The backlash, the intriguing ill-effects of the New Economic Policy
(NEP), has begun to spew its ugly venom as the Malay community now
begins to realize that they were used as cannon fodder for the plan,
which has actually turned around to benefit only a motley lot of bumiputras while the larger masses of Malays continue to lag behind.
In this new millennium, the Malay community of Malaysia have begun to
not only realize certain hard, harsh realities of BN’s 55-year-rule,
they also are coming to grips with the knowledge that they have been
manipulated by a handful of Malay leaders who are responsible for the establishment of a Malay elite.
While it must be conceded that the majority of Malays are out of the
backwaters, the way and manner in which the NEP was set up, by using the
Malay population base as an excuse, that a Malay political and business
elite may emerge, has left a bad taste in the mouths of the average Malay.
BN’s use of NEP a bitter pill for Malays to swallow
Perhaps it is really during this
festive season, the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, when
Malays celebrate the festive cheer of Hari Raya that they feel, over the
years, their lot in life has started to diminish and may be beginning
to fizzle.
This has even prompted Malays to seek special rights and privileges
through Perkasa who bemoans the state of the Malay community and wants
the BN government to revive the NEP and its quotas that promote biasness
and discrimination among the major races of Malaysia.
But the fact of the matter is that the times have changed with the
advent of globalization and it is impossible to revive the NEP or any
other similar affirmation policy by BN for fear of reprisal by the
international community and be accused of implementing apartheid-like
policies which is counter to toeing the line of globalization.
Malays therefore are finding BN’s NEP ploy over the thirty years of its tenure a bitter pill to swallow. They realize that BN leaders
have engaged in a shadow play of wanting to include Malays in the
economic prosperity of the nation, but have in actual fact made use of
the large Malay population base to further their own private agenda.
Malays now more vulnerable and weak
In the political arena, it is an accepted fact that the Malays have also
become divided and in the process their position and standing have
become much more vulnerable and weak. While, if UMNO was champion of the
Malay masses at one time, PKR and PAS have garnered a larger share of the Malay hearts and minds.
The politics and policies of PKR and PAS have caused them to emerge more
and more popular with Malays who are sick and tired and fed up of the
many promises that UMNO has failed to keep and deliver to the Malays.
UMNO’s undoing of their popularity is a plain and simple case of
releasing the bird in the hand for the two in the bush. By overplaying
on their greedy desires and ambition, UMNO leaders, their cronies and
sycophants, have bled the financial coffers of the nation virtually dry.
In doing so, they have left not only the majority of Malays but
Malaysians as a whole very little of their share of the economic pie.
UMNO’s predicament is that the greed of its crop of leaders for power
and pelf knows no bounds.
The sheer, unbridled lust of its leaders in wanting to siphon the wealth
of the nation began in ruthless plunder by the implementation of the
ambiguous NEP which was really a BN policy that was a bit like playing a
game of football where the goalposts kept shifting whenever anyone
wanted to score a goal.
Until today, the NEP has never been fully explained or accountable.
There has never been any intention to disclose how it was formulated or
even if whether the target’s of its ambitious design has ever been
achieved.
But by gauging at how the Malay community as a whole is faring now, it
is quite accurate for anyone to surmise that the NEP was nothing but a
farce, a guise and pretext used by the BN leadership to push their own
agenda of accomplishing the establishment of the segregation between the
governing and business elite to rule and use for their pleasure the
Malay “have not’s” who were completely ignorant of the game plan.
Which direction will the Malays opt to take?
The dilemma faced by the Malays now is hard to ascertain. What is most
baffling and difficult to predict is the shape and direction of the
political future of the Malays.
But what has so far been certain is that while Malay allegiances are
skewered three-ways between UMNO, PKR and PAS, the fact that UMNO has
lost a lot of ground in the Malay heartland and have to share the
support of Malays with the opposition stands as a major setback in the
run-up to the 13th GE for UMNO.
Under the leadership of Najib Razak, between his flip-flops and attempts
to please as many Malaysians as possible by promising them that the
moon can be delivered to them, Malays have come to the prosaic reality
that Najib is engaging in wishful thinking and daydreams.
The fact that the world is in recession, and Najib’s gallant
presentation that Malaysia has not been affected in any way, has not
gone down well with Malaysians. The average Malays especially are
beginning to see and sense that they have been squeezed out of their
space and are being steadily displaced by both legal and illegal migrant
workers at the workplace.
Malays are now realizing things are no longer cushy and for the majority
of Malays things have never been well for them since independence from
the British. Malay’s, so often pampered and spoon fed by the BN, are now
realizing that they have to fend for themselves and are finding it
difficult to cope from being weaned off by BN.
What is even more disheartening for Malays is that UMNO has made enough
use of them and are now taking the Malay community for granted and have
virtually ditched them as it tries to gather greater support through MCA
and MIC among the other races.
In having turned them off, the Malays who have been spurned are finding
their voices of expression through PKR and PAS. This makes the Malay
dilemma of the present as a crisis that is set to be protracted.
The beneficiaries of UMNO screwing up in their ploys are undoubtedly to
the gain of PKR and PAS. Therefore the voter swing among the Malays is
expected to go towards PKR and PAS leaving UMNO at a great disadvantage.
The deciding fate of the 13th GE
If any event is to be considered a defining period of Malaysia’s history, it is the run-up to the 13th GE.
If free and fair polls are held as anticipated, it will be BN who for
certain and sure stands to lose further ground from their already
weakened state of governance of the nation.
Besides Malays flouting the “Janji ditepati” (promised delivered) slogan
chant by BN, they are expected to shore up and bolster the voter base
of PKR and PAS.
With the MCA being deserted by the Chinese, it is really the Indians in
whom BN believes might provide the decisive edge for them to maintain
their simple majority claim to governing Malaysia.
But the opposition are also playing their cards with the Indian
community, as PKR, PAS and DAP realize they need to include the Indians
in their game plan to take over at Putrajaya.
But what can be safely assumed is that UMNO’s failure to be true to the
average Malay has caused its hold on the community to backfire badly and
this should mean that by playing their cards badly they have painted
themselves into a corner with the Malays leaving the Malays to be free
to venture with the opposition political parties.
Malaysia Chronicle
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