Why Now?

(Myopia : A visual defect in which distant objects appear blurred because their images are focused in front of the retina rather than on it; nearsightedness.)

Utusan Malaysia carried this huge headline of “Bangkitlah Melayu” today.

It sounded like a battlecry and I was piqued to see just what it is that the newspaper wanted us Malays to wake up to.

It turns out to be a rhetoric from firebrand MP Ibrahim Ali, the gist of which, asking for a wholly Malay formed government.

Utusan did not however quote Ibrahim Ali verbatim (peculiar this..) but chose to instead paraphrase his words as such:

Katanya, jumlah kerusi terbanyak di Parlimen adalah milik Melayu dan ia cukup untuk membentuk sebuah kerajaan berasaskan wakil rakyat Melayu semata-mata di negara ini.

Katanya, justeru, dari segi politiknya kerajaan itu sepatutnya memenuhi apa sahaja yang menjadi kehendak Melayu kerana mereka adalah majoriti dan bukan asyik bertolak ansur dengan bukan Melayu.

Ah.

And there I thought Utusan Malaysia (Melayu?) wanted Malays to wake up to the fact that Malay household formed the biggest percentage of those earning RM1,000 and below at 301,000 from a total of 5.8 million household polled in 2007.

Or that Malay millionaires and billionaires represent a mere 7.9% in term of wealth accumulation for the country’s top 40 richest last year.

There are more that ails the community but the two mentioned above are pertinent to Ibrahim Ali’s wanting the Malays led government to fulfill the “kehendak Melayu”.

So what does Ibrahim Ali thinks that we Malays want really?

For the Malay-centric Umno and PAS to come together? Surely not, as two by-elections with the two combatants squaring dealt the losing hand to Umno.

A re-distribution of wealth, perhaps? Especially seeing how this is skewed in favor of non-Malays.

But this is a dangerous line of thought to pursue.

Perhaps we should concentrate in creating a much bigger cake; one that allows the participation of all communities and that raises the income level parity by doing away the "cheap labor is Malaysia" concept that had long depressed our labor market so effectively.

I seem to remember a once-great Statesman who pushed for the “enriching of thy neighbor” so that everyone would be able to reap the benefits.

In the course of the nation’s short life so far, we’ve managed to help enriched some, but not all.

But all throughout, it’s the same Malay majority government who was in administration.

So why does Melayu Perlu Bangkit now?

Bill Sienkiwicz's Elektra