FROM: Hassan Muthalib Read this in a blog Takkan Melayu Hilang Di Dunia? ...dream on !

I was in Singapore the last few days for work. Have not been to Singapore fo r over 20 years. The driver of the taxi that drove me from the airport to my hot el was Malay. On the ride to the hotel he pointed out that all the land along th e coast that was now fully developed was reclaimed land. He said that Singapore could no longer buy sand from Indonesia or Malaysia so Singapore now buys its sa nd from Vietnam. He suggested that maybe the Malaysian government should conside r letting Singapore mine all the sand it needed from the Pahang & Perak river so that floods would not occur as frequently as they do now this way Singapore wou ld have their sand and Malaysia gets two strikes against Singapore: Payment for the sand & flood prevention! I quietly smiled at his logic. If only our politici ans could think that clearly! At night I would watch TV as I ate dinner and what I saw on Singapore TV gav e me some explanation as to why Malaysia is so far behind Singapore. No, I am no t just talking about the physical aspect of development where a comparison betwe en the two countries would be an exercise in futility: Where would you begin? F rom Changi airport, the taxis I took, the buses and trains that I used to the pr esence of a city confident in its growth & secure of its place globally, Singapo re is everything that Malaysia is not! Singapore TV is filled with programs that provides you with information of w orld events, knowledge about anything that you would care to know and learn abou t and many programs that tells Singaporeans that life out there is to be lived a nd enjoyed responsible. No politicians in sight on their TV. Nothing that would allow any sensible, intelligent Singapore TV viewer to be upset at any attempt b y the Singapore government to try and influence them on matters political. Malaysian TV is pathetic and an embarrassment to watch. Talk show hosts that are so condescending to their guests that it makes me cringe! We have crowds of people being told about the latest government projects that will benefit them a nd the nation. What passes for TV progs is in reality goverment propaganda - pur e and simply drivel and unmitigated spew of useless information that benefits no one not even the government because all it does is to turn the thinking viewer against such blatant propaganda of a BN government desperate to win a coming gen eral election. I remember one episode where this Malay politician was opening a show or seminar of some sort by unfurling a banner with a giant size portrait of himself! It makes me want to spew! What was more disturbing to me is thinking how all this rubbish on Malaysian TV will affect those Malaysian watching Malaysian TV. If that is the only TV th ey watch then what chance do these people have of developing into a better human being? We have been told that we are what we eat well I think what our governmen t allow our people to watch on TV and read in the media is what we will be: blin kered and oblivious people to the world outside. But as a Malay, what saddens me is that the politics within UMNO defines us Malays as we have never been defined before. Before this the Malays saw themselv es as the people who went about their life with a quiet dignity secure in the kn owledge that as the people, they had the respect of the other races and felt the mselves worthy of being Malays son of the soils. More important we had a sense o

