I found it very amusing by Mahathir’s criticism of LKY, that LKY is marginalized in a Chinese world. (http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/state_news/news.php?id=221408&cat=et). If memory serves me well Mahathir himself was rejected in his own state in the latest election. If you ask any Chinese (overseas or China) mostly will spoke highly on him, just look at how many China citizens would want to be to Singaporean. In Indonesia if you ask what they think of LKY ? Most of the Chinese here will say he is a great leader but if you ask the Indonesian Malay about Mahathir, the word that often appear is corruption. As for Mahathir accusation that they Malay in Singapore is less well-off than their Chinese Singaporean, I want to say this to Mahathir again – Everybody in Singapore earned for their living and does not rely on the government include the Malay in Singapore, you work less you get less. With this, even though the less hardworking Malays (admitted by Mahathir himself in his book titled Malay Dilemma) in Singapore are better off than the Malaysia’s Malay because as the country progress from 3rd world to 1st world country, the standard of living of every Singaporean citizens include the Singaporean Malay also benefited (This is what I call a fair country). I could recall one day while I was taking a coach back from Singapore to Malaysia, a group of Singapore Malay in the bus just making fun of everything they see in Malaysia, This example alone already explain my point.

Thirdly, Mahathir said that LKY is not clever because he took care of a small country like Singapore that makes him seemed smart. Now I want to ask Mahathir the following question… Malaysia is a big or small country. Malaysia is actually a small country itself (both population and even size) but we are still stuck in the 3rd world. Now at least LKY can still look smart in his small country but Mahatir himself in his more than 20 years tenure was still struggling to make Malaysia( a resources rich country ) a first world country, worse after his retirement he is getting more “disorientated” of his direction in life. You are not getting any younger Mahathir. At least LKY is smart enough to make himself a Ministry Mentor and save himself from crying foul every time something is not to his will.

I believed politicians in Malaysia encouraged these students in oversea to go back to work in Malaysia once in a while. Well, those are just words. How can they compare to the higher pay, more security, benefits, etc. offered by other countries? Malaysia looks to be prospering, but I dont really see it going anywhere in a few decades time. There will be stuff labelled made in Malaysia, but the technology will never belong to Malaysia. It’s like making a dish, Malaysia is just the cooking pan and the chef is not. When the pan gets rusty, the chef will replace it with a new one.

I just received my engineering degree last year and I’m already half way of getting my permanent residency. This is how fast Malaysia can lose a future professional. Malaysia really has to do something about this, you will not want to hire foreign professionals when you can train them yourself.

Our current PM Badawi is following his footsteps. In current groundbreaking of a certain projects for affordable homes he made a coments that Malays should not rely too much on governments help but at the same time he is doing exactly that by rewarding those who rely on government. His coments are just counterproductive.

Now on why I said that Mahathir and Badawi are making negatives coments and do nothing about it while clearly the former had come up with the “ingenious” policy called the NEP. One this looked at what has back-fired from this policy?

1. Outflow of talents out of the country.
2. Rapid downgrading of the Malaysian’s top university ranking namely, UM.
3. High unemployment due to large numbers of the Malay student undertook Islam studies as the main degree which is unpractical in the commercial industry.
4. High failure rate of government-backed Malay entrepenuer.
5. Corruption in UMNO.
6. Low patriosm among the non-malay.
7. Low possibilities of Malaysia as a developed nationby 2020 (vision 2020.

The problem of 1.2 and 3 below are the resulted of the racist quota set up by the government. We have to know that there are many poor chinese and Indian in Malaysia and the only hope for this poor non-malay family to break out of poverty is by education and strife for the best but at the end, the government awarded the scholarship to the underachivers Malay instead of finishing thier “Sciene” degree opted for “Islamic study instead because it is too difficult for them.

