Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
Bumiputera Congress bursts ‘New Malaysia’ bubble - Cronies = Successful Bumiputeras? By Kua Kia Soong
Monday, September 03, 2018
Have you noticed how the 57 Muslim majority countries on earth treat their minorities? Especially in sh*tholes like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran and so many other holes, it is also happening in the so called New Malaysia, 🥃🍷🍾🤔😎 with the Bumiputera Congress. Christian countries need to treat their Muslim minorities exactly how the Muslim countries treat their minorities and also actively proselytize the Christian faith amongst them, to mitigate the instances of terror, in Christian societies. Apparently in the so called New Malaysia, they still want to continue promoting the concept of spoon feeding from cradle to grave for the "handicapped majority", discriminating against the minority, under the guise of positive discrimination. - Major D Swami (Retired)
Malaysiakini : COMMENT|The
shocking pronouncements from the Bumiputera Congress that convened last
weekend constitute the biggest let down to date since the Malaysian
people voted for a “new Malaysia” with real reforms after 61 years of BN
rule.
Pakatan Harapan leaders had promised that affirmative action would be
needs-based rather than race-based and concerned rights activists,
economists and investors alike have called for the termination of the
never-ending New Economic Policy. Alas, we have all been disappointed. There now seems to be no
likelihood that we will see the end of bumiputera populism under the
Harapan government.
What is worse is that the prime minister is in denial about the
scourge of crony capitalism during his previous 22-year term from 1981
to 2003. Instead of apologising for his past actions and showing that he
has reformed into a born-again democrat, Dr Mahathir Mohamad repeatedly
tries to defend himself against charges of cronyism. In his keynote address at the congress, he questioned critics of
affirmative action policies aimed at helping bumiputera businessmen and
tried to justify his past actions by saying that those labelled as
cronies were actually those who were successful.
Cronies = Successful Bumiputeras?
There was a touch of irony in the fact that the congress coincided
with the 20th anniversary of the dramatic sacking of Anwar Ibrahim as
the deputy prime minister on the back of his allegations of cronyism and
nepotism against Mahathir’s government. In 1998, Anwar alleged that
Mahathir had a penchant for awarding huge state contracts to his
cronies.
As recently as Feb 12, 2015, DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang said that it
was during Mahathir’s 22-year tenure as prime minister that Malaysia
first began to “rot”, thanks to corruption and rampant power abuse. He
pointed out that it was during the Mahathir administration that “he
single-handedly destroyed the independence, impartiality and
professionalism not only of the judiciary, but also of other important
national institutions like the police, the Election Commission, the
anti-corruption agency, and the civil service”.
Apart from these two politicians, the academic Barry Wain wrote in his biography of the Malaysian Maverick
that during the Mahathir administration, there was wholesale
distribution of tens of millions of shares in Bursa Malaysia under guise
of NEP to cronies. So, it is patently untrue what the Prime Minister
claimed, that those labelled as cronies were actually those who were
successful.
Favoured cronies
In 1989, Mahathir made his justification clear for transferring state
capital to private Malay capitalist hands, a move that apparently
needed no accountability: “The best way to keep the shares in Bumiputera hands is to hand them
over to the Bumiputeras most capable of retaining them, which means the
well-to-do.” (Far Eastern Economic Review, April 13, 1979)
Thus, in the mid-1980s, Tajudin Ramli’s Technology Resources Industries
was given an effective monopoly of the mobile phone market. Then Tajudin
was allowed to buy state-owned carrier Malaysia Airlines for RM1.8
billion in borrowed funds. Invariably, Umno-linked corporate entities
would get the benefit of the mandatory 30 percent of share allocation
for bumiputeras during any corporate public listing or restructuring: “With privatisation, too, Umno was used as a vehicle to transfer
government holdings to private or semi-private ownership, mostly for the
benefit of the same clique.” (Barry Wain 2012:114)
During Mahathir’s tenure as prime minister, three main Umno officials
focused their attention on building “bumiputera capitalists”. This was
facilitated after Umno was declared illegal in 1988 and its assets were
required to be sold off. The three were Mahathir himself, Daim Zainuddin
(who was finance minister during two phases of Mahathir’s term) and
Anwar Ibrahim, who, before his downfall in September 1998, was second in
power after Mahathir. All three had their respective corporate
connections. The periodic power struggles within Umno often produced unexpected
revelations of great interest to the people.
Thus, in November 1994, it
was revealed that relatives of prominent Umno politicians had been
profiting from the preferential share-allocation scheme originally
designed to help ordinary Malays under the NEP. Among these were Mirzan
Mahathir, son of the prime minister; Marzuki Ibrahim, brother of then
deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, and Fazrin Azwar, son-in-law of then
International Trade and Industry minister Rafidah Aziz, who happened to
chair the allocation committee. This information was only leaked to the
public by Rafidah Aziz because she wanted to show that it was not just
her son-in-law who had gained from the allocations. (Asiaweek, Nov 30, 1994)
When Anwar Ibrahim had met his fate at the hands of Mahathir in 1998,
the firms linked to the former deputy prime minister were either taken
over by pro-Mahathir management or those who had switched allegiance to
Mahathir. Likewise, after the Mahathir-Daim split in 2001, Halim Saad
lost control of Renong. This has typified the vagaries of power
struggles in Umno and the economic consequences for these bumiputera
capitalists. Thus, the fortunes of bumiputera capitalists did not rest
on their “success” as entrepreneurs as the prime minister claims.
