55 Years After

Surely after 55 years, we did not come to a stage where our predominant daily routine is to participate in large ceremonies idolizing the PM. Tun Razak would pour scorn and scold on ostentatious ceremonies. During his famous walk-about visits, if there were more than necessary relevant persons receiving him, he would ask have they got no other duties.

The son is however a pale comparison- reveling in adulation and pomp and splendor befitting an aristocrat. Many people mostly from Pekan think of him in demi-god terms. After all is he not the first issue from the loins of the great Tun Razak? What can go wrong?

Many things. Long in power trappings, short in substance for instance. But that is what seems to take place nowadays. Hardly a day passes, where there isn’t a ceremony, gathering or congregation where participants come to ululate and hallelujah our supreme leader Kim Il Najib. Be careful where you sit down. Make sure you don’t sit on newspapers with Najib’s photo there. You can be prosecuted for some obscure offense similar to les mejeste. His minders are overzealous in preserving his pristine and holier than thou image.

Our government departments’ efforts and resources are consumed in planning gatherings and congregating school children, college and university students, heads of schools, government officers and government friendly NGOs to participate in huge love-fest assemblies. In these gatherings and congregations, people sing and point their index fingers uttering 1 Malaysian this and a host of other 1’s. Attendance is of course compulsory. The bonus comes when the Mrs belts out a few songs adorned with all that glitter in the land, purchased from exclusive malls and jewelers. Mrs Lee Hsien Loong looks like a peasant when standing next to heavy set Malaysian 1^st Lady. Style mesti ada ma.

Besides that the various municipalities outdo each other is putting up huge billboards with the PM proclaiming this and that. In ancient times, the only other people doing these things were the Pharaohs of Egypt.

Morale in the civil service is low. When T Adnan Mansor the MP for Putrajaya looks at the blank and inscrutable faces of civil servant he meets in Putrajaya, he is not confident of their unqualified support. It is not there anymore. So he says privately- UMNO is kaput. He is not standing as candidate this time around. Meanwhile, in keeping with `good business’ and the inexhaustible UMNO pragmatism, he says BN will win 140 seats and win a 2/3 majority in parliament. That is good for the morale of the supreme leader and the ground troops.

Suddenly Ali Hamza the head of a department more known for passing on the list of government projects to powers that be, bypasses everyone to become the KSN and gets embroiled in controversy immediately by making outrageous politically explicit statements. That’s why we asked him to resign and contest the seat in Putrajaya. He gets his position by being the trusted errand boy for Nor Mohamad Yaakob. Now having secured the coveted position, he has distanced himself from his benefactor because he now has direct access to Mrs PM. So who needs Nor Mohamad anymore? He has one overriding ambition consisting of 2 elements- (1) apple polish the people who matters- the PM, PM’s wife and their confidantes and (2) impose a rule of terror on subordinates.

 The former KSN got the plump job as PETRONAS Chairman prompting the current president to announce he is ready to quit. What does he do? He gives out contracts to the daughter. He has come a long way from being a Kampung boy staring in awe at the rotating blades of the ceiling fan in his hostel dormitory at Ahmad High School in Pekan Pahang.

The sudden entry of Tan Sri Sidek as PETRONAS chairman has unsettled the apple cart. Didn’t he say he did not know what the PM was thinking? He can be excused because no one else knows what the PM is thinking. Having brought someone in from Esso Malaysia to replace him as President, the current PETRONAS CEO has been preparing to get into the Chairman’s job. Suddenly the rug is pulled under his feet, prompting him to blow off his top. He has boldly announced that he is ready to quit as PETRONAS president at any time.  He is not irreplaceable. He has boldly said what other mortals dare not and will certainly rue the consequences.

There must be something fundamentally wrong here. After 55 years we should be celebrating our success in alleviating poverty, in our success in forging people on a united platform of shared ideals and ideas. We should be celebrating the art of governing a people where what matters most is the economic management of the country. Instead what we have is 40% of the population with incomes of less than RM1500 per month. Or nation is more divided along racial and religious lines. We have a government riddled with questionable financial conduct and corruption cases.

najib does not seem to have a clue how to manage the economy other than mouthing empty slogans. How do slogans solve the problem of productivity? Can slogans increase our revenue? How do slogans hide the fact that we have NOT reinvested in building the tools to exploit our oil and gas industry- most of the oil rigs are in need of replacement or extensive refurbishing. That should be a top priority because almost 50% of our revenue comes from the various taxes and dividends from PETRONAS. PETRONAS money has been redirected to bailing out a host of failed businesses and realizing the fantasies of vainglorious leaders. Where has the PETRONAS money gone to?

What Najib does is to give out money. BR1M is Beri Rasuah 1 Malaysia. Perhaps that is why the gargantuan debt is incurred by the government. The government by next year will owe RM503 billion which is almost 55% of our national income. We have not included the more than RM100 billion in contingent liabilities which the government bears. Since 1957 to 2008, the government did not owe money to anyone. Even during the heydays of Daim Zainudin, federal debt has been kept at bay. Starting in 2008, when Pak Lah became the PM, the federal debt was somewhere in the RM 230 billion region. In the 4 years Najib took over the country, the debt was more than doubled to RM 500 billion. This makes Najib the most spendthrift and therefore irresponsible leader of this country. Whose money is he spending?

