Sunday, August 09, 2009

Malaysia: An Impoverished Racial Society

Ku Li: BN power-sharing model broken, needs new one
By The Malaysian Insider

The ruling Barisan Nasional’s racial power-sharing model is broken with the races now polarised, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah said.

“The racial power-sharing model now practised by Barisan is broken. It takes more honesty than we are used to in public life to observe that this is not a temporary but a terminal crisis. An old order is ending,” Tengku Razaleigh told the Kelab Umno Australia at the Melbourne University.

We are in a transition full of perils and possibilities,” the Kelantan prince said in a copy of the speech sent to The Malaysian Insider.

The coalition has to wake up to the fact that it no longer worked.

“It was designed as an interim work-around, an early stage on the way to ‘a more perfect union’ and not as the desired end-state. Over the years, however, we have put up barricades around our system as if it were a fore-ordained and permanent ideal.

“In doing so, we have turned a half-way house into our destination, as if we must forever remain a racially divided and racially governed society,” said Ku Li.

Tengku Razaleigh said the power-sharing model in Malaysia was an elite style of government justified by the virtue and competence of natural leaders of the communities.

“It does not work when political parties are led by the ignorant and the corrupt who have no standing in the communities they claim to represent,” he said bluntly, saying the country now has top-down rule and power had become increasingly unaccountable with Umno beholden to the executive.

“Our decades under highly-centralised government undermined our power-sharing formula, just as it undermined key institutions such as the judiciary, the police and the rule of law.

“Our major institutions have survived in appearance while their substance has eroded. Seen in this light, the election results of March 8, which saw the Barisan Nasional handed its worst defeat since 1969, was just the beginning of the collapse of a structure which has long been hollowed out,” Ku Li said.

“We need a new beginning to racial relations in Malaysia, and you must pioneer that beginning. We need to re-design race relations in Malaysia, and you must be the architects and builders of that design,” he told his audience.

“Begin with our common humanity. Respect for our common humanity must override all lesser affiliations, including race,” he said, noting one of Islam’s most powerful contributions to human civilisation has been its insistence on the equality of all human beings.

“Islam tolerates no notions of racial superiority or inferiority. All human beings are equal before God. That same principle of equality is absolutely fundamental to democracy, and democracy is a foundational principle of our Constitution.

“Political parties based on race or religion must never be allowed to do or say anything contrary to justice and equality,” he added.

Bucking the trend in his party that espouses Malay supremacy, Tengku Razaleigh said Malaysians must anchor themselves in the constitution and restore its primacy as it establishes the equality of citizenship.

“It gives us the framework of law and order within which we become a nation. It establishes the primacy of the rule of law, the sovereignty of Parliament, the independence of the judiciary and civil service and of our law enforcement agencies. These are the institutions which guarantee the freedom and sovereignty of the people,” he added.

Speaking on race, he noted that while it united people in a common feeling, it can also divide and said that Malaysians are not just diverse in race but diverse in different ways, including location, class, social status, occupation, language and politics.

“We would be terribly impoverished as persons if our identity was given ahead of time and once and for all, merely by our membership of a fixed racial category.

He railed against the politics of race saying it will always divide, “and the ultimate solution to intra-racial problems it leads us to is, in the end, violence.”

“It is easy to identify the practitioners of this kind of racial politics. They will rely on veiled threats of communal violence even as they take part in democratic politics,” he added.

“It is time to embrace this real diversity in our political and personal lives. Our racial identities are not silos in a cornfield, forever separate, encased in steel, but trees in our rainforest: standing distinct but inexplicable without each other and constantly co-evolving,” he said.

“Let us have the sense of perspective to see our ethnic identities against these cornerstone principles of religion and ethics, and let us now educate our young, apprentice our youth, and conduct ourselves according to these principles.

“And then let us have a new beginning for Malaysia,” he said when ending his speech.

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Source: The Malaysian Insider

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This is the Malaysia we are in now.

Naijb knew we are heading towards the ultimate disaster. At the Pekan Umno division AGM Najib told the Umno members that the culture of looking after one's own clique and race is no longer tenable and as such Umno should take the lead to change.

This Najib's ultimate message:

"We cannot afford to be complacent and assume that Umno will be politically immune forever."

"Serve the people, not the cliques."

"Umno members must follow closely national developments and familiarised themselves with the concept of 1Malaysia, KPI and KRA."

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Source: The Star

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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

aiyah, all the umno leaders all the same...

when there in there, did nothing of the sort but just to enrich themselves.

once out of the govrnment. day in, day out... peepek, peepek... looks like all of them having severe case of verbal diarrhea.

macc-ed said...

najib says he wants selangor back. what he didn't say is by hook or by crook. by macc or by polis.

watch out, Pakatan. there is trouble brewing and it won't be just the sale of alcohol in shah alam.

Anonymous said...

If that fat boy want to take over Selangor through the ballot box, thats ok.

If by hook or by frog, unlike gutless & useless perakian, don't think Selangor ppl will just lie down and get trample all over.

We got the government we want in Selangor & not some fat leader named Mr Losmah.

Anonymous said...

That fat boy wants to take over Selangor through the ballot box by the Ahmedinejad way, where the rigged results are sexed-up.

moo_t said...

Najib can keep borrow gazillion number of slogan from China(since 1950 till now).

Perhaps he can recycle "work with me not work for me". And TunM tears shedding also good to learn from.

When Malaysia touch the 2015 deadline, all 3rd world country will come here to learn how transform Malaysia economy by using slogan, to learn the power of talking. ;)

moo_t said...

When NST, utusan and berita keep twisting words for political gains,I don't see how the "ultimate message" will benefit the country.

Anonymous said...

Ku Li is all talk but no action. Actually, all he can do is talk, talk and talk until the kerbau comes home but he is too old, weak and takut to act these days. He is no captain of a sinking BN ship going down but a frail prince who wish to see out his last days enjoying his royalty. Meanwhile, all his subjects are suffering untold miseries at the hands of his BN comrades but he does not feel obliged to fight for the good of them, their state and the country except for some speeches concocted in luxurious settings. What a paper tiger!!

Anonymous said...

while in the usa the ex-president & vice president... going round the globe arresting global warming & doing humanitarian works...

back here, like all the old umno warlords, this prince talk & talk & talk then what?

eiseh, like what they will usually do, lipat their sarong & stroll down to warong pak haji for their keropok goreng & kopi panas.

Anonymous said...

DAP not racist? Ask DAPSY head!

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