When Mahathir is right about the Malays

Anyway, you can still find ‘lazy’ Malays in Terengganu and Kelantan if you want to meet them. They are happy with their lives and happy where they are. They do not care about owning BMWs or a house in Taman Tun. Give them a wakaf where they can main dam and that is heaven enough for them.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

In 2002, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad broke down and cried when addressing the Umno annual assembly. At the same time, he announced his resignation as the Umno President, which meant as Malaysia’s Prime Minister as well.

The reason, it seems, is because he was disappointed and had given up on the Malays in general and Umno members in particular. He felt that after all that time in trying to change the Malays, the Malays were never going to change.

According to scientists, the closest DNA to the Malays are the Native Americans, or what we used to call the Red Indians. Cousins to that would be the New Zealand Maoris, Australian Aborigines, the Polynesians or Islanders (Hawaiians included), etc.

Hawaiians love to party just like the Malays

Basically, all these people are Orang Laut or seafarers (as opposed to the Orang Darat or the Orang Asli who stay put in the jungles). The Bugis, Bajau, Minangkabau, etc., would be included here.

The English back in the 1700s summed it up as basically the Malays are a lazy race. But is that not what they also said about the Red Indians of America, the New Zealand Maoris, the Australian Aborigines, the Polynesians, Hawaiians, Southern Thais, Muslim Filipinos, etc., 500 years ago?

The truth is all these so-called ‘lazy’ brown people have no desire to occupy or rampas other people’s land, like those ‘hard-working’ people. They are contented with their lives because they can live off the land. They are not interested in chasing wealth, power and position. Leave them alone to lull in the sun and they will leave you alone as well.

For thousands of years this has been the trait of these Malays and their cousins in South East Asia, America, New Zealand, Australia, the South Seas, and so on. Then, 300-500 years ago, the white people started colonising the countries of these ‘lazy’ brown people and introduced new values to people who had been happy to just sleep and eat for thousands of years.

Scientists say the Native Americans have the closest DNA to the Malays

The colonialists introduced new words and new concepts to these ‘lazy’ brown people — greed, success, ambition, competition, industrialisation, import-export, bank accounts, paper money, land acquisition, titles and awards, fancy and very expensive clothes, sitting on chairs, eating at tables, using spoons and forks, answering the call of nature in toilets and not at rivers, family planning and not bringing babies into the world once a year, and so on.

In short, the very advanced and civilised white people brought civilisation and progress to the very backward and ‘lazy’ brown people. Then the ‘lazy’ brown people became greedy and corrupt just like the very civilised white people. The backward and ‘lazy’ brown people realised that to become ‘proper people’ you need to want more, more and more (which the white people call ‘ambition’).

The ‘lazy’ brown people were taught that to be of value to this world you need to have plenty of power and plenty of wealth. And power and wealth can only be acquired if you are ambitious, competitive, greedy, devious and corrupt. Good people go to heaven. Bad people have all the fun. So heaven can wait.

Umno in the beginning was a party of teachers, intellectuals, writers, poets, journalists, activists and government officers

That was the message the white people brought to the brown people. And that was also the same message Mahathir delivered to the Malays in 1969 and in his book, The Malay Dilemma. However, while Mahathir told the Malays they must have plenty of power and plenty of wealth, he did not explain how to get all that.

Then the Malays started forming business partnerships with the Chinese — most times ‘Ali Baba’ partnerships — as what the government asked them to do. Then the Malays learned from the Chinese how to get rich (as what the government wanted the Malays to do when the NEP was launched almost 50 years ago in 1970).

And the Malays learned one very valuable lesson that the white people and the Chinese had already known for thousands of years (but which the Malays discovered only 50 years ago). And that lesson is you need power to make money and you need money to gain power (almost like the chicken and the egg scenario: which comes first?).

So, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Malays rushed to join Umno and took over the Umno leadership, the vehicle to make money. Soon after that the teachers, intellectuals, writers, poets, journalists, activists, and government officers, who made up the bulk of the Umno leadership (80-90%), were ousted and replaced by business and corporate people.

Today, you need power to make money and you need money to gain power

In 2002, Mahathir broke down and cried (and announced his resignation) during the Umno annual assembly because he realised that after 33 years of hammering away the Malays had turned out wrong. Mahathir’s and Umno’s social re-engineering experiment had failed. The good doctor had created a monster just like the hapless Dr Frankenstein of the 1800s.

Yes, Singapore tried this same re-engineering experiment during the time of Lee Kuan Yew and had failed as well. And Singapore found that there was no turning back. Malaysia, too, has failed and there is no turning back as well.

But no problem. They failed in America, New Zealand, Australia and many other ‘white’ countries that have brown people as well. Brown people are cool when left alone. They love to sing, dance and party. Brown people were hippies long before the word and concept were invented in the 1960s. But try to change them into ‘modern’ people and you will regret it. Tell them that to be ‘proper humans’ they must have immense power and plenty of wealth and they will go out to look for power and wealth.

The Malays and brown people were hippies long before the white people discovered this fun lifestyle in the 1960s

Mahathir and Umno tried to turn the Malays into fierce animals by telling them the Malays are failures while the Chinese are successful, and to be successful the Malays must be just like the Chinese, and that the Malays should be ashamed of themselves because the Chinese are better than the Malays.

Never turn a house pet into an attack dog. Once it learns that attacking people and biting them in the jugular is actually fun it will want to do it every day.

Anyway, you can still find ‘lazy’ Malays in Terengganu and Kelantan if you want to meet them. They are happy with their lives and happy where they are. They do not care about owning BMWs or a house in Taman Tun. Give them a wakaf where they can main dam and that is heaven enough for them.