BY: MICHELLE LEE

Ever since affirmative action policies have been in place for indigenous people or ‘Bumiputras,’ the non-bumis, which are the Chinese and Indians, have since come to realise they can’t depend and rely on the Malaysian government.

Inevitably, the affirmative action policies for bumis oppressed the Chinese and Indians, since it was not needs-based but soley-aligned towards uplifting a particular race in the hope that they will draw level with the non-Malays.

But the affirmative action policies that have been a long-running ‘sandiwara’ since 1970 have backfired horribly on the bumiputra community, with only a fraction of them prospering, and what it has actually done indirectly is to further empower the Chinese and Indians.

Study immigrant presence in any country around the world and you would find that they prosper at the expense of the locals because being downtrodden and oppressed they realise they have to strive and work harder to prosper and come up in life.

This is what is happening in Malaysia now and the reason can be traced to former prime minister Mahathir Mohammad’s observation once that “our people (the Malays) seem to be busy polishing the shoes of the Chinese and Indians in our own country.”

If the Malays had played by the rules of the game and implemented democracy, the Chinese and Indians would not have grown so powerful, and the cunning and sleight used to oppress the Chinese and Indians have turned an evil intent into good for them.

-THE MALAYSIA VOICE

** The views expressed on this opinion is of the writer and not the publisher