-Caveat Lector-
Mahathir slams "lazy" Malays, warns of foreign colonialist plots
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010621/1/14ewd.html
KUALA LUMPUR, June 21 (AFP) - Malaysia's veteran Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohamad, battling a slump in support for his ruling party, went on the
attack Thursday -- castigating Malays for laziness, greed and ingratitude.
Mahathir, who marks 20 years in power next month, also savaged opposition
parties, foreign powers and the overseas media which he said wanted to make
Malaysia a puppet state.
The premier, opening the annual meeting of the United Malays National
Organisation (UMNO), rejected criticism of his "mega-projects" and
accusations of cronyism.
He acknowledged that UMNO, which has held power as the dominant coalition
partner since independence in 1957, might become a minority Malay party in
the next election -- which must be held by 2004.
Yet Mahathir accepted no responsibility for the loss in support. "Aren't
almost all the allegations against the government baseless?" he asked at
one point.
He depicted UMNO as the only defender of Malay special rights and accused
the opposition Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) of willingness to barter those
rights to win power.
Mahathir expressed frustration that a 30-year affirmative action programme,
to help majority Malays narrow the wealth gap with the minority Chinese,
had failed to achieve its target.
But the Malays were to blame.
While Malaysians could count their blessings with the strong recovery from
the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis, the 1999 election showed that "many
Malays were not grateful and tried to overthrow the government that saved
the nation (through capital controls) and the Malays themselves."
UMNO lost 22 parliamentary seats as many Malays forsook it -- partly due to
anger over the sacking and jailing of Mahathir's popular former deputy
Anwar Ibrahim.
PAS, which is also a Malay party under Malaysia's race-based political
tradition, was the main beneficiary.
Mahathir lamented the low intake of Malays into universities.
Malay children were no less intelligent than other races but "many Malay
children are lazy and uninterested in studying," he said.
PAS was encouraging students to neglect "secular" subjects in favour of
Islamic studies and discouraging mastery of English, which was crucial in
the Information Age.
Mahathir criticised a "get rich quickly" culture among Malays who
squandered economic opportunities under affirmative action.
"After 43 years of trying, after billions of ringgit allocated, after
several banks and a variety of funds are established, today the achievement
of Malays in trade and industry is still low," he said.
He added: "Is this caused by the government's lack of effort? A race which
is deprived of government assistance (the Chinese) can clearly succeed.
"Why can't the Malays who are given all sorts of help succeed?"
Mahathir renewed his attack on foreign currency speculators whom he blames
for the Asian crisis.
He criticised what he called foreigners' support for the opposition but
said their only real motive was to recolonise Malaysia economically.
"They (foreigners) hate Malaysia especially the current leadership and hate
it extremely. They especially hate it because Malaysia was able to defend
the economic and financial attack they launched (through speculators) ...
"They loathe the Malaysian government for exposing their evil intent when
it introduced the concept of globalisation and a borderless world."
Globalisation's aim was to dominate the world through Western economic might.
"It is only idiots, who always idolise the whites, who will not accept all
this."
Malaysia, Mahathir said, was hated "because we are regarded not only as a
big-headed developing country" but a country led by Muslims and, by Western
definition, a terrorist country.
"It is their (Western) media which really hate us because all they
predicted did not materialise."
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