cakap cakap...Melayu, Melayu, Melayu.

Selamat Pagi Malaysia.

Does no one have anything good to say about Malaysia anymore? Every conversation, every discussion, every cakap cakap among Malaysians are filled with the trials and tribulations of friends and acquaintances, as each one we know, including ourselves, try to eke out a decent living while greedy and corrupt politicians flaunt their wealth, arrogance and political power for all to see.

Every new day we are regaled by the excesses of yet another Minister wife who just came back from a shopping trip abroad, or a son or a daughter who is opening a new business venture or buying an apartment in New York, a flat in London or a unit in Melbourne for their children to stay while studying abroad.

These nouveau rich Malays have, within a generation or less, acquired an insane amount of wealth because their father is a Minister, a Menteri Besar, a head of a GLC, an MP from Umno, PAS or one of those political parties with links to government. Or the mother of all Durian Runtuh…a prime minister - current or ex. And more often than not, these are Malays.

So, have the NEP been good for the Malays. Are the Bumiputras master of all that they survey in their Tanah Air. Do you have to be a Malay and in politics to be rich?

And being a Royal helps too. The answer may lie somewhere in the mix of being a Malay, a Royal, and in Politics. Anything else that a Malay can be, if it compliments any of the above, can only help.

We are also past the point of being able to say that we are all Malaysians. The reality is simply this. Population engineering has ensured that the Malays will continue to numerically dominate as the population edges closer and closer to that point when, because of their sheer numbers, the Malays are the only one that matters in all things Malaysians.

And if any consideration is to be had for the ‘others’…it is done so because the Malays have decided to do so. Not because the ‘others’ can demand that consideration as their right.

For the ‘others’ I can only say this….pray that the leaders we have are mindful of their duty to all Malaysian rather than to think themselves only as leaders of the Malays.

I am mentally exhausted thinking of these possibilities. All this has been at the back of my mind for many years and yet, I had hoped against hope, that Malaysia will be for all Malaysians. The reality today makes that impossible.

Enough for now. I need to gather my thoughts and see what lies ahead for me, for the Malays and for the ‘others’ in a Malaysia that has changed beyond my comprehension - a Malaysia totally alien and foreign to the one I grew up in. Amen.