Melayu oh Melayu

Sometimes I am sick to my guts when I am reading such article in the news or mainstream media – bashing the Malays! Now, comparing the Malays to the Jews? Give me a break! As if we are not good enough, as if we need the whips for us to realise that we need to shape up of ship out.

This is nothing new. Even in the era Tun Mahathir, he was vocal in saying that Malays are lazy, Malays are backwards, Malays need reminding from time to time (it's clear in his Malay Dilemma). I was asking myself – are Malays that pathetic not to even worth to be emulated?

I do hope all these politicians know what they are uttering. What this does to the Malays? All they are doing is to build a huge gap between the ethnics especially in self-realisation and esteem. Why must we do this? I am not suggesting that we are fine. There are tons of things to be done! But by degrading a race over the other it seems that there is hidden agenda behind this.

Are you leading us to slowly take away certain benefits for the Malays and hence you could justify your statements in saying Malays are lazy. For example; let’s take away the subsidy of fertilizer from the farmers. Yes you got me right – slowly this will happen. When the farmers (high percentage of them are Malays) are denied the access to subsidy, they are not empowered. Lack of empowerment to self-build their own household economy will further deteriorate their condition. And majority of this will be Malays. Malays that are in some secluded places. Malays that are striving and struggling to make ends meet. Malays who are trying on daily basis. Malays that don’t need reminder that they are not good enough!

There are good Malays. There are a lot of them. I don’t even want to mention names. But where are these good Malays? No they can’t be seen, they are not in the media. They are not in the forefront, getting involved in the battle for the power as we see on television on daily basis. They are the Malays who have the dignity in no stooping so low, knowing that they don’t want to make a mockery of themselves by shamelessly fighting for power when they know themselves well.

If we are talking about Malays and the kind of Malays we want to mould, well, what kind of Malays we want to mould? Is that enough we want to build society of Malays that are good? In what sense? In terms of having worthless degree, worthless diplomas? Yes, you got me right. Who was the one, who changed the education system in Malaysia so much so, it is not competitive anymore. Everyone goes to universities, everyone gets their degree. What happens now? Too many of them and it is quite common to have a clerk having diploma or a degree now.

Where have we gone wrong when it was working just nice 25 years ago. Remember, those days, it mattered so much to get into Form 4. The drop outs will start going to vocational schools where they fulfilled the needs for the skilled workers and certain quarters would go on to enter universities etc. There was balance, something that is non existence today! Where have we gone wrong? Didn’t a Malay develop the reform in educational system to save or to destroy Malays until we get to the catastrophe that we see today? And now, brace yourself to answer – haven’t you got to do with where Malays are today based on what you have consistently changed over time to suit certain agenda?

I can go on and on about this. What sickens me is that; How very dare you to say that Malays need reminding. If there is a need for reminding, remind all of us – Malay, Indian and Chinese. Not just the Malays. There are millions of good enough Malays out there, who don’t crave for mentions, but deserve respect!

We have come a long way, and drop this belittling. I have had enough of this. In a nutshell, I would pay huge amount of respect over a Malay who hailed from kampong and possibly having parents working as rubber-tappers, who managed to get into a university over a Malay who came out of no-where, used to work as a gate-keeper at train station, and all of a sudden being elected as an ADUN in a state, and went on to build a palace that deserves questioning – and now, I pose this question back to you; Which is the worthy Malay now?