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Tag: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad

  • Zaid Ibrahim: Singapore’s Exit Allowed Malay Ultras To Take Over Malaysia

    Zaid Ibrahim: Singapore’s Exit Allowed Malay Ultras To Take Over Malaysia

    KUALA LUMPUR, March 30 — Singapore’s expulsion in 1965 prevented Lee Kuan Yew from continuing to press for a “Malaysian Malaysia” and allowed Malay ultras headed by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to depose Tunku Abdul Rahman, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim asserted today.

    In a blog post eulogising the late Singapore founding father, the former de facto law minister lamented the lost opportunity for both Tunku and Lee to co-operate on transforming Malaysia into a flourishing democracy with strong rule of law.

    “Without Singapore in the wings and without LKY articulating his mantra of ‘Malaysian Malaysia’, the ultra Malays, led by Dr Mahathir, gained huge momentum.

    “They filled the vacuum with the help of a young Islamist named Anwar Ibrahim.

    “They were able to push Tunku out after May 1969 and the country’s history was rewritten by the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP), followed by the Malay-first and Islamisation policies,” Zaid wrote on his blog today.

    Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, a vocal critic of Tunku, eventually became the country’s fourth and longest-serving prime minister, while Anwar later became his deputy.

    The NEP is the technically-defunct race-based affirmative action that created a system of preferential treatment for the Bumiputera in jobs, housing and access to government funding.

    The policy and others taking after it are blamed for Malaysia’s declining competitiveness as well as increasing discontent among non-Bumiputera communities over what is perceived to be “second-class” treatment.

    Zaid said that keeping Singapore in Malaysia and Lee in the administration would have allowed Tunku to resist the push for Malay-first policies in order to make the community competitive, progressive and reasonable.

    According to the former Kota Baru MP, the country’s first prime minister would also have been able to keep Islam’s focus on charity, good and ethical conduct and compassion instead of permeating into the governance of the country.

    “Malaysia has come full circle: Malays have become Arabs, Malay words have changed to Arabic, and their Western education has changed to the Islamic variety.

    “Malaysia’s identity no longer follows Tunku’s vision. Singapore remained true to the dreams of its founder, and very successfully as well. That’s the tale of the two leaders, in short,” he said.

    Singapore founding father Lee died on March 23 after over a month on life support following complications arising from severe pneumonia.

    Singapore joined Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak to form the Federation of Malaysia in 1963, but was expelled two years later by an Act of Parliament following racial tensions over the republic’s insistence on equal treatment for all citizens.

     

    Source: www.themalaymailonline.com

  • Chinese and Myanmar Workers Are More Honest Than Malays

    Chinese and Myanmar Workers Are More Honest Than Malays

    KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 14 — Ethnic Chinese and even the migrant Myanmar workers are more honest compared to the native Malays where money is concerned, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today as he continued his decades-old belief of inherent racial weaknesses to explain the economic failures of Malaysia’s largest community. 

    The former prime minister also claimed that many Malays do not pay back their debts, and therefore many companies prefer to award contracts to the Chinese, whom he insisted were more trustworthy.

    “Now I have a bakery. I want to say honestly, I am ashamed because among the Malay, Chinese or Burmese or any other workers, the Malay ones sometimes when they see money they forget themselves, they become dishonest,” Dr Mahathir told Umno-controlled Malay paper, Mingguan Malaysia in an exclusive interview published today.

    Dr Mahathir is the chairman of The Loaf, a chain of Japanese-inspired bakery which first opened in Langkawi in 2006.

    “Whenever the [Malay workers] see money, if they can swipe the money, they will. I have fired a lot of Malays because of this attitude. But the Chinese are not like that,” the veteran Umno politician said.

    According to Dr Mahathir, some of his Malay managers have even tried to collude with his workers to cheat the outlets of money.

    He also claimed that there are also cases where the managers did not deposit the outlets’ money in the bank, or have swindled the money by not recording the proper amount of sales.

    “When we’re trustworthy, when we want to lend money, people will give because they know we will pay it. How many Malays when they borrow money, they don’t pay back?” asked Dr Mahathir.

    He singled out as an example, those who received scholarships but refused to pay them back despite having the money to do so.

