Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The growing irrelevancy of UMNO
The UMNO general assembly ended last week and the bitter aftertaste of the proceedings will remain in the hearts of many Malaysians who are deeply concerned about the fate of the nation. Speeches bordering on sedition were made by party delegates without an ounce of reason and logic, with the audience blindly cheering and raving in approval. Malaysians of Chinese descent were vilified and made into an object of hatred. Yes, hatred is the right word and as a Malaysian, I remain disgusted by our purported leaders’ paralysis, sitting in silence while the party’s little Napoleons go up to the stage and make a mockery of themselves and further validating a growing conclusion amongst the intelligentsia that UMNO is a party incapable of reason and logic with no strategic understanding of the fast changing world.
That the irrelevancy of the party is looming just around the corner, continues to be ignored by UMNO i.e our leaders. UMNO is a party that offers no well-thought out solutions to the many ills afflicting the community it claims to look after. Year after year, lamentation of helplessness and rage against external entities or peoples are enunciated by UMNO, in order to mask its internal weaknesses and the inability to rectify the growing social and intellectual afflictions plaguing the community. No serious research is conducted by UMNO to find solutions to the growing social ills such as incest, rape, drug addiction, unemployment and the weakening status of Bahasa Malaysia vis a vis the main languages of business, English and Mandarin. The general assembly is the perfect platform to highlight to the world, how the party finds real lasting solutions for the benefits of the Malays. At the very least, an effort by the party’s delegates to acknowledge the new economic realities would have been reassuring.
Instead, rabid cries of bathing the keris in blood and warning unnamed groups of threatening racial unity became the rallying call of the party, while party delegates freely threaten the very idea of Malaysia. No ideas are offered on how to grow the economic pie but rather to take more of it at the expense of the other communities that actually generated a large chunk of that pie in the first place. UMNO has not an ounce of intellectual vigor but rather it is a classic example of a political party on the verge of moral bankruptcy. All its exhortation of a great Malay revival is just an illusion, if UMNO remains deluded that its pivotal place in Malaysia is for infinity. ¶ 9:51 AM
That the irrelevancy of the party is looming just around the corner, continues to be ignored by UMNO i.e our leaders. UMNO is a party that offers no well-thought out solutions to the many ills afflicting the community it claims to look after. Year after year, lamentation of helplessness and rage against external entities or peoples are enunciated by UMNO, in order to mask its internal weaknesses and the inability to rectify the growing social and intellectual afflictions plaguing the community. No serious research is conducted by UMNO to find solutions to the growing social ills such as incest, rape, drug addiction, unemployment and the weakening status of Bahasa Malaysia vis a vis the main languages of business, English and Mandarin. The general assembly is the perfect platform to highlight to the world, how the party finds real lasting solutions for the benefits of the Malays. At the very least, an effort by the party’s delegates to acknowledge the new economic realities would have been reassuring.
Instead, rabid cries of bathing the keris in blood and warning unnamed groups of threatening racial unity became the rallying call of the party, while party delegates freely threaten the very idea of Malaysia. No ideas are offered on how to grow the economic pie but rather to take more of it at the expense of the other communities that actually generated a large chunk of that pie in the first place. UMNO has not an ounce of intellectual vigor but rather it is a classic example of a political party on the verge of moral bankruptcy. All its exhortation of a great Malay revival is just an illusion, if UMNO remains deluded that its pivotal place in Malaysia is for infinity. ¶ 9:51 AM
