The first time where Mahathir takes a jab at the Malays was in the UMNO General Assembly held in June 2002.
At the assembly which he also dropped the bombshell announcing his resignation as the President of the party, he slammed the Malays as complacent, incompetent and ungrateful.
He said he had tried everything – from pleading to praying to crying, in trying to jolt the community from what he called a “culture” of extravagance and taking the easy way out.
Expressing regret over his failure to change the mindset of Malay Muslims, he said it is the Malay culture, they do not know what hardship is and they only want things to be easy.
He said he have tried to be an example, tried to teach, scolded, cried and even prayed.
But he failed, failed to achieve the most important thing – how to change the Malays.
12 years later, speaking at the launching of a book on 11 Sept 2014, he again said Malays did not feel ashamed when they failed, whether in examinations or in life.
On this occasion, he cited Mat Rempit or members of Malay motorcycle gangs as an example of Malays who did not feel ashamed about not working hard.
He even spoke of his experience running a bakery after his retirement from politics where he gave many opportunities to Malays to hold management positions but unfortunately, the staff kept stealing from the business.
4 years later, in 2018 he slammed the Malays again.
This time, he was heading a new political party, Bersatu and he is not the Prime Minister.
At Bersatu’s 2nd anniversary celebration, Mahathir condemned the Malays again – calling the community “lazy and untrustworthy saying,
1. The failings of the Malays is their unwillingness to work hard and having a lackadaisical attitude to their own responsibilities,
2. Like to accuse others, accuse the government, accuse other races and when they fail, others are at fault as they are never wrong,
3. Lack mastery of the knowledge and information needed to make good decisions to the extent he dare to say that they are lazy, always handing over their jobs to other people,
4. “Untrustworthy” and for not having a sense of responsibility for tasks entrusted to them, as well as their tendency to break promises like the loans owing to the PTPTN (National Higher Education Fund Corporation),
5. Would not think twice about taking things or money that do not belong to them.
Because of their untrustworthiness, banks do no long want to lend to Malays, which has led to many Malay traders unable to secure capital.
He was even quoted to have said because the Malays lack honesty and integrity and not being trustworthy, he was forced to give contracts to the ethnic Chinese instead because he know they will do their work properly.
Now in the year 2023, 5 years after his last public tirade against the Malay in 2018, instead of slamming the Malays being malas, he lamented about the possibility of the Malays losing political power in this country within the next 2 General Elections.
In a Facebook posting on 27 March 2023, he claimed that the Malays in the country “lost everything” after he resigned from top office in February 2020.
Does this means nothing to the Malay political class?
Way back since Feb 2020, many young Malaysians think both Mahathir and Anwar should leave the political scene as their time has passed.
Most of them think it’s time to skip to a new generation of political leaders because the political leaders today have been around for the last 2 to 3 generations governing this country and all of them have failed.
And the rakyat is not unaware that the political class is concentrated on one thing only – horse trading to see who can get the numbers to form government.
With several Malay parties who are each trying to politically kill off the other to become the only dominant Malay party in Malaysia, where the system can only afford one dominant Malay party in government at any one time, whose fault is it?
The truth is, right now, nobody knows.
The Malay political establishment has been in a state of decay since the original UMNO, or possibly earlier, was ordered to be dissolved.
Since that day, there is no single party that can unite the Malays at the top anymore.
And based on the current circumstances, politics in malaysia will continue to decay until it reaches a point of no return.
Does the Malay establishment knew about this?
Obviously they do.
What about the normal Malays i.e the middle class and low-income group who work hard to earn their living and compete well against the non-Malays?
Their minds and souls are not held hostage by the notion that the political position of the Malays could be in jeopardy if any of the existing political parties claiming to represent the Malays were to lose power.
Majority of them knew and are totally aware that it just a political charade to convince the majority of the Malays or those who do not actually believe this premise that they are actually in that position.
Because they knew that the Malays would not be in that precarious position because the reasons that favour them numerically and politically are intact.
Majority of the ordinary Malays knows that in the Malaysian context, it will not be possible for the Malays to lose power as long as the Malay/Muslim bloc forms the largest segment of the population.
It is as straightforward as that.
The Malays already assumed political dominance since independence when their numbers were just slightly above 50%.
At today’s rate where the Malay/Muslim population is above 60%, they know they will not lose power today or at any other time in the future.
Obviously for some Malays, the fear is real.
Mahathir should ask this question repeatedly.
Has he done enough for the Malays to ensure that it will continue to get majority support?
Why then is there a lot of discontent among the Malays with regard to the Malay leadership?
How does he expects to transform the Malay when he keep instilling fears and send the wrong signals to the Malays of what may happen if the Malay loses power?
Who make them lazy and continued to make them lazy?
While he condemns the Malays of being lazy and untrustworthy, concurrently he promotes privileges for the Malays making them forever hungry for handouts and freebies.
How does he transform the Malays when he himself has not transformed his way of thinking?
If he wished to see the Malays change, he must be the change.
Are the Malays actually lazy? As the saying goes, work smarter not harder.
This doesn’t make a person lazy
Or they simply have a different worldview from their fellow Malaysians of different descent?
There is a difference between lazy and contented and wealth is not everything.
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FLK is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact Newswav.
