Thursday, August 30, 2007

50 Years of Independence

Tommorrow will be Malaysia's 50th Independence anniversary. A lot of activities being organized in Kuala Lumpur, the Federal State Territory of Malaysia ranging from fireworks, laser shows, etc. It was reported that hotel rooms are packed to brim and thus signaling the success of Visit Malaysia Year 2007. Does half century of independsnce strike any chord on me specifically and on non-Bumi generally?

The answer will be a stern NO. We've been treated as second class citizen ever since the racial clash in 1969. (This second class thing is an overused statement by Chinese). Ever since then, New Economic Policy (NEP) is implemented by the then Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak. It was meant to help the Malay to achieve the same or better economic status as the Chinese (to be exact, it is 30% of national equity). Until today, the Chinese is still perceived to be well off than the fellow brethen Malay eventhough there's a lot of poor Chinese struggling to make a living.

No doubt that new era for Malay has begun. More and more company created by Malay with the help of goverment and are very successful. Petronas which holds the country wealth are monopolize by Malay. For the past 38 years, NEP has created a lot of wealthy Malay. But it was reported that many of new rich people (Orang Kaya Baru) is from UMNO. Majority of countryside Malay still suffer from poor living. However, UMNO still get the support because NEP is like free handout. Who does not want a free stuff.

But for non-Malay, it was largely felt as oppression. We don't feel it while we're young. If we're matured fast enough, we might realise that most of the teacher are Malays. But because at that time, we're still innocent, we never felt any oppression. If we're ignorant enough, we will only start to feel oppressed when it comes to selection of student to enter public university. Malay will get 1 year earlier in entering the university by studying in matriculation which is only for Malay. Next, the matriculation is structured to be easier to obtain good result. Chinese are forced to face STPM (government examination) which is harder to score good result. So the result comparison will be lopsided. Not satisfied with two handicaps, Malay are being given big chunk of quota to enter the University. Every year, we see plight of Chinese student unable to get their medicine course eventhough they scored full As in their public examination. All this led to brain drain because wealthy Chinese will send their bright kids to study in overseas.

When the Chinese start to work, they will start to realise more and more inequality eventhough they are born in the same country. For the Malay, they have extra priviledge such as discount for buying house, easier to get licence to open petrol station, taxi, AP, etc. All government contracts also being given to Malay. A lot of Malay companies are being bailed out during economic downturn.

While the Chinese don't mind and being tolerance to all these inequality in the name of wealth sharing, but what happened these past few years had fired up Chinese discontentment. It reached boiling point when Hishamudding who is the Education Minister brandished Malay sword and threaten to kill those oppose the NEP and the Malay Lordship. The powerful son-in-law of current Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi does not failed to stirred racial sentiment further by saying he willing to sell at loss his shares in ECM Libra to Malay than to sell it to Chinese (see below for full statement). A lot of racist statement flying here and there especially in Malay newspaper. And all this is to garner more Malay support.

Unfortunaly, while all this is force down our throat, the MCA/Gerakan that claim to champion our right just sit down and kept quiet. I've lost trust in them. Eventhough they might do a good job, they'll never get my vote. I've lost hope in our political system. Reading through Malaysiakini materials made my heart sank. 50 years of Independence is just not for me or the Chinese.....

*Khairy statement:
Claiming that he received no less than three offers to buy over his shares, one from a government-owned company, another from an international company while a Chinese businessman offered a very profitable sum, Khairy said:

“I rejected the first offer as people will claimed that it was a government bailout to rescue me while the subsequent offers will see the shares falling into the hands of outsiders and non-bumiputras.

“I will not let that happen and will rather suffer losses as long as the shares remain in the hands of our people.”

1 comment:

  1. List of racial discriminations in Malaysia, practiced by government as well as government agencies. This list is an open secret. Best verified by government itself because it got the statistics.

    This list is not in the order of importance, that means the first one on the list is not the most important and the last one on the list does not mean least important.

    This list is a common knowledge to a lot of Malaysians, especially those non-malays (Chinese, Ibans, Kadazans, Orang Asli, Tamils, etc) who were being racially discriminated.

    Figures in this list are estimates only and please take it as a guide only. Government of Malaysia has the most correct figures. Is government of Malaysia too ashamed to publish their racist acts by publishing racial statistics?

    This list cover a period of about 50 years since independence (1957).

    List of racial discriminations (Malaysia):

    (1) Out of all the 5 major banks, only one bank is multi-racial, the rest are controlled by malays

    (2) 99% of Petronas directors are malays

    (3) 3% of Petronas employees are Chinese

    (4) 99% of 2000 Petronas gasoline stations are owned by malays

    (5) 100% all contractors working under Petronas projects must be bumis status

    (6) 0% of non-malay staffs is legally required in malay companies. But there must be 30% malay staffs in Chinese companies

    (7) 5% of all new intake for government army, nurses, polices, is non-malays

    (8) 2% is the present Chinese staff in Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF), drop from 40% in 1960

    (9) 2% is the percentage of non-malay government servants in Putrajaya. But malays make up 98%

    (10) 7% is the percentage of Chinese government servants in the whole government (in 2004), drop from 30% in 1960

    (11) 95% of government contracts are given to malays

    (12) 100% all business licensees are controlled by malay government e.g. Approved Permits, Taxi Permits, etc

    (13) 80% of the Chinese rice millers in Kedah had to be sold to malay controlled Bernas in 1980s. Otherwise, life is make difficult for Chinese rice millers

    (14) 100 big companies set up, managed and owned by Chinese Malaysians were taken over by government, and later managed by malays since 1970s e.g. MISC, UMBC, UTC, etc

