellor in a Malaysian public university? Can a Chinese person become Inspector-General of Police or Admiral of the Fleet or Chief Justice?
Najib should note that despite the barriers, the Chinese accepted their lot. And many Chinese – for whatever warped or bewildering logic – actually supported BN throughout the times they were marginalised!
In fact, Najib should watch what he says in the run-up to the general election, especially if he is hoping to win Chinese support for BN.
As it is, many analysts believe that about 70 to 8o per cent of the Chinese are not in favour of the ruling party. If he wants to win at least some over, he needs to say the right things. More than that, he needs to do the right things. Although even then, one wonders if it might not be too late.
Many Chinese still remember what he reportedly said in 1987 on the eve of Operasi Lalang at the Umno Youth rally in TPCA Stadium. As the Umno Youth chief then, he displayed ethnocentric gusto in unsheathing his keris and announcing that it would taste Chinese blood by the end of the day.
It might have been an act of foolish bravado but it still resonates among some Chinese today. Considered together with the video that is making the rounds again of his address to the Umno and Malay NGOs audience in Putra Word Trade Centre (PWTC) a few days after Bersih 2.0, in which he said, with much tribal sound and fury, “We will show them whose country this is!”, many wonder if the leopard has changed its spots.
For all his talk of 1Malaysia, Najib is still an ethnocentrist at heart.
He has said he will meet the Chinese educationist group Dong Zong to discuss the latter’s demands in regard to Chinese education. In all likelihood, he will agree to meet some if not all of them as a last-ditch measure to win Chinese votes. He might even declare the Government’s recognition – finally – of the United Examination Certificate (UEC), a dream the Chinese educationists have been pursuing for the longest time.
If this consequently prompts Dong Zong to endorse Najib and BN for the coming general election, it could sway a good number of Chinese votes in the direction of BN. Then, like they did in 1999 when they saved Mahathir Mohamad’s bacon by strongly supporting his coalition when the Malays were swinging to the Opposition, they could hand BN a victory … and, who knows?, maybe even a two-thirds majority, which is what Najib desperately covets.
However, this is going to be a crucial general election. It is the one time when real change for the country can come about with a change of government.
The Chinese need to consider carefully about giving their vote to BN. They need to consider the long-term effects of another BN victory. They need to weigh the possibility of real reform in the event of BN being booted out and a new coalition taking over that could bring positive change.
They need to be wary of Najib’s sweet talk and his gifts. If he gives them Government recognition of the UEC, more independent Chinese schools, whatever, they might want to just accept these politely, say thank you and think of voting according to what they think is right.
Dong Zong on its part should remain neutral and not take a stand by endorsing BN. For if it does and Pakatan wins the general election, it would find itself in an awkward position.
The Chinese have a big role to play now in this coming general election. Najib can say anything till he is blue in the face, but they have to weigh the truth or lack of it in what he says. Besides, ensuring harmony and a conducive environment for work and living in the country is, after all, the responsibility – indeed, duty – of any government for which no gratitude from the citizens is necessary. So the Chinese don’t owe BN anything.
Above all, the Chinese must not forget about the corruption that has been rampant under BN rule for decades. And the rent-seeking. And the slow growth of our GDP since 1980 in comparison to South Korea , Taiwan , Singapore , etc. These affect the whole country, not just the Chinese, and are therefore all the more important.
So, when it comes to the crunch, the Chinese must vote for only one thing – a better Malaysia .
* Kee Thuan Chye is the author of the bestselling book No More Bullshit, Please, We’re All Malaysians, and the latest volume, Ask for No Bullshit, Get Some More!
Be thankful to BN?? Oh for phhhaaaark sake. That is just plain juvenile. Plug that hole in your face umno before the next stupid idea emerges.
Yes, right!, the chinese owe the Umno warlords their good fortune.
The chinese better grateful for what umno warlords have sacrificed, whatever that were.
Until there is real change. ABU ABU…
There is no harm for the Chinese to welcome BN government recognition of the UEC but at the same time vote for DAP or PR.
