I marvel at them but at the same time feel ashamed of what we have done to them.
The recent demand that
the freighting business must give up 51% to bumiputras is the latest
(but not the first) episode of ‘smash and grab’ by the government.
The
dhobi list of ‘daylight robbery’ goes back a long way – from rice
milling to transport to banking; we force them to give us a share of the
fruits of their toil without us doing a stitch of work. All because we
have the muscles to do so. Have we Malays become gangsters? Demanding
‘protection money’ for allowing others to operate their businesses.
Imagine
this; you put in years of mental and physical sweat, you risk your
savings, you live frugally, watching your pennies; you deprive yourself
of the nice things in life in order to build up your business. After
years of sweat your venture pays off.
Now you are told by the
government – YOUR Government – that you must give up the majority share
to someone else who has done nothing to build up the business. The
recent controversy about the durian orchards is exactly the same. In
that case the irate growers chopped down their trees on which they
toiled for five years. But a freighting company takes longer and costs
more to build up. I am afraid some will take the Robert Kuok route out
of the country; take their money and expertise elsewhere. How can you do
business in a country where you pay taxes and is legislated out of your
business?? Where is the fairness?
As a Malaysian I feel for them. As a Malay I am ashamed.
In
the fifties and sixties there might have been justification in
levelling the playing field through government action. Article 153 of
our constitution was meant to do that. But while Article 153 which was
meant only as a temporary provision of the constitution, gave the Malays
certain privileges (for a fixed time) at the same time it safeguarded
the “legitimate interests of the others”.
The goal posts were shifted to favour the Malays very
strongly after the seventies. The benchmark was the Malays owning 30%
of the country’s wealth and that was achieved at least a decade ago. So
now we don’t even bother to justify our actions in taking over
businesses owned by non-Malay Malaysians. We have the power so we take!
We
have met our needs sometime ago. If many Malays have been left behind
it is not because of the non-Malays but because our own Malays have
cheated us. They have enriched themselves at our expense.
What we
are doing is pure greed. We Malays have become greedy! To be more
specific so as not to tar every Malay with the same brush; the Malay
upper middle class and ruling elite have become more greedy. I say this
because ordinary Malays do not benefit from this daylight robbery.
On
this freight forwarding business (as in all other businesses) it is
wrong to impose this new ruling on existing operations. You can’t move
the goal posts. By all means if you want to impose new rules on future
businesses go ahead. Then those who go in do so with full knowledge that
it must be majority Malay owned.
Our leaders talk a lot about
Malay maruah but they do things that bring our dignity down. They shame
us. We are not pimps living off the proceeds of someone else’s work.
Although
the rule of the 51% Malay ownership has been put off till December 2022
it still remains; waiting for a more opportune time to implement it.
We
Malays have been operating on the basis of “Might is Right”; because we
have the muscle we can do as we please. Only gangsters and bullies
behave like that. We are not like that, we are “nature’s gentlemen” as
the British once opined. I would like to think we still are deep inside
us.