    (15) At least 10 Chinese owned bus companies (throughout Malaysia, throughout 40 years) had to be sold to MARA or other malay transport companies due to rejection by malay authority to Chinese application for bus routes and rejection for their application for new buses

    (16) 2 Chinese taxi drivers were barred from driving in Johor Larkin bus station. There are about 30 taxi drivers and 3 are Chinese in October 2004. Spoiling taxi club properties was the reason given

    (17) 0 non-malays are allowed to get shop lots in the new Muar bus station (November 2004)

    (18) 8000 billion ringgit is the total amount the government channeled to malay pockets through ASB, ASN, MARA, privatisation of government agencies, Tabung Haji etc, through NEP over 34 years period

    (19) 48 Chinese primary schools closed down since 1968 - 2000

    (20) 144 Indian primary schools closed down since 1968 - 2000

    (21) 2637 malay primary schools built since 1968 - 2000

    (22) 2.5% is government budget for Chinese primary schools. Indian schools got only 1%, malay schools got 96.5%

    (23) While a Chinese parent with RM1000 salary (monthly) cannot get school-text-book-loan, a malay parent with RM2000 salary is eligible

    (24) 10 all public universities vice chancellors are malays

    (25) 5% - the government universities lecturers of non-malay origins had been reduced from about 70% in 1965 to only 5% in 2004

    (26) Only 5% is given to non-malays for government scholarships over 40 years

    (27) 0 Chinese or Indians were sent to Japan and Korea under "Look East Policy"

    (28) 128 STPM Chinese top students could not get into the course that they aspired e.g. Medicine (in 2004)

    (29) 10% place for non-bumi students for MARA science schools beginning from year 2003, but only 7% are filled. Before that it was 100% malays

    (30) 50 cases whereby Chinese and Indian Malaysians, are beaten up in the National Service program in 2003

    (31) 25% is Malaysian Chinese population in 2004, drop from 45% in 1957

    (32) 7% is the present Malaysian Indians population (2004), a drop from 12% in 1957

    (33) 2 million Chinese Malaysians had emigrated to overseas since 40 years ago

    (34) 0.5 million Indian Malaysians had emigrated to overseas

    (35) 3 million Indonesians had migrated into Malaysia and became Malaysian citizens with bumis status

    (36) 600000 are the Chinese and Indian Malaysians with red IC and were rejected repeatedly when applying for citizenship for 40 years. Perhaps 60% of them had already passed away due to old age. This shows racism of how easily Indonesians got their citizenship compare with the Chinese and Indians

    (37) 5% - 15% discount for a malay to buy a house, regardless whether the malay is poor or rich

    (38) 2% is what Chinese new villages get compare with 98% of what malay villages got for rural development budget

    (39) 50 road names (at least) had been changed from Chinese names to other names

    (40) 1 Dewan Gan Boon Leong (in Malacca) was altered to other name (e.g. Dewan Serbaguna or sort) when it was being officially used for a few days. Government try to shun Chinese names. This racism happened in around year 2000 or sort

    (41) 0 churches/temples were built for each housing estate. But every housing estate got at least one mosque/surau built

    (42) 3000 mosques/surau were built in all housing estates throughout Malaysia since 1970. No churches, no temples are required to be built in housing estates

    (43) 1 Catholic church in Shah Alam took 20 years to apply to be constructed. But told by malay authority that it must look like a factory and not look like a church. Still not yet approved in 2004

    (44) 1 publishing of Bible in Iban language banned (in 2002)

    (45) 0 of the government TV stations (RTM1, RTM2, TV3) are directors of non-malay origins

    (46) 30 government produced TV dramas and films always showed that the bad guys had Chinese face, and the good guys had malay face. You can check it out since 1970s. Recent years, this tendency becomes less

    (47) 10 times, at least, malays (especially Umno) had threatened to massacre the Chinese Malaysians using May 13 since 1969

    (48) 20 constituencies won by DAP would not get funds from the government to develop. Or these Chinese majority constituencies would be the last to be developed

    (49) 100 constituencies (parliaments and states) had been racistly re-delineated so Chinese voters were diluted that Chinese candidates, particularly DAP candidates lost in election since 1970s

    (50) Only 3 out of 12 human rights items are ratified by Malaysia government since 1960

    (51) 0 - elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (UN Human Rights) is not ratified by Malaysia government since 1960s

    (52) 20 reported cases whereby malay ambulance attendances treated Chinese patients inhumanely, and malay government hospital staffs purposely delay attending to Chinese patients in 2003. Unreported cases may be 200

    (53) 50 cases each year whereby Chinese, especially Chinese youths being beaten up by malay youths in public places. We may check at police reports provided the police took the report, otherwise there will be no record

    (54) 20 cases every year whereby Chinese drivers who accidentally knocked down malays were seriously assaulted or killed by malays

    (55) 12% is what ASB/ASN got per annum while banks fixed deposit is only about 3.5% per annum

    There are hundreds more racial discriminations in Malaysia to add to this list of "colossal" racism. It is hope that the victims of racism will write in to expose racism.

    Malaysia government should publish statistics showing how much malays had benefited from the "special rights" of malays and at the same time tell the statistics of how much other minority races are being discriminated.

    Hence, the responsibility lies in the Malaysia government itself to publish unadulterated statistics of racial discrimination.

    If the Malaysia government hides the statistics above, then there must be some evil doings, immoral doings, shameful doings and sinful doings, like the Nazi, going on onto the non-malays of Malaysia.

    Civilized nation, unlike evil Nazi, must publish statistics to show its treatment on its minority races. This is what Malaysia must publish……….

    We are asking for the publication of the statistics showing how "implementation of special rights of malays" had inflicted colossal racial discrimination onto non-malays.

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