Positioning: Malay Supremacy No. 1

1.       The Quran and the Sunnah, the references from where Muslims take their guidance from, are race-blind. There’s a narration that is said to be the asbabunnuzul for Surah Al-Hujurat’s commandment for the taaruf between the various races and tribes, though I cannot verify its standard, that upon conquering Makkah, the Prophet appointed Bilal to call the prayers. This provoked racist comments from the Quraysh, and was dealt with by this aayat. On this account, and many others, the Quran and Sunnah has been proven to be ahead of its time.

2.       Purpose of leadership is for justice. In the light of a race-agnostic policy, how could justice work in an environment of a marginalised majority? To that end, when the NEB was formulated, it was the right thing to happen. However, execution failures have caused even the rationality of evening out racial income disparity as a means to quell resentment and covetousness. We are now at the stage of identifying the natural successor to this outdated NEP.

3.       Malay triumphalism accompanying political concurrence on NEP back in the 70s were so misplaced that what is seen as special accommodative crutches were then seen, or more gently put, packaged as Malay Supremacy as a reward for being the majority and for being an earlier immigrant. Let’s not get the historical facts in the way that the Chinese were muslims earlier and may have influenced and assisted early Malaccan rulers. Latter-day British immigration policies in the 18^th and 19^th century, in a period of weak Malay Sultan administration were blamed as the reason for general malay poverty and backwardness.

4.       I digress. Back to the NEP. Execution failures meant that the closely connected, proxies and undeserved obtained the lion’s share of wealth creation. The Malay wealthy class only needed to prepare a business plan for a concession business, monopolistic trade, or general contracts and they were set for life. Additionally, they could invest in a risk-free, high return investment plan called the ASN, with vague differences to Mr Madoff’s and Mr Ponzi’s investments plans. Oh yeah, ironically, they were also not Syariah-compliant and invested in non-syariah assets, thereby expunging muslims sensitive to these issues meant to adavantage Malay-muslims.

5.       Business and work practices stealthily advantaged connected people. In this way, professionalism and meritocracy were the first fatalities. Covetuousness transferred from the Chinese, who were gradually marginaliesd and had to find other sources of sustainable businesses from within their scattered Chinese diaspora, to the wealthy connected Malays. In any case, China is now the burgeoning economic force, unlike the pariah communist state that it was in the 70s, and probably played its part in strengthening the resolve of the Malaysian Chinese. But the malays did not have that many alternatives. This was the only country in the world that had a significant Malay majority, Malay political power and positive malay policies. The dilemma was that they were not doing that well that they could pack up and leave. Indonesia is probably another 10 years away from becoming that alternative provided they continue on the present growth curve.

6.       In 2008, the unthinkable happened. BN won, but lost an unprecedented number of seats. UMNO was still significant, but not by much. They’ve lost the Chinese vote, and the opposition milked the multiracial platform. Under this present state of affairs, Malay dominance will be permanently eroded. Is then justice served?