f self worth. Today the ugliness of the Malay persona is now no longer a matter than can b e kept within the confines of family and the Malay community. How can it be kept from the public domain when Malays are ridiculed & laughed at as they try to wa lk along the path where others have walked and in trying to do so they have fail ed miserably. Failed because they are ill equipped to compete on a level playing field with the other races. This is not something that UMNO can sweep under the carpet anymore. Today it is the Malays themselves who have realized the dire situation that they are in. This is what the Malays now know of themselves. There are no great Malay leaders in this country of ours any more. All our l eaders, without exception, has in one-way or another, failed us and yet having f ailed they still insist that their right to remain a Malay leader is unaffected. The Malay leaders of today are a joke! The education of our young has not prepared or equipped them to compete on a level playing field against non-Malays in Malaysia and against others when they go overseas. They have failed miserably from their ability to master the Englis h Language to their ability to interact and handle the intricacies of living amo ngst non-Malays. I have been shamed countless times when in conversation with Malay students in Australia not only by their woefully inadequate ability to speak decent Engli sh but more worrying in the blinkered approach to education with the them and us app roach to everything from social interactions to having no understanding that we must celebrate diversity not treat it as a threat to our Malay ethnicity, to our religion and to our way of life. That they have failed to do so is painfully ob vious to me as a Malay what more to the people they meet. But ignorance is bliss and these students are unable to comprehend that they are looked upon as an obj ect to be pitied rather then laughed at. And so these students go about their ed ucation oblivious to their failings. Katak di bawah tempurung! The Malays can no longer ignore the reality that the non-Malays are way ahea d by leaps and bounds in all things Malaysians: Business, Education, civil socie ty and even respect and dignity of their own race. How is this possible when the Malays have complete control of government sin ce Merdeka and should and did have control over all aspects of life in Malaysia? How is this possible when the Malays have nine Sultans and numerous Governor s as the constitutional head of state? How is this possible when the Malays numerically overwhelmed all the other r aces put together? And yet all this advantages have made the Malays into people that can no lon ger hold their head nobly whatever their circumstances simply because the Malay dominated BN government has failed in their much stated purpose of Ketuanan Mela yu. Failed not in the getting of the Ketuanan Melayu but failed in the manner in which Ketuanan Melayu is used to further NOT the Malay interest but to further UMNO s interest. And therein lies the tragedy of the Malays! An UMNO that takes for themselve s what should really be for the Malays.

And it is in the leaders of UMNO that we see the worst of the Malays acting out what the Malays have now become! These UMNO leaders are the epitome of greed , corruption and thievery of the nations wealth for their own pockets. That the Malays have now lost their sense of pride and dignity because of th e misdeeds and abuse by UMNO politicians of the public office they hold is of no concern to these UMNO Malays. The behavior of these UMNO leaders now mirrors th at of the Sultans who have long ago surrendered any dignity they might still hav e and any claims to being Malay leaders by their decadent lifestyle that they le ad on the money they get from the Rakyat. Are they Malays powerless to stop their leaders from taking them further dow n the road of lost respect and lost dignity? How not to lose respect for a Malay leader like Najib? In fact look at the families of all the PMs of Malaysia bar Tunku : Malays all of them: And all of them in one way or the other have profite d hideously from the office of PM. And with Najib he goes a step further. The emergence of a wife that thinks t hat being the wife of the Prime Minister entitles her to be styled First Lady of Malaysia! What these Malays leaders are doing are being aped by other Malays in positi on of trust and power where the getting of wealth by any means possible have bro ught into existence of at least two generations of Malays that have been brought to believe that Malaysia owes them a living: ask not what you can do for your c ountry but ask what your country can do for you! Two generations of Malays totally spoiled and weakened to expect something f or nothing by UMNO totally devoid of any interest in furthering the interest of any Malay what more other Malaysian, other than of themselves! I am ashamed of being Malay. Ashamed because of the deeds and actions taken by UMNO in the name of the Malays. How can I not be ashamed that a Malay Ministe r of Defense have seen it fit to allow a good friend of his to profit RM$500 mil lion merely by arranging for the Malaysian government to buy French Submarines? How can I not be ashamed of these Malay leaders when a Malay PM well almost a Malay PM! saw it fit to use the people s money - to the tune of RM$1 billion to bail out the shipping company of his son! How can I not be ashamed when a Minister, no less, is sent as our Ambassador in Washington after being caught out for outraging the modesty of a waitress se rving him! These Malays do more damage to the Malays at large than to themselves. The Malays had Dato Onn, Tunku, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein Onn, Tun Dr Ismail Al i, Ghazali Shafie all great Malay leaders whose duty was to the Malays and to Mal aysia and all Malaysians! Who do we have now? Malay leaders whose idea of being great is having the la test model Mercedes and living in mansions paid for by their thieving of the peo ple's money and taking actresses or singers for their wives and mistresses! And the Malay singers and actresses who thinks that these ageing lotharios is a goo d catch probably defines the materialistic mind frame that permeates too many Ma lays everywhere. It pains me to see the Malays like this. It pains me even more when the most concerned of people are not the Malay leaders but the other races who are witne

