No, it is not the Malays who give Umno power. It is the Chinese, Indians and natives of Sabah and Sarawak. So, if you are in the mood to whack someone, don’t whack the Malays. Whack the Chinese, Indians and natives of Sabah and Sarawak.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

I have written about this before, many times. But sometimes we need to keep harping on the same old issue when people keep making the same unreasonable comments even after we have clarified the matter. As the Malays would say: tak paham paham lagi.

The matter I want to talk about is the Malay whacking. Malaysia Today appears to be a forum for Malay-hate postings. Sure, there is a lot to be desired about the attitude of the Malays. Even Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said his biggest regret is that he could not change the attitude of the Malays in 22 years as Prime Minister of Malaysia. And he even cried like a baby in one Umno general assembly because he felt he had failed to change the Malays and Umno.

Nevertheless, the Malays are not to be blamed for everything that goes wrong in Malaysia. Sometimes the non-Malays too contribute to the problem.

Sure, Umno may be a problem. But Umno is a problem only because we have this animal called Barisan Nasional. Without Barisan Nasional Umno would be history. And while Umno may be Malay, Barisan Nasional is not.

First look at this.

7,944,274 Malaysians came out to vote out of about 10.8 million registered voters in the March 2008 general election. That was about 70% plus. This means just under 30% did not bother to vote. So that is the number of Malaysians who don’t care. And we are not yet including the 4 million plus who did not even register to vote. Add that to those who did not vote then about 7.5 million Malaysians did not vote because they don’t care.

Got that? 7.9 million Malaysians care and 7.5 million Malaysians don’t care. So, do we blame the Malays for the problems facing this country or do we blame the 7.5 million who did not vote for change and are quite happy not doing anything and allowing what is happening to continue happening?

Now, out of all those who voted, 4,082,411 voted for Barisan Nasional and 3,796,464 voted for the opposition. That gives Barisan Nasional 50.27% of the popular vote and the opposition 46.75%. Yet, with just 50.27% of the votes, Barisan Nasional won 140 of the 222 parliament seats against the opposition’s 82.

Do we blame the Malays for this or do we blame the gerrymandering, postal votes and phantom voters that the Election Commission closed its eyes to?

Umno, on its own, garnered only 2,381,725 of the votes, which is less than 30%. And the number of seats it won was 79, now down to 78 with the loss of Kuala Terengganu in a by-election. This means Umno won only 35.6% of the seats and now less than that without Kuala Terengganu.

How can Umno form a government with only 29.33% of the votes and 35.6% of the seats? The three opposition parties combined garnered 46.57% of the votes and won 36.9% of the seats. This is higher than what Umno won. And one important point to note is that Umno’s 78 seats include 14 from Sabah. If not then Umno would be down to only 64 seats, even worse.

Well, if you want to know the answer to that question, then ask the Chinese, Indians and natives of Sabah and Sarawak. It is because of them that Umno, even though they did poorer than the opposition, can form the government. And because they can form the government with the help of the Chinese, Indians and natives of Sabah and Sarawak they are also able to abuse their power, perpetuate corruption, implement racist policies, and demonstrate arrogance.

No, don’t blame the Malays. 51% of the Malays voted for Umno. This, I do not deny. But this also means that 49% of the Malays did not vote for Umno. But the 51% Malay votes are still not enough for Umno to form the government. That still gives them only about one-third the votes as well as seats respectively (and less without the 14 Sabah seats). What makes it possible for Umno to form the government is because of the Chinese, Indians and natives of Sabah and Sarawak.

No, it is not the Malays who give Umno power. It is the Chinese, Indians and natives of Sabah and Sarawak. So, if you are in the mood to whack someone, don’t whack the Malays. Whack the Chinese, Indians and natives of Sabah and Sarawak. Those are the people who are to blame. 

Kapeesh?

Translated into BM at: http://gomalaysian.blogspot.com/2009/12/raja-petra-mengapa-menyalahkan-orang.html

Translated into Chinese at: http://xtremeapril.blogspot.com/2009/12/blog-post.html