Serious historians have not forgotten the time how, after Anwar Ibrahim had been arrested, the Umno-owned New Straits Times began
to spill the beans regarding his cronyism. The newspaper revealed that
one of Anwar’s allies, former Penang Umno youth chief, Abdul Rahim
Ghouse was a director and/or shareholder of 44 companies.
This was followed a few days later by revelations of other aides and
allies of the former deputy prime minister with links to some 300 firms,
including Anwar’s former private secretary Nasaruddin Jalil (112
companies); former political secretary Sarit Yusoh (80 companies);
another Anwar ally Ahmad Saad (53 companies); then senator Ghazi Ramli
(43 companies); former Negri Sembilan Umno youth chairman Ruslan Kassim
(50 companies) and then Umno MP Ruhanie Ahmad (42 companies). Anwar’s
own father, Ibrahim Abdul Rahman was reportedly on the board of more
than 50 companies. (New Straits Times, Dec 8, 1998)
Mahathir’s favoured “bumiputera entrepreneurs” included Tajudin
Ramli, Yahaya Ahmad, Halim Saad, Samsudin Abu Hassan, Wan Azmi Wan
Hamzah, among others. All these nominees were presumably Umno’s nominees
who were holding all these business interests on behalf of Umno.
Mahathir’s own children didn’t do too badly either. In 2011, Forbes
named Mokhzani Mahathir (photo) the 15th richest Malaysian, worth US$560 million.
Privatisation of public services included multi-billion projects such
as the North-South Highway, water and sewerage, the Bakun dam, Light
Rail Transit System and the National Train Service (KTM). The negotiated
tenders mainly benefited companies linked to these favoured bumiputera
capitalists. Some, for example, Renong in the LRT Phase 2 project, were
also given “soft loans” paid for by taxpayers. The public pension fund,
the Employees Provident Fund became a convenient source of capital for
private companies such as STAR, the operator of LRT Phase 1, as well as
the independent power producers.
During the financial crisis of 1997, the state provided support for
favoured firms linked to the “bumiputera capitalists” after the
imposition of capital controls, such as reflationary measures which
included cutting interest rates and making credit more readily available
to these fledgling firms. Banks were also encouraged to lend more, and
to bail out troubled firms and a new expansionary budget was introduced
in October 1998.
Mahathir’s son, Mirzan (photo) had shipping interests that
had to be bailed out in 1998 with RM1.7 billion of Malaysian taxpayers’
money. In December 2000, the government bought back the 29% stake held
by Tajudin Ramli in Malaysian Airline System (MAS), the operator of
Malaysia Airlines. The price was reported to be about twice the market
price, thus effectively bailing out Tajudin. The government also
effected a process of consolidation, instructing 58 financial
institutions to merge, creating 10 “superbanks”. At the same time, large
companies, such as Renong and the Lion group were allowed to repeatedly
roll over their debts with government help.
When Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took over from Mahathir in 2003, he had to
deal with a railway privatisation deal that had been negotiated
privately without open bidding and public disclosure. It had gone to a
businessman who had no less than RM22 billion in government contracts in
the previous six months, including 60 percent interest in the RM6.4
billion Bakun Dam project. (See more examples in Racism & Racial Discrimination in Malaysia.)
Thus, after last weekend’s Bumiputera Congress, we can only wait with
grave concern how the prime minister intends to privatise our national
asset, Khazanah, to “bumiputera entrepreneurs” as he has announced. In
the first place, this national asset of ours should not be privatised –
it belongs to all of us irrespective of ethnicity and all Malaysians who
care about developing our national assets should defend it against any
privatisation.
Topreform agenda: End race-based policies
In Malaysia, given that it is now almost 30 years since the NEP
deadline in 1990, it makes developmental sense to implement a new
socially just affirmative action policy based on need, class or sector.
Thus, if Malays are predominantly in the rural agricultural sector, the
poor Malay farmers would be eligible to benefit from such a needs-based
policy while the rich Malay land-owning class would not. Only such a
race-free policy can convince the people that the government is socially
just, fair and democratic.
The cost and consequences of the racially discriminatory policy in
Malaysia have been immense especially since the NEP in 1971. It has
caused a crippling polarisation of the Malaysian society and a costly
brain drain. Any policy based on “race” is seriously flawed and
questionable since every ethnic community has its rich elite and its
poorer majority.
Every scholar worth his or her salt knew back in the
70s what the outcome of the NEP would be – and we’ve seen how the
“corrective” measures have mainly benefited the well-placed Umnoputras.
Separating the control of funds by NEP “trustees” from nominal ownership
by bumiputeras has led to the flouting of public accountability. As a
result, without effective checks and balances, Malaysia has been beset
by massive scandals like Bank Rakyat, BMF, 1MDB and others since 1971.
More potentially dangerous and insidious is the effect this
widespread racial discrimination has had on ethnic relations in this
country. Real unity can only be promoted through an affirmative action
policy based on need, sector or class – never on race. Only then will
Malaysian voters feel they have voted for a truly new Malaysia.