The reality about Dr M and the Chinese

Mahathir’s latest tirade, ‘Chinese are the Masters of Malaysia’ , has been met with harsh criticisms by many Malaysians. The criticisms are justified as Mahathir has again conveniently  lost his memory.

It was the Chinese who saved him in the 1999 General Election while the Malays overwhelmingly wanted to kick him out because of the “kurang ajar” manner in which he had sought to disgrace and shame Anwar.

Mahathir was considered to be the biggest liability for Umno then and he had to step down as PM but he did it in his usual way with a lot of pretence, acting and drama to make it appear as if he was retiring.

It was a ploy, as we now know, to deceive the Malays so that he could remain in power forever – see all the terrible things that this “retired” PM is doing now to the country. Mahathir installed a puppet, but an upstart rooky took over and angered Mahathir.

The rakyat , especially the Malays, were relieved to be rid of the despot Mahathir and gave his successor Abdullah Badawi the strongest mandate in GE 2004. Now, Mahathir targets the  Chinese who had saved him from what would have been a disgraceful exit in GE 1999.

And not to forget the numerous Chinese cronies who have enabled him and his family to become super-super-super rich. It was Mahathir who had supported, nurtured and partnered various Chinese businessmen and turned them into tycoons and billionaires.

It may appear that Mahathir has been a hypocrite in enabling and ensuring that his Chinese cronies could become billionaires and super-rich, while lamenting about the wealth of the Chinese and the “poverty” of the Malays.

The fact is that Dr Mahathir is no hypocrite. He knew that the fastest way to becoming super rich is through enabling and partnering with amenable and accommodating Chinese businessmen – the Chinese are known for their business skills, entrepreneurship and business success wherever they settled.

He espoused and supported this special Malay-Chinese partnership to others in Umno, and thus all who have any power or influence in Umno have applied this magic formula in various ways to becoming rich.

Mahathir would often criticise the “Ali Baba” practice and cry at Umno meetings for having not been able to uplift the poor Malay masses. He would go further and hit out at the Chinese for all the wealth they had accumulated “at the expense of the poor Malays”.

He would be quickly supported in this racist rhetoric by the coterie of Umno leaders and warlords enjoying the benefits of Ali-Babaism. The crying related to the “terrible” state of the Malays and the open criticism of the “greedy” Chinese by Mahathir at every Umno assembly have been effective in deceiving the Malay masses in the past into believing that he was a champion fighting for their rights against the “evil” Chinese.

Unfortunately for Mahathir, the Malay masses are better informed today and the Internet has become an effective means for the truth to reach everyone.

Mahathir’s hypocritical and illogical racist statements will no longer sell as its expiry date was over many years ago. The Malay masses know the truth.  Mahathir had better come up with a more novel way to deceive the Malays.

How about how the Indians are very wealthy at the expense of the Malays? He would be somewhat  right if he did make this statement because there is a certain Malaysian Indian who has amassed wealth up to US$44 billion (see here) at the expense of the Malaysians, in particular the Malays.