Delving into the Malay Psyche

Some people must be really stupid. They are more interested in defending that which does not exist. Such as the institution of absolute monarchy. The majority of Malays do not want a return to the old days.  We Malays have made that choice a long time ago. Zaaba wrote about that in 1927. He was from UMNO.

Some defend imagined enemies and assaults.

Only sycophants of the ancient regime clamour for a return of the good old days. The peasants toil the land, so that the feudal club can live off them, having balls, masquerade parties, and musical and dance soirees, have beautiful daughters and wives presented to the lords, and so on so forth.

That kind of world flies in the face of the free man. The free man just like what Milton Friedman and Hayek say- never accepts the imposition of extraneous tyranny in the form of government regulations, regimentation. To the free man, government is just an instrument to achieve collective aims which could not otherwise be achieved individually. It’s not the lord, deity to be worshiped and followed blindly. It’s certainly not an entity to present our wives and daughters to wet their beaks. But if some want it that way, I say good luck to them.

Saying that for instance is a challenge to the King and the Malays?

But no Malay groups want to make noise when the Malay can only afford perhaps to buy only the door of the bungalow, the condominium in Iskandar region. When the whole place is turned into a great wall composed of towering condominiums and super high buildings, Johoreans will be prevented from looking out into the Johor straits. The Johor straits will become one gigantic sewage drain where the effluent will drift into the ocean. Then Singapore will charge Malaysia and Johor for having to clean the mess.

Instead some Malays are caught in the martial spirit- ready to come to blows with people who just proposed that the constitutional rules regarding the appointment and removal of MBs be reviewed. That is taken as a challenge to Malay supremacy.

What supremacy? Malays are lagging behind in almost everything and this is the direct result of the governance, the leadership, the policies of the current government.

The lot of the Malays now is not something that happened per chance. We must never believe that is something fortuitous. It’s not the result of the natural order of things. We must never accept the explanations given by the UMNO politicians.

The Malay is poorer, he in behind in education, training and skills, he has less capital, he stays in cheaper houses, are all the result of some defective policies carried out by the politicians in power. Their lot is the result of human intervention.

We have to debunk all those theoretical explanations as to why Malays are lagging behind. Malays are less productive because their Marginal Productivity is lower. Their production frontier can only be pushed outwards if there are variations to the factors- labour, capital and ideas.

The implication is therefore, the Malays are like that because, they are of poor quality, they don’t have capital and they lack ideas. Of course they like being where they are, they thanked God for their lot and pray for the prosperity, health and success of their esteemed leaders.  They are over protective and oversensitive if others try to persuade them otherwise- they go wild if others accuse their protectors as being less conscientious. Their leaders have divine rights for being who they are and doing what they are doing.

They have less capital, they have lesser skills, they have lesser ideas. The lack or absence of these partly explains why the Malay is what he is. But for the most part, his lot is explained by politics. It’s the people who control Malay politics who direct returns to who they want. Invariably, the elite control politics; they control the distribution of the economic pie.