Destroying and Building a Nation

No safety in numbers.

Our PM continues to insult the intelligence of the people. The Himpunan baju Merah was not a peaceful assembly. The spirit was riotous and martialistic. The police had to use water cannons. Inflammatory and racist banners were carried. Yet our PM says the rally was peaceful.

The appropriate description for this kind of behaviour is denial syndrome.

He pretends everything is all right. That is his usual demeanour. So he is able to advise his critiques to think of their own mistakes before taking him on. The immoral PM assumes a high moral ground.

Yet he forgets, the issue now is not the mistakes of his critiques. The issue now is his misconduct, deception, obstruction of justice and unleashing, for the moment, a reign of soft terror.

He exhorts UMNO members to have the fighting sprit. Yes UMNO members must fight for righteous objectives not fight to keep an untrustworthy party president.  UMNO members have a duty to the country, not to its president.

Umno boasts it has 3.2 million members. PM Najib and his supporters ought to have comfort in that. But he and they must have been terribly disappointed.

They have learnt one thing. Big membership means nothing if what you advance does not create resonance. You can give rousing speeches. Incendiary ones even. People can give good speeches. Najib on a good day can too.  Yet people are unmoved.

But do you speak with conviction? Can you support what you say instead of giving out empty sloganeering? Can you explain to the people without insulting their intelligence?

The absence of conviction and legitimacy explained why no more than 50,000 attended the Red rally. The majority did not know why they turned up. Some wanted to go pasar tani. Some wanted to go shopping for groceries in Chow Kit.

You didn’t explain the reasons why people need to gather in protest. If you say because Malays are hurt because people stepped on the posters of Najib and Haji Hadi, that insults the intelligence of the people.

Do you react by unleashing violent mob on your citizens?

That is a necessary and sufficient reason for people to come out in large numbers and wreak bloodshed? What kind of leadership gives support that kind of response?

A leader who cannot any longer defend himself from all accusations leveled at him who accepts that the only recourse, is to abandon reason and embrace violence.

If Najib and Haji Hadi reacted emotionally to that and gave more fuel to the fire, that reaction showed their leadership mettle. Leaders easily given in to provocations like that, are not the kind of quality leadership we need for Malaysia.  They don’t have character.

The reaction of Lim Guan Eng to the burning of his effigies is more complimentary. We need leaders who remain calm and collected under pressure.

That constitutes the 4th slap to the face of the Malays? The truth is people are largely unaffected if Najib and Haji Hadi’s pictures were stepped on. That isn’t a big reason enough for people to march and demand Chinese blood.

And as soon as you pay people to come, that destroys any voluntarism that they may have and together with that, conviction.

Respect intelligence of people, don’t issue slogans.

Where is 1 Malaysia now? It is now obvious, the concept was just a slogan. It did not resonate with the people. People realised you talk big talks about inclusivity, about coming together when you constantly sow mistrust and suspicions among people.

Even PM Najib has shown he is a racist by giving validity to the false claim that Malay dignity has been shredded all too often? How?

How can there be a 1 Malaysia, if leaders like Najib while speaking about it, stirs mistrust among the country’s citizens?  They sow the seeds of mistrust and festering suspicions.  

Remove the causes of indignity.

Malays cannot have dignity if they live in privation. The get the lowest income. They live in poor housing facilities. They depend on charitable health services. A family member is struck with a debilitating disease, they go around asking for help. The government says expenditure for health services has gone up; the big increase is accounted for the higher cost of equipment and medicines.

Malays are in that situation not because other races take away from them what is due to them as citizens. They are like that, because government policies keep them that way.

Qualify yourself to earn dignity and respect.

Dignity is not a desirable objective you get free and unqualified. You want people to respect you because you have little education? You demand to be a millionaire even though you don’t have the capacity to be one?

At some point is time, our leaders must tell everyone that our values are free enterprise, individual initiative and freedom. These values must be translated into policies that bring our nation forward.

It cannot be avoided. Individual initiative means by and large, we ourselves are responsible for ourselves, not the government. UMNO would like to instil into the mind of Malays, they are responsible for the Malays and in turn the Malays are dependent on them.

That assumes ALL Malays are paraplegics, infirmed and maimed. The unfortunate ones in society, not only Malays must be the beneficiaries of a sound welfare system. The able bodied ones?

At one point in time, our Malay leaders will have to tell Malays that yes we will continue to help the old, weak, the sick and the infirmed. The rest will have to own up through hard work and high performance to get compensated from a reward system that pays them commensurately.  

That reward system will depend on high quality leadership, good governance pushing the boundaries of right values.