I had said that collapsing UMNO is easy. The difficult part is to unite the Chinese. This was in direct contradiction to the belief of the vast majority of Malaysians. Most had jeered and mocked me for thinking that UMNO could ever be challenged. They said UMNO’s control of Malaysia is simply too powerful. But I had pointed out that the difficult part about collapsing UMNO is uniting the Chinese. I said that as soon as the Chinese can unite and provide a center from which to form an alliance with the Indians, the non-Malay natives and the moderate Malays, then it is automatic that UMNO-BN will collapse.
I’m happy to say that my prediction has come true. The alliance of the Chinese, the Indians, and the moderate Malays under Anwar Ibrahim has garnered more than 80 seats in the national parliament and taken over 5 states. If the non-Malay natives who live mostly in Sabah and Sarawak had joined the Chinese dominated DAP and moderate Malay PKR, the number of seats garnered by the opposition would have exceeded 120 and would have allowed the opposition to take over the government from the UMNO-BN.
As it is, the future of the UMNO-BN government is still uncertain. There are ongoing talks by Sabah and Sarawak MP’s to switch from UMNO-BN to the opposition-PR. If just 30 MP’s switched, the PR would have the simple majority to form the new Malaysian government.
The significance of Mahathir resignation coming at this time is that it creates a new blow to the cohesiveness of UMNO. As the UMNO MP’s in Sabah and Sarawak look at the seemingly disintegrating party, they must feel a sense of impending doom to their own political future. Therefore, their sense of self-preservation must be kicking in and motivating them to jump ship before UMNO collapses and sinks out of sight and taking them with it. Therefore, as the internal power struggle intensifies within UMNO, the likelihood of 30 or more UMNO or BN members of parliament jumping ship increases proportionally. Those who stands the best chance of getting good payoff from joining the opposition are the ones who jump ship first. Those who come in at the end after the opposition had enough seats to form the new government will most likely get nothing. So the pressure is increasing for those contemplating jumping ship to do so soon. As Shakespeare put it, “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.” - William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar.
UMNO has been using race as a means to maintain its dominance. Instead of telling the Malays to from a genuine partnership with the Chinese, the Indians, and the other non-Malays, UMNO had been using racial bigotry and hatred to pitch the Malays against the other races. UMNO’s strategy is to tell the Malays that the Chinese are “evil people” who have gotten rich by robbing the Malays. Therefore, UMNO told the Malays, they must support UMNO so that it can suppress the “evil Chinese” and marginalize them into second or even third class citizens to render them unable to practice their evils against the Malays. So a culture of racial hatred and suspicion has permeated the entire Malaysian society for the last 50 years which resulted in the departure of millions of Chinese and Indians and other non-Malays. A predictable result is the stagnation of the Malaysian economy.
To see how bad the Malaysian economy has stagnated, it is only necessary to look at Singapore next door. Singapore’s per capita GDP is some 5 times bigger than that of Malaysia’s. And Singapore is only a “little red dot” with very little physical territory and no natural resources at all. But where Singapore has used its human resources effectively by instituting a genuinely racially harmonious society to become one of the most affluent nation in the world, Malaysia has turned into one of the poorest in the world despite its huge territory and large amounts of natural resources. This shows the detrimental effect of racial hatred and suspicion and the consequent marginalization of the Chinese which ultimately forced the richest and the most intelligent Chinese to flee and suppressed the initiative of those remaining and rendered them unproductive contributing little to the economy of Malaysia. And as the contribution of the Chinese declined, the total wealth of Malaysia also declined. The inevitable result is the impoverishment of all Malaysians including the common Malays themselves even as the few well-connected Malays became superrich.
Looking into the future, it is a very good thing for UMNO to fall apart because UMNO stands for racial bigotry and hatred. If Malaysia is to grow rich, it must unleash the initiative of all races so that they can be as productive as possible. But this is obviously not possible as long as the racist UMNO is in control of the government. Therefore, hope can only come with a new and more tolerant government which, hopefully, will quickly institute a new immigration policy to encourage the influx of Chinese immigrants so that new capital and new talents that are much needed can again enter Malaysia to advance it rapidly. But no reform can be instituted as long as UMNO is in power to continue the race hatred which inevitably keep Malaysia stagnant and poor. Therefore, UMNO must fall before Malaysia can become rich.
So I’m heartened to see the resignation of Mahathir from UMNO. I hope this will quickly trigger a total collapse of the racist UMNO-BN government thus allowing the opposition PR to form a new government to institute genuinely racial equality, justice, and harmony which will then lead to the unleashing of initiative of all races to make Malaysia economically dynamic and all the diverse races of Malaysia rich.
China Resurgent Forum
PEOPLE'S POWER
No comments:
Post a Comment