Well said KTC, hope the chinese show them the colours..High time we get rid of the traitors and corrupted dogs…
Playboy sucker used his testicles to think and a$$ to speak!
Can blame him! No wonder foreign investments are often shun away; and thus, experience low figures! Even Vietnam and Indonesia FDI ‘s are much higher than Bolehland–ranking at Fifth place after Indonesia and Vietnam. What a suck, man???
‘…“We will show them whose country this is!”…’
Strange that a man from Sulawesi, Indonesia should say this.
‘…They need to be wary of Najib’s sweet talk and his gifts….’
Sweet talk is cheap and worth nothing if it is hollow and empty. Gifts? What do you have for his gang ?
‘…The Chinese have a big role to play now in this coming general election…’
How right. It looks like the Chinese is now the conscience of the nation once again and they will vote for what is right and best for the country…as usual.
Many Chinese families say ‘THANK YOU’ 2 UmnoB/BN 4 forcing them 2 b self-reliant n 2 tighten their belts 4 their families, even 2 d extent dat family members r dispersed in different cities of d world
Many Chinese families r fragmented – thanks 2 UmnoB/BN
Say no to UMNO,MIC,MCA,Gerakan etc. We not owed anything from them.. ABU
After decades BN finally recognised TAR diploma or degree. But will the Chinese rejoiced on that? No, as an graduate of TAR 30 years ago, I was least rejoice what BN has finally so call recognised. Chinese will not live because TAR courses recognised or not after all many graduates have gone through and most of them survive any way. The Chinese are finding hard to cope with the costs of education but they are least border BN will help or not. They have been cheated by BN lies for 50+ years and will not be cheated any more.
TAR students are abandon child of BN for over 50+ now they come and claim their right?
UEC recognition ? may be some will rejoice but most Chinese will not be too much concern about it.
Just ignore Najib, UMNO and Mahathir.
Vote for the opposition pakatan Rakyat.
Then begin a new era of hope and face the challenges ahead.
najib and his gang of ali baba and co. have all plundered Malaysia left, right and centre and we will need time to heal and repair the damage.
Forget Najib’s B.S. and slogans.
The Chinese do not owe BN anything. But BN owes a lot to the Chinese. The Chinese were the key engine of economic growth for decades. It is only with economic growth that those in power in BN are able to amassed their fortunes.
The Chinese in general, except those select group in MCA, have been deprived of all opportunities and yet they survived on their own.
The Chinese pays more when they buy a house, pays more tax because IRD seems to be only after the Chinese, pays more for education even with good grades while their Malay counterparts gets admitted to local univ with lesser results and we can go on and on till the cow comes home.
The Chinese are not bothered with UEC recognition because it is recognised overseas especially by many reputable universities. And the Chinese have made do all these years without UEC recognition by BN and survived! Same with TAR graduates. So, whats the big deal.
After election, the same old same old will happen again – BN talking down to the Chinese and Indians for they don’t need them anymore and they will ask you guys to balik kampung if you don’t like it here.
For 50 years, they did nothing except rape the country and they want a mandate so that they can reform the country? I say, Time For Change! Better to take a chance than stay with the devil we know.
The Chinese may owe BN nothing but every time they want something or need anything they need to bring something for the BN people to enjoy. Otherwise things just won’t ‘jalan’.
So really, the Chinese will always ‘owe’ BN something. It is expected and has become the norm / tradition.
Will they owe PR anything when they come to power?
Nobody owes anybody in this world except he/she are handicapped or helpless-but why the majority still need help till now-what’s really wrong all these while over 5 decades!-i think and hope chengho and cintanegara can sincerely help to explain this mamak puki’s legacy to continue BN’ mandate to Rule/Lord over us.Any take???
Good point. BN should make sure everybody is not handicapped.
F8078KKKKKKKKKKK your mother!!!!!!!!!!
…..BUT nevertheless the BN expect something. Don’t see or meet them or expect anything if you come empty handed. It is a no-no.
How much ? Just name your price if it takes to utamakan pencapaian to dahulukan rakyat.
Can I fix an appointment with her ?
LKS,please delete this comment.TQ.
