The Malays & UMNO should read this!

By Hussein Hamid

With the Chinese it usually take about three generations for whatever money that has been made to be gone – wasted away. The Malays – just one generation!

Many Malays have allowed avarice and a liking of the good things in life to cloud their judgment in doing what is right.

I have met many Malays who, within less then one generation, came into richness way beyond their wildest dream. How do you adjust from driving a beat up old Mercedes to being able to get (not afford but able to get!) a Range Rover and the latest Mini Cooper –complete with a driver and machai riding shotgun with you everywhere you go? Then he have to take a crash course on how to play Golf - when before a game of Sepak Takraw would be his means of relaxation over the weekend! Five Star Hotels are now his play ground. Cigars, High Tea a bit of the hard stuff every night. …All par for the course for these so-called shakers and movers from UMNO. Their families are left at the starting point. No way can the wife or children adjust. Soon he starts with his late nights, outstation trips and even goes off to Perth for Golf – always with a sweet young thing in tow or stash away at some condominium in Bagsar or Damansara.

All this looks good on the surface. A Malay enjoying the good life because he is a loyal servant of UMNO. But his strength is because he is a ‘sahabat’ of Pak Lah. What happens when Najib took over? This Malays goes back to his beat up old Mercedes because his Range Rover and Mini Cooper were repossessed (they cost over $6000 per month on the never never – five years hire purchase arrangements!) Then he is again reduced to begging for scraps and running errands now for Najib’s sahabats. And this vicious circle continues to trap many Malays into a never-ending search for easy money and the good life - but without the ability to hang on to it.

What of UMNO’s leaders now ruling our country? What of them? I see spoilt brats brought up in luxury and the good life becoming spoilt Ministers lacking compassion and depth. Without the ability to emphasize or sympathize with those that they are lord over. And they take the role of being Lord literally. Look at Din – a classic nerd or geek in his young days. Now by a freak of birth and happy circumstance – he is a Minister. A Minister without ability and compassion – unable to understand that he is in Public Service – and his duty is to serve – not wave a Keris in the air or throw his weight around bullying people who cannot fight back. A sad excuse for a human being.

Najib and Rosmah have money. They now want power and more money – and they go about getting both unashamedly without reservations or respect for morals or decency. The public see these leaders as thieves and liars and this self fulfilling prophecy is further enhanced by their actions. We know what they do. Time cannot keep secrets. Time will tell us all what was done during the era of Mahathir, Abdullah and Najib.

How long will UMNO continue to curse the Malays with their way of doing things? Malays unable to cope with the massive influx of wealth, families’ wreck asunder, husbands taking mistresses and girlfriends? In the end this will spell the end of UMNO and also the end of many Malays unable to understand any other way of life then what they have been taught to do under UMNO.

The very rich in UMNO will have enough to last for two or three generations of their family. For 90% of UMNO the fall of UMNO will create much pain and sufferings. So wait for an orgy of money politics as UMNO rides into the sunset at the next General Elections. They will all try for that one big Negotiated Tender or Project that will hopefully keep them and their family going until UMNO makes a comeback. If UMNO does not then they go back to their beat up old Mercedes Benz and dream of their glory days when UMNO’s President was King. Let us hope that Anwar has seen enough of this while he was in UMNO to not repeat the same mistakes with Pakatan Rakyat. Or is that too much to hope for from Politicians?