The saying goes what goes around comes around. A lot of the non-malay high achivers ended up working for the neighbouring countries and directly competing with Malaysia to become the regional hub of this and that. So if the investment are attracted to other neighbouring countries how do you expect the GDP to go up so that we an achive the vision 2020? Below are the few examples of why this this country is losing it’s steam: our high achivers( http://www.jeffooi.com/2006/03/meet_dr_chan_high_achiever_wit.php
http://www.jeffooi.com/2006/07/malaysian_who_brings_pride_to.php

Please note that Ms. Chew in the article above scored 9As in the SPM and why is she not rewarded scholarship by the government U instead by Sunway??? I am dumbfounded. Both cases are just tip of an iceberg. Keep in mind that I’ve have not even mentioned about the high achivers of Malaysian in Singapore . Our country is loosing its biggest assets : it’s people and not any people but special and telented people. Imaging we have throw away future Tony Fernandez, future Jimmy choo, future Ananda Krishnan, Future Robert Kwok (The Southeast Asia richest man) , future Teh Hong Piow and future Michele Yeoh. I have no doubt this will effect our country’s productiveness.

I see myself as a “victim” of this disriminate policy, with an MBA and married to a foreigner found me in a predicament position because if one has a foreign wife, this will take her 10 to 30 years to get her PR unless you are Malay then it just takes a few years perhaps months. I am thinking what is the Malaysian department doing ? Are they all suddenlly went into hibernation once they received a PR application for a non-malay foreign wife and wakes up 30 years later to process it?

Wake up Malaysia!

1. Malay is a special race. Malays are given some privileges compared to the nons in the aspects of ecomony, education …etc..etc. One cannot question that as it’s in the Constitution, the highest law of the land. What in the world is this? While the government is trying to instill loyalty to the country among all races, then why differentiate? Malaysia is built by all the races, not only Malays. Independence is gained thru cooperation of these nons and they contribute the most to the country’s economic development. I dare say Malaysia would have not become as it is today if without the contributions of these nons. Yet, these nons don’t retaliate. They carry on with their normal daily work to find money for the country. Though deprived of the special treatment from the goverment, they still manage to find their way thru hardwork, not politics.

2. Education. Why the need for quota.Isn’t it that you earn what you
work for, yet though there are many and more non Malays who achieve better grades in their SPM and ATPM, they may still face the possibility of being given the chance to further their studies in the local universities. I have a friend a professor who teaches in University Malaya who expresses his shock upon finding out that there are so many Malay students who got Grade 3 in their SPM manage to study in that university. You call that fair??
The goverment has also made it a point to instill Malaysian identity in the school to the extent of diminishing the British influence of some schools especially the mission schools. What did they do? They change the school badge that has a cross depicting Christianity on it. The crosses on some school buildings were also removed when knowing at the same time that those buildings are sponsored not by the government, but individuals and private sectors that are not of ‘Islamic’influence. Even the school anthem that has words like ’sons’, ‘love’ or those that have Christian values in it. Wonder, what are they really scared of ??? The best part is that, these are the very ministers who studied in those schools before, that helped shaped them to what and who they are now. I don’t see they lose their faith in Islam. In terms of English language, it’s a language that was a medium in most schools 20-25 years ago. But then there were some ministers who are good in the language, changed the system and made Bahasa Malaysia to be the medium. Then as time passes by, English language is becoming more and more important. The government can’t deny this fact. So, what did they do? They made it a directive that English be used in important subjects i.e Maths and Science. When that was implemented, the students got shocked, malay students especially. Even the teachers especially Malays, suffer a lot. Imagine if all the subejects are taught in English, how would the goverment cope with the reality that many Malay teachers will be out of job. So critical is the situation that the goverment had to call back the retired English teachers,who are mostly Non Malays. So once again, the nons help the goverment again, I mean the malays. I;m not against Bahasa Malaysia or anything, but the way the goverment handles this makes me sick of being loyal.

3. Freedom of religion. Maybe I need’nt say it. That is why ISA. If you talk and argue with them, then ISA will settle the problems.

It is ironic that in a country tha is so proud of becoming the Silicon Valley of Asia and the home of the Multimedia Corridor that you cannot express your opinion freely without fear of retribution by the government.