O G. I was looking forward to it.
if not UMNO , then Dap , u must be joking old boy
Vote for Better Malaysia. ABU ABU ABU!!!
Chinese do owe BN for peace and stability.
At the height of politics of race, religion and hate, extremists and criminals were threatening riots and violence to destroy the country if they don’t get what they want…..even now.
Millions left the country to protect their business, careers, jobs or families before being destroyed by discriminating and bad economic policies.
This had created opportunity for those left behind, including all races. Their sacrifices had significantly contributed to peace and stability in the country, irrespective of their basic rights under the Constitution.
Sadly, the situation did not improve but gone worst……now the ordinary people had to deal with more oppression and discrimination in many areas, rampant corruption destroying the country, millions of illegal with instant ICs diluting their basic rights under the Constitution, bad leadership and gross mismanagement and etc..
Naaaaaaaaah.
I once mentioned to someone from a neighbouring country who struggle to fund their education what the BN has done to education of the Chinese and to the national education as a whole and their reply was simply shock that the UMNO/BN would throw away at least a generation of talents and sound education for politics and racist agenda.
Even our poorer neighbours understand how opportunities for education, skills and talent improvement is so difficult and can even be rare to achieve to throw it away for politics and racist agenda is no less self-motilation and national capacity genocide.
Chinese owe BN nothing, and in fact, it would be the Chinese duty to stop UMNO/BN national self-motilation and and right to defend capacity-genocide of the Chinese.
UmnoB/BN take PRIDE dat they ALLOWED d Chinese (si mata sempit) 2 make a good living
They take pride dat they r better n more magnanimous 2 d Chinese than d Nazi Party 2 d Jews (MMK will always tell rakyat)
They did not GAS d Chinese; only showed unsheathed keris n yelled enthusiastically 2 bathe d keris with Chinese blood; on n off reminded d Chinese 2 balik kampung
They ALLOWED d Chinese to work here as 2nd or 3rd class citizens (now camouflaged or beautified as 1M’sians), pay tax, contribute 2 d economy so as 2 enable UmnoB kaki n privileged Malays n UmnoB cronies 2 live an extravagant lifestyle (diamond n handbags r forever) – n they DEMANDed d Chinese 2 b grateful to UmnoB/BN, VERY SMART indeed
So, si mata sempit, quickly kowtow 2 NR n UmnoB 4 their mercy n magnanimity, kowtow 3 times, tok, tok, tok!
UmnoB/BN take PRIDE dat they ALLOWED d Chinese (si mata sempit) 2 make a good living
They take pride dat they r better n more magnanimous 2 d Chinese than d Nazi Party 2 d Jews (MMK will always tell rakyat)
They did not GAS d Chinese; only showed unsheathed keris n yelled enthusiastically 2 bathe d keris with Chinese blood; on n off reminded d Chinese 2 balik kampung
They ALLOWED d Chinese to work here as 2nd or 3rd cl@ss citizens (now camouflaged or beautified as 1M’sians), pay tax, contribute 2 d economy so as 2 enable UmnoB kaki n privileged Malays n UmnoB cronies 2 live an extravagant lifestyle (diamond n handbags r forever) – n they DEMANDed d Chinese 2 b grateful to UmnoB/BN, VERY SMART indeed
So, si mata sempit, quickly kowtow 2 NR n UmnoB 4 their mercy n magnanimity, kowtow 3 times, tok, tok, tok!
Yes!
It’s true that the Chinese owed UMNO/BN!!
We owed these scums for all the corruption, scams and scandals that they have perpetrated all these five over decades.
We want to express a vote of special thanks to the Mamak for his great contribution in this respect.
We owed them for a National Debt of billions of Ringgit .
In a country rich with diverse natural resources, including black gold – oil!
We owed them for making Malaysians as backward and ignorant as possible so that they will have to depend on government hand-outs.
And especially their insistence that we express our gratitude to them for these hand-outs.
As though the money came from their grandfathers’ legacy.
We owe them for signing lop-sided agreements with their cronies to the detriment of the citizens and the country.
