What the 30% means on the ground

What the 30% means on the ground

LETTERS/SURAT

Monday, 25 October 2010

UMNO says that they do not steal from the Chinese to give to the Malays. This may actually be true. What seems to happen is that UMNO steals from the Chinese in a rather sneaky and hidden manner and gives to their cronies.

by batsman

It is one thing to debate the 30% on an airy fairy intellectual level – is it really 30% or has it gone over 30% and reached 45% already, etc.?

This has little meaning for people on the ground. All they know is that they do not really receive any perceived benefits from any such 30% or 45%. Of course, UMNO’s job is to convince them through fiery speeches that they do and to keep repeating it ad nauseum until they are convinced because science says that people will believe you if you keep repeating something often enough.

Actually this is not something new. Goebbels the Nazi propaganda minister knew it by heart. So we are really nearly 100 years a bit late. But following Nazi style, UMNO can repeat its messages of “protecting” Malays ad nauseum while they suppress anybody trying to discuss the 30%.

It is better if people start to analyze for themselves what the 30% means on the ground – where it affects them with some immediacy. Let me try and give it a go for a start.

UMNO says that they do not steal from the Chinese to give to the Malays. This may actually be true. What seems to happen is that UMNO steals from the Chinese in a rather sneaky and hidden manner and gives to their cronies.

For the hapless Chinese, the reality is that they have to pour their pathetic lives and souls into making a living by trying to make their businesses successful (without any help from UMNO). After they have achieved this through much sacrifices and the business is successful and making good money and when it is time to grow the business - that is when the daylight robbery takes place. I guess there is no use practicing daylight robbery on a failing business.

To grow their businesses, they probably need licenses e.g. franchising licenses or listing on the stock market or even buying bigger premises such as government controlled industrial land, they start to meet the 30% rule.

This means that they need to find a Bumiputra partner fast. The Orang Asli seem to be neglected in this respect, but it is questionable whether any licenses will be granted with Orang Asli holding 30%.

If the money is good enough and the Chinaman desperate enough, he may just give away the 30% to an UMNO crony.

Here the variety and variation in Bumiputra partners become quite large. It ranges from outright theft, to theft of just shares but foregoing profits, to theft by buying shares at a substantial discount, to buying shares at market price but becoming a sleeping partner. Of course buying shares at the market price and becoming a productive partner is not considered theft anymore but a successful partnership.

The first 2 seem to be the more common modes – outright theft through voluntary gift of shares and profits because there is no choice if the Chinaman wants a license, but the other mode of theft is even more clever. The UMNO crony receives a “voluntary gift” of shares, but placates the Chinaman by saying “Let me pay for these shares through the profits made by the business that are due to my shares” .

I know these stories too well because I get them in my ears ad nauseum from whining Chinamen and because they are repeated so often, I sort of believe them by now.

Well, these are the stories on the ground, but being a non-practitioner, I have no choice but to take them to the intellectual level. I ask myself what the end effect of all these daylight robberies is.

Obviously the Chinaman will become discouraged eventually. He will no longer invest his whole life’ s work, savings and borrowings from his friend Ah Long into his businesses and maybe even mortgage his family as well. This has consequences for the economy of the country. The cash cow’s milk will dry up.

Worse still, the Chinaman’s drive and maybe even his traditional skills in business will be lost because he does not practice his skill ad nauseum anymore. So the country suffers somewhat by losing a competitive advantage.

UMNO already realizes all of this, but they cannot give it up as the proceeds are so good. It is this 30% that UMNO delegates are protecting during UMNO assemblies.

Of course as regards foreigners, UMNO cannot be so bold as to practice outright daylight robbery, so it is that in places like Iskandar, the 30% rule is waived. Of course this makes the Chinaman even more miserable – now he is treated even worse than the foreigner (including Singaporeans) in his own country. (I am sure some Chinaman is even now thinking of becoming a Singaporean and coming back to Iskandar to make money without the burden of the 30% - actually making the best of both worlds).

Worse still, UMNO says that Arabs, Turks, Pakistanis, Africans, Thais and what not are also Malays. This makes the Chinaman feels very lonely, as if he is not wanted in a country where his ancestors settled and called home centuries ago. He is alone with his non-Muslim Indian friend in a sea of Malays who eye his 30% greedily.

Further, the taxes he pays are going to feed Arab Malays, Pakistani Malays, Turkish Malays, Thai Malays, African Malays, etc. and provide scholarships for the children of these Melayu Baru.

With the heightened sexual drives of some people, we may yet see some Mongolian Malays. Unfortunately the first one started off rather badly.

The Chinaman now starts to fear that there will be no money left for mending the roads and clearing the rubbish or even keeping reliable electricity supply, providing clean water as well as keeping the hospitals as places of curing the sick rather than killing the healthy.

And this sea is getting bigger with each wave of Indonesian and Pakistani migration while his own friends and extended family flee in dribs and drabs to places like Australia and Canada. Small wonder that he thinks of emigrating too or maybe “voluntarily” converting to Islam.

Of course, the more stupid and perverse of UMNO members (aka Perkasa) seem to say this is what they really want, but the more clever and sophisticated try to delay this departure by starting a Talent Corporation because at least for the time being, they know the country cannot afford a big outflow of capital as well as human resources without suffering some disruption.

I suspect this is also what the more sophisticated UMNO members want – to be undisputed Tuan without any messy whining Chinaman to worry about as their own propaganda of Ketuanan Melayu if repeated often enough will even influence their own minds.

Unfortunately for them, I also do not think PAS will accept an undisputed UMNO Tuan and neither will the millions of Malays who are getting fed up of UMNO arrogance, corruption and abuse of power. heeheehee.