30% is ≠ NEP

30% is ≠ NEP

I am telling my fellow Malays not to be taken in by this argument that if the 30% rule on equity participation is done away with, the Malays are lost. There will no longer be protection. We need to ask ourselves, who protect us? If we are children, our parents do. If we are adults, we pull ourselves using our own bootstraps.

This argument that if the 30% is removed, we are lost is all hogwash. If you are a farmer, pak tani, penoreh getah, this talk about 30% is all Greek to them. You would be more concerned if the price of your rubber scraps is ok; you will be more concerned if the title to the small plot of land on which you have been working since 1970 will be granted to you. You will be concerned whether your children will be able to go to school, get financial assistance, books on loan, and after graduation, will they be able to get jobs. That 30%? It's of no concern to you.

You are more concerned with an administration that works. Your land application which you sent 5 years ago hasn't been answered. You go to the land office and inquire, you are stonewalled. That's more of concern for you. You want to know why big companies are allowed land to cultivate oil palm but you aren't. If the oversupply argument applies to you it should also apply on big planters. Indeed more so. You need and want to know, whether the government is serious about combating corruption. If it does, you would like too see ex mb's, ex ministers, ex top government officers sent to jail for a few years. Then you will accept that the government is indeed serious.

Therefore, over and above the 30% thing, you are more concerned to have an administration that is efficient, clean and dedicated and an economic policy that places wealth creating assets directly into your hands. Of course you are concerned if the abolition of the 30% rule is replaced with another wool over the eyes of a policy favouring the elite Malays.

You understand if that 30% is not secured, those lumpen aristocrats, the well connected will never be able to survive. You, like the majority of Malays, want capacity building, you want like what Amartya Sen says- development as freedom. You want economic freedom to get social and political liberation. Those surviving on the 30% thing, all they want are continuation of dependency.

The NEP was supposed to be the solution to Malay economic woes. It was launched in 1970 and ended in 1990. Since then, the policy was replaced by several other successive affirmative economic policies.

Essentially it involves the application and implementation of various administrative matters to correct economic imbalances. It was seen as a national policy to bridge the gap between the rich and poor so that once, it is reduced, national unity can be achieved. Nothing cultivates aggressive impulses more than economic inequities. In our country, the economic disparities assume a more sinister facet because it is identified along racial lines. The non Malay minority is seen as economically dominant while the majority Malays, the original inhabitants of this country are marginalised in terms of economics.

The staple explanation for this disparity has it that the immigrants, whom the natives have been kind enough to accommodate, became rapacious economic predators. It is they, say the demagogues, who have displaced us the natives.

But how, we ask? They didn't have the instruments of oppressive powers- did not have governmental powers, how did they therefore overwhelm the natives? Commercial cunning, competitive drive, usage of the material between the ears cannot be accepted as things or behaviour reprehensible can they? You can only marginalise people, if you have control over the oppressive instruments of power.

So your attention is turned to the question, who has control over the oppressive instruments of power? The answer is the government. Hence, if we were to ask who are the masters of this country, they are the elite who control the oppressive instruments of power.

Economic inequities are largely an economic issue. It becomes complicated when it's tied up to politics. Politics is essentially the employment of means to secure power and the one who has power can influence and configure the economic outcomes. If now, the question is asked, why disparities and therefore unhappy feelings are still in the air after almost 40 years of implementing affirmative polices, we can answer as follows. They continue to exist and increase because what was originally an economic phenomenon requiring economics solution has been turned onto its head to become a political issue. Yes, it's all due to politics.

Hence the race for economic prosperity becomes a race for acquiring power. Those who become economically better are viewed as a threat to power and accordingly, the economically powerful must be cut down to size. The Chinese who are economically more powerful are therefore seen as a security threat to holders of conventional political power. They must therefore be cut down to size so as not to upset the balance of power. Old school politics accustomed to muted submission assails the Chinese ingrates. In order to balance things up, the 30% rule must be defended and restored.

But then the 30% mustn't go into the hands of the riff raff, the hoi polloi, and the lumpen proletariat. If that happens, that will mean the end civilisation as we, the elites know of. We certainly don't want the hobos to inhabit and adulterate our pristine way of life here in the hallowed grounds of Bukit Tunku, Damansara Heights or Country Heights do we? So, the 30% must be confined to the same old network of cronies, elites and the select few. Otherwise, by demanding we take and retain the 30% only to see it fall into the hands of the plebeians, that decision would upset the balance of power within our class. The 30% must stay within the lumpen aristocracy.

Why hasn't the target of 30 % ownership of corporate equity been achieved? Answer, politics. Why haven't the economic configurations of Malays according to the guideline of 30:40:30 been achieved? Again the answer is politics.

Who is to blame of the NEP failed? The only party blameable is the government. They had the power, they legislated, they implemented and they failed. Again we repeat , the purpose of politics is to acquire power. To form the next government. The government sets the guidelines, provides for domestic and external security and upholds the rule of law. Governments do these things to varying degrees; hence we have democratic and less democratic countries.

Whatever levels of democracy are practised, the ultimate accountability rests with those who control the levers of politics. If we now ask, who is to blame for the state of affairs in which we find ourselves mired in- the answer is the UMNO led government. You hold the power, you answer why we have not achieved economic fairness and justice. We have been independent for 52 years. Almost half and more than a third of the period was headed by Tun Dr Mahathir.

We have had almost 40 years of command centre economics and arbitrary picking of winners. We have now realised, certain aspects of what was a workable economic solution have failed. The stupid aspects of history will certainly repeat themselves, if we choose to repeat them.

The PM is now trying his approach to find an economics solution. He is being reasonable not to fall back on the aspects of the NEP that have failed.