Perkasa Malay versus liberal Malay
By Jema Khan (The Malaysian Insider)
JUNE 7 — The essence of Perkasa’s ideology, if one can even call it that, is to make the Malays feel like the master race in the country. As the master race, all that belongs to the country belongs to them. They, of course, have yet to get their just desserts.
Even if they had already got it before, they still want it now because they presumably were not able to make much of the benefits they once enjoyed. Their demands, though, are cloaked under the guise of the poverty and disabilities of the Malays in Malaysia.
The liberal Malays, on the other hand, are well exposed to other races and nationalities. We are confident of ourselves in relation to other people. We have long left behind the village mindset and are disdainful of being the village champion as we know there is a great big world out there, with many who are indeed smart and capable human beings. Yet we welcome an environment that is based on meritocracy.
We look at the Malays in Singapore and ask, how are they able to have a GDP per capita which is a few times higher than the Malays here? They didn’t have the New Economic Policy (NEP). What they did have was a good education, a clean government and meritocracy.
The Perkasa mindset plays on the Malays’ fears that without rent seeking, corruption, subsidies and abuse of power, the Malays are doomed. Yes, the Malays are generally poor but the so-called affirmative action as proposed by Perkasa will not make the majority of them better off.
It will only enrich the few Malays at the top who can take advantage of it. At the same time the mindset of most of the Malays will still be focussed on their poverty, ignorance and an inability to compete in today’s economic environment.
If Perkasa succeeds then the age old adage of “who you know is more important that what you know” will perpetuate. The poor Malays can then hang on and around the Perkasa leadership in hopes of getting their improbable payoffs somewhere in the future.
Read more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/opinion/article/perkasa-malay-versus-liberal-malay/