    “We have to be trustworthy so people will give contracts to us. When we want to give contracts, we give to the Chinese instead because we know they will do their work properly. This is our weakness, not trustworthy,” added Dr Mahathir.

    Dr Mahathir was widely panned last week after he described Malays as being lazy and dishonest in a speech last Thursday.

    The 89-year-old said Malaysia’s largest race group lacks good values, ethics and were not hardworking enough, which he said has caused them to trail behind the other races economically.

    In response to criticisms, Dr Mahathir said he was only calling a spade a spade: “I have never wanted to fool myself. If they’re lazy, I call them lazy. If people don’t like it, then be it. When I was Umno president, I used to nag all the time.”

    Dr Mahathir is a staunch defender of race-based affirmative action policies as prescribed by the New Economic Policy, an economic model mooted in 1971 to close the socio-economic gap between the largely-urban Chinese and the rural Malays as well as other indigenous Bumiputera.

    However, the former prime minister has admitted in the past that the programme has made the Malays more complacent while noting that the system had been abused to enrich only a few elites who were close to the ruling party.

    But the man who ran the country from 1983 to 2003 has continued to defend the policy, saying it was still needed to help the Malays compete and bridge the income disparity among the races.

    Source: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/chinese-myanmar-workers-more-trustworthy-than-malays-dr-m-says#sthash.iUoCqnzx.dpuf

  • Singapore Can Re-enter Federation of Malaysia to Dilute Malay Race

    malaysia-and-singapore-flags

    Credit: Reuters
    Credit: Reuters

    KUALA LUMPUR: Bumiputera must unite under Umno to stem the rise of opposition party DAP, an Utusan Malaysia columnist wrote today, warning that Singapore could still possibly re-enter the Federation of Malaysia to dilute the community’s majority among the races.

    Cautioning the Malay youth not to be sold on the notions of liberalism espoused by the opposition, Datuk Ahmad Faris Abdul Halim said the country’s largest ethnic group was not certain to always maintain its numerical superiority over the other races.

    He claimed that Article 2(A) of the Federal Constitution allows the inclusion of new states into the federation with a two-third majority vote in Parliament, which he said could open the door for Singapore to re-join the federation that expelled in 1965.

    “If this happens — bolstered by the recent statement by Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew who repeatedly said it was not impossible for Singapore to re-unite with Malaysia under certain conditions — then imagine the ‘implications’ of Singapore with its 87 parliamentary seats,” he said.

    “Therefore, Singapore’s 87 seats included into our country’s 222 parliamentary seats. What would happen to the Malays?”

    Ahmad Faris said this would be the easiest way for a combination of DAP and Singapore’s ruling PAP to dominate the opposition bench here, given the former party’s existing 38 federal seats.

    He also alluded to the increasing dissent from the country’s non-Bumiputera community towards Article 153 of the Constitution and contention against Islam’s position as the religion of the federation.

    Article 153 specifies preferential quotas for the Bumiputera community in the areas of scholarship, education, and civil service.

    He also alleged that the non-Malay community were so strong in their racial culture that they have managed to control nearly 68 per cent of the country’s riches, but he did not elaborate what he meant by the “riches” nor did he state how culture facilitate this purported domination.

    The self-described current issues analyst then said the entire Bumiputera community should unite together with Umno — even if they did not all share the same religion — to demand for their rights as prescribed under Article 153, saying this would cow others from making claims on these.

    Umno, in turn, must adopt the tough measures introduced under former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, and take the lead in defending Islam, the monarchy, and the Malays.

    Singapore joined Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak in 1963 to form what is now known as the Federation of Malaysia, but was expelled in 1965 after a tumultuous period that witnessed large scale race riots in the republic the year before.

    In Election 2013, the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) suffered its worst electoral performance when it managed to win 133 spots in the 222-seat Parliament and lost the popular vote to the opposition Pakatan Rakyat pact.

    Although the rest of BN lost further ground from the previous nadir of Election 2008, Umno grew more dominant as a result of the backing it received from the mostly-Malay rural areas of the country.

    Since then, the party has come under increasing pressure to reward the community and ensure its continued support as the bedrock for the party’s revival or survival in the next general election.

    Source: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/singapore-could-rejoin-malaysia-to-dilute-malay-rule-utusan-columnist-claim

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