Why Dr Mahathir deserves a garland of flowers
Before the Deputy UMNO Youth Chief had made his press conference, before Tun's No1 Supporter insulted the President of the MIC, before the delegate was called an illegitimate child, before Mukhriz's attack dog could unleash a salvo, before the spinmaster could wrongfully accuse one A Muniady of a 'crime' he did not commit, it was I, Wenger J Khairy, who had called for the Ketua Pemuda UMNO to demand an apology from the MIC and this message was carried on Malaysia Today.
He hesitated.
The rest is history.
I think perhaps its good for me to use this time to explain why Dr. Mahathir deserves a garland of flowes, as well as to kick of a Series Entitled 'When We Were Kings', which remind citizens when Malaysia was a strong nation and respected by many. My aim is to analyse the decisions made by those in power then, and what was so good about it, and to serve to educate the current crop on how to make similar inspired decisions.
So lets kick it off. I want to start with 3 reasons why Dr. Mahathir should be respected.
Reason #1: Million Dollar Babies
The first, most important and most controversial reason is that Dr. Mahathir created a generation of Malays who drive BMWs and live in multimillion dollar houses.
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At this point, the bulk of the readers will be shouting 'cronyism', 'bail out' and the like. Let me remind you – I know much more about you on economics, finance and business, and I am very clear of the failed business models, the trend towards monopolies which kill competition and the like. I know all of that, I am not stupid. In fact, in my earlier blogs, I had criticized a lot of these policies from an economic point of view, even calling into question the central tenet of the Mahatirist belief system that speculators alone were responsible for the ringgit to be devalued.
I know all of that, but now let me tell you, why on the face of all of that, it was still better that a generation of Malay millionaires be created that if the rules of free market were to take precedence and no such generation emerged.
Consider the events of the last 4 years and the events of the last 40 years. If one were to assume that the events of the last 40 years were as racially charged as the events of the last 4 years, why was there never an incident of Malay-Chinese riots?
The reason: because Malay leaders i.e the political warlords, who hold sway over a swathe of loyal foaming in the mouth partizans, had money, and to have a riot, would mean to threaten the leaders way of life.
It's that simple.
In 1969, the warlords were poor. The Non-Malays of 1969 were just as rude as the Malaysia Today readers in 2009; the only difference in 1969 they were in your face, in 2009, they hide behind the cloak of anonymity provided by the Internet.