ss to the Malay fall from grace. The non Malays worry for the Malays more then t he Malay leaders because they know that until the Malays are energized to do som ething for themselves by getting rid of these useless Malay leaders, then they t oo would have to bear the brunt of the corruption and the rape and pillage of th eir country by these UMNO leaders. Let us all realize that we are all in this together. What the Malays are now enduring the other races are also enduring and we can only get out of this impa sse by working together. The irony that I as a Malay is mocking and putting down my own race is not l ost on me. Cutting off my nose to spite my face! For me UMNO has cut of the Mala y nose a long time ago. PKR is not far behind because here again is a Malay domi nated political entity that is run by Malays who presumes it is their right to d o as they please in PKR because they are the leaders of PKR. If UMNO has cut of the nose of the Malay face then PKR is working on the ear! I say all this because it needs to be said. It cannot be ignored that the Ma lays have now lost their way in a country they call their own. If they cannot se e themselves being so then I will point that out to them. If you want to assail me for being a turncoat to my own race by living in Australia let me tell you th is. A Malay is still a Malay wherever he or she is. Open your eyes, engage your brains. Think and ask yourself if you are proud to be a Malay in Malaysia today. I am not. I no longer wish to refer to myself a s a Bumiputra because being a Bumiputra does not make me any more a Malay as a C hinese would be more a Chinese if he lives in China or an Indian in India! Being a Bumiputra is an embarrassment to anyone today because it denotes an unfairness within a society that tells you that birth, race & religion entitles you to being someone else other than what you are not a first amongst equals. To day privilleges of birth no longer hold any sway over civilized societies - be you a Sultan or the son of a PM. Everything that you want to be must be earned t hrough hard work and decent labor. And this is why the position of the Malays in Malaysia have long ago been compromised by an UMNO government that sees the Mal ays only as a tool to further their hold on power in this country. But having had power for the last 53 years UMNO has not discarded the Malays - no, they still have need of the Malays to win the next general elections and the next and the next! The question now is whether we Malays will let them use u s anymore! My fellow Malays, look around you and ask yourself why we now like this? We allow our leaders to engage in gutter politics! They no longer talk about extra marital sex as being against Islam today it is sodomy! Today it is Malay leaders who take second wives without the knowledge of their first wives. Today it is a bout using religion to threaten and cowered the other races into threading softl y in their own country on pain of being branded anti Islam and anti Malays. Takkan Melayu hilang di dunia! Let me tell you Malays this. We Malays were never on the world stage! The Ch inese were. The Indians were. Not the Malays. So, please wake up from the UMNO i nduced slumber that our people have been in for so long. 53 years to be exact! O ur Malay PM today does not have half the respect the Malay Penghulu used to have in the days when the Penghulus in the kampongs were leaders of the Malays in th e rural areas. But this I know. As a human being we are responsible for who we are and who we want to become. Against all odds the Chinese and other races have survived in

Malaysia. Survived better then the Malays. It is time we Malays cast aside thes e useless Malay leaders that lives off our ethnicity to only further their own v ested interests not the Malays. They are Malay leaders amongst us now that can provide us with an enlightene d leadership to take not only the Malays but also all Malaysians towards a bette r Malaysia. Nurrul for one. But only because she has not had the time to be what her father and so many Malay leaders have now become : UMNO in their thinking, UMNO in their actions and UMNO in the promotion of no other interest but their o wn. The worry is that given time Nurrul would be what her father is today a man who held so much promise for the future of our race and our country and yet deli vered so little. Let us make sure that Nurrul will not fail. The Malays will not survive another Najib or another Anwar! Posted by: Hussein Abdul Hamid -- "No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life and breeds ill will and suspicion it is an evil go vernment". ~Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, 1954