It was especially gratifying to us that, when questioned, they answered that they were not lawyers or accountants!
But aren’t some of our ministers with PHD or MBBS degrees besides others?
And what do they staff their ministries with?
Dumbs dumbs like themselves?
It’s time to let them know that their days are numbered!
The Chinese themselves are to be blamed no body else that they have come to this stage. The Chinese are generally not interest in politic and they will not interfere no matter what will happened as generally Chinese are Kia See people. I am not saying that other are not but Chinese prefer to be alone as far as they can cari makan and most importantly their
children receive enough education that empower them to make money, and money. Thus for decade the Chinese leave MCA to handle their affairs and generally accepted MCA as their representatives in the Government. MCA comprise mainly those business minded tauke will only kau-tau to the big brother and play along with them.
As its developed Chinese take education costs as what they think is their sole responsibility. The government discriminate their enrollment in the universities and set high ever standards for the Chinese to compete among themselves for the limited places in universities. Many Chinese will save as hard as they can to cater for their child education fees. They have not dependent on the government as far as they have the opportunity to earn and save. Truly Chinese owe BN nothing in education. On the other hand Chinese are seem discriminated in the field of education? Why, despite many talented students available each year, BN chose to ignore them and instead let Singapore come to offer them scholarships and hire these later graduates. Despite that many not so lucky enough remain stay put and contribute to the country by paying their taxes each year. Many of those who have been successful have not received any assistance from the government.
True enough Chinese did not owe BN anything.
Chinese want to set up their own university but was shot down. Instead they allow the set up of TARC that cater mainly for Chinese that are not able to get themselves a place in the public universities.
TARC set up was a clear discrimination in the education policy.
1. Courses that are of degree standard are only warded as diploma, and those with diploma standards are awarded with certificate. But despite of such discrimination those early graduates are highly successful because most of the graduates are of high standards. Most of them, or all of them are easily accepted by the private sectors. Many of them have since contribute greatly to the country.
2 TARC was not recognised by then. But why. That only BN can answer. Off course now they recognised them, but is there any different.
So this line of argument is the same as whether UEC is recognised or not by BN government.
It really does not matter. But in theory it does recognised the effort put forward by the educationist.
Let now believe in BN anymore. They are all lies and enough is enough.
They’re casting the NET far and wide to catch all fishes. By buying, bribes, threats,begging, sweet talk, hoodwink, spin, racist angle, TOKOK, play dirty, PSY-kick, Semua Janji Dulu,,,,, more to come ALL JUST TO ENSURE “dan lain-lain voters di tempuh perhatian juga, mati-mati satu satu undi” ie. the kiasu, the in-betweens, the angin-angin,,,,,, same strategy comes each GE, as usual since MaMak Kutty regime days, Ah-C-4 is just the celup – all government resources at their full disposal , not their own money, time one bit !
“Then, like they did in 1999 when they saved Mahathir Mohamad’s bacon by strongly supporting his coalition when the Malays were swinging to the Opposition, they could hand BN a victory …”
And we all remember how Mahathir broke his promise after he was re-elected. When Suqiu were under fire, he retorted with “Some people are very cunning with their timing… you ask me just before elections, of course I have to say yes! In reality you know cannot!” No chance of that happening again this time!
Ah-C-4 is always a MaMak Kutty’s celup, here trying out MMK’s trademark remark – to turn the actual all around.
Instead is BN owes the Chinese for the sacrifices, hard work , productivity, all the inputs to help keep the country humming , going along, along,,, and “ripe and juicy” for UMNO/bn plunderers pickings continously.
CHINESE OWES BN for the HOODWINKS, SPIN, SANDIWARA, HIPOCRISY, CORRUPTIOUS ACTS, TBH’s tragic end, Altantuya C-4 hideous act,,,,
,,,,,AND COMES EACH ELECTION TIME, WILL WANT TO TAKE US TO HOLAN AGAIN SINCE MaMaK Kutty’s regime days !!!
Without the Chinese, the country would have gone bankrupt long ago!
Yes all Chinese will vote for BN, in NR’s DREAM!!!!!!!!!