I find it jaw dropping to hear some government leaders compare our huge debts to economies like Singapore and Japan. In these countries, the people work hard and they have the capacity to repay their debt. Our country shares more similarities like the Greek economy which is a poor country that does not have the capacity to repay its debts.

How do we repay our debts?

I sense something fundamentally wrong in the comment sent by an anonymous reader who asks- who shall protect the Malays if UMNO is vanquished? We can’t rely and depend on DAP. I can give a short answer to that question. If UMNO is vanquished, PAS can protect the Malays since if UMNO loses, it is replaced by PAS which is equally Malay. On what basis does UMNO confer upon itself a monopoly on skills to run a country? If Najib can become PM, anyone else can too. Even Haji Hadi.

UMNO has ruined the country for 55 years so that after 55 years, the only thing we celebrate is engaging in events idolizing the supreme leader and nothing else. We cannot celebrate the state of the economy. We cannot celebrate the success at creating a cohesive society. Because there is none and the main cause for the country drifting apart is UMNO.

The country is kept divided simply because that ensures the government stays in power. We have a former PM who ruled for 22 years saying after 55 years, Malays are beggars in their country prompting us to ask validly, whose policies are that which resulted in such an outcome?

What kind of government that allows people like Ananda Krishnan going in and out of the stock market? Taking his companies private today and coming back later to re-list? Make tons of money when the companies were listed, making more money when they are taken private and making more money again when coming in again. in-out-in-out-in.  Am I describing something lurid or what? What is the KLSE doing? This is no longer double dipping – its triple dipping.

If we read our constitution, vernacular education should have been replaced completely by national school education. Having allowed, the government can’t undo. There is no way in the world can we expect Najib to have the gumption and the courage to enforce the constitutional provision that there should only be one type of school. National school and not national type school.  Where got balls- Chua Soilek disparages your religion, you smile and give him more money.

The Chinese are really not intent about having schools in Chinese as a means of preserving Chinese culture and all things Chinese. They are I suspect really after a good education in settings which offer excellent and superior facilities and superior resources. If they are pursuing the purity of their culture, how do we explain that the biggest enrolment is international schools and in the various private schools such as KDU, Sri Inai, whatever Sris are Chinese? I don’t see Chinese Cultural-enhancement or strengthening curriculum in these centers of superior education. These offer what the Chinese are really looking out for- the best facilities and resources that money can buy that produce the best results.

Indeed the Chinese pay to get into colleges such as Taylors and Sunway because these colleges offer the Chinese pathways to better and first class education. Are they after the triumphalism of Chinese culture and if so, why attend international and private colleges? They are after high quality education really because their own culture is best preserved in their home environments and other cultural enhancement activities.

But what if national schools have 1^st class facilities and resources and produce top results? And we don’t have to pay through our noses? Chinese parents would gladly send their children there, forgetting the supposedly overriding need to preserve their culture. If national schools have only one agenda- produce the best results using the best facilities and resources not imposing one group’s hegemony over others, I think Chinese will go enroll at national schools. If the education minister does not already know this, maybe I should replace him. Turn all national schools into 1^st class facilities, the Chinese will abandon their national type schools.

The sekolah kebangsaan Subang has a very large Chinese enrolment where the competition to get into the school is super tough. Because the school it seems has the best teachers, has excellent facilities and resources and offer, what the Chinese see as first class educational environment. What is important to Chinese parents is that this school provides the best results and the best students year after year. Its good education which they are really after.  Tiu kaw all the other agenda.

The Chinese appear to not mind that the medium of instruction there is in Malay. That can be tolerated as long as resources and facilities and preparation for educational future are best. They want schools that produce the best results year after year.

Our first priority should be is to upgrade all the facilities in all the national schools and supply them with the best resources and best teachers and faculties. Imagine if instead of paying RM7.8 billion for 257 APCs, we spend that amount on upgrading the national schools, aircond all of them, provide the best teachers including if required expat teachers. The Chinese parents will come zooming in to secure entry for their children, never mind if the principal medium of instruction is Malay. If we do that we don’t even have to legislate the termination of vernacular schools because Chinese parents will voluntarily send their children to these schools to get superior education. When attendance at national type schools dwindles, they will fold up voluntarily. Why make the Chinese hostile, where there can be more persuasive ways topersuade them to embrace national school education?

Why allocate RM 100 million for example to National Type Tamil Schools where the Tamil school system provides education up to primary 6 only? The RM100 million will do what? Educate Malaysian Indian children up to gagster level education? Or really, the RM100 million is to allow Palanivel distribute the money among his buddies.

Instead after 55 years, 8.5 million Malays lived with an income of RM 1500 or less and 12 million Malaysians earned RM1500 or less. That’s below poverty line. That means 40% of our population lived with an income of RM1500 or less and out of that, 71% are Malays. The Malays are that because, UMNO structures the country that way.

After 55 years of independence and under UMNO rule, there are about 260,000 ex-servicemen living without pensions and reasonable means of earning income. A few days ago we hear of a former ex-servicemen sentenced to 3 months in jail for stealing one carton of milk for his children and family.

When I spoke at a ceramah in Melaka for ex-servicemen, I was sure I heard shouts of lets go to war with the UMNO ministers. I say to them- don’t go to war- let us vote the UMNO stealing machine out of power. Then we sit down and discuss what to do with them.

I will give a longer answer to the issue of protection of the Malays in another article. Also I have not penned the various talks I have had with The Oracle of Syed Putera. We live in interesting times indeed.