Friday, September 30, 2011

Corporate Welfarism and the Munafikation of Malays

I found Walla’s comments on my recent article too rapier-sharp by nature, to leave them mothballing as mere comments. In citing Walla, I find sweet revenge too. Walla’s comments can’t be touched by any of those mercenary bloggers on a secret UMNO payroll.

Any time I write critically of Mahathir, there’s this buffoon who says I am paid by KJ. I wished I were so then I can drive around in Porsche Cayenne (as does Mukhriz) or a Maserati (as does Nazir Razak). Maybe I can also own a Bentley as do many UMNO ministers.

You are wrong fool; why not say I am on the current PM’s payroll? I can name a few operatives in the PM’s office who operate the slush funds to pay pro UMNO bloggers. So come on say it- the current PM sucks because he arranges to pay me to hit at Dr Mahathir.

Did KJ pay Nazri Aziz for being a consistent pain-in the ass- to Mahathir with his vitriol thrown at Mahathir? How moronic and super stupid can you be- Mahathir’s opinions can’t be contested without accusing those who disagree with him being paid lackeys? Your grey matter must be polluted either with rancid curry or is lard layered.

The subject matter is too complicated for run of the mill pro UMNO bloggers to debate. So we will leave them to wallow in their stupidity.

The most piercing observation lies in his opinion that “In short, the hidden personal interests embedded in UMNO's corporate welfarism sold as defending Umno to defend our Malay race has instead brought about the MUNAFIQATION of our Malays”.

Mahathir’s economic prescriptions have exactly turned Malays into that- munafiks who continue to live a life of lies and deceit believing they can’t overcome their deficiencies WITHOUT having to depend on a paternalistic government. That’s how Mahathir’s UMNO survived all these years making Malays live a life of self-disbeliefs. This is the perpetual munafiqation of the Malays and that’s how UMNO stays in power forever.

UMNO can stay in power by (1) keeping Malays continuously stupid (2) allowing them to live a life of self-deceit and self-censoring and (3) accept the big lie that any questioning and challenges to the opaque economic agendas by UMNO are a direct assault and threat to the Malay race. Why don’t we for once shake off that yoke of mental servitude and see whether without UMNO, Malays can survive or not.

The corporate welfarism of PETRONAS may not take the form of our national oil company descending into a morass of incompetence like what happened in MAS. But it can take the form of deliberately shielding what goes on in PETRONAS and making them as opaque and transparent as possible. That is where Walla’s comparison to what happened in Pertamina, an object lesson for us.

Over in Indonesia, one of the reasons some of their energy people gave for why Pertamina had tanked so fast, apart from its lax nego-skills with the foreign oil companies, was the fudging of exploration finds. Oil was found but reported as not found whereupon siphoned. One reckons this couldn't have been on a large scale - you can't hide a major oil rig - but on many smaller scales the leakage could have amounted to some sizable revenue lost to the maritime black market. So, audit was amiss. And in the case of black holes like our PETRONAS which reports only to the PM's department, we're not even sure what's the bottom-line on reserves and revenues care of direct-offer procurements and far-fetched offshore investments.

The end game of the corporate welfarism is one thing. At the end of the day, the companies formed on the back of claims and declarations that they wore formed to serve as the bulwark of Malay economic agenda, will be sold one by one to corporate friends.

One must note this is the same dept which had fouled the rakyat big-time on the toll and IPP contracts. Its govt has admitted as much recently. Both toll and IPP players are notable Umno cronies. Just a look at the traffic volume of the Shah Alam, Sg Besi, Puchong and Penchala toll gates alone would tear your guts out on the money made out of the poor rakyat long past multiple recoveries of capital invested. What we are seeing across all the Umno-run projects including the defense contracts is the metamorphosis of Umno's rationale for its corporate welfarism.

How did the munafiqation of the Malays start?

It had started as some struggle for our Malay tribe fed on a diet of hijacked history. Then greed and ambition took over to next carve out an Umno club of the well-heeled and super-connected. Today that has become some pally syndicate ethnocentric around specific networks of proxies and adjutants. This tribe-to-club-to-syndicate octopus is the source of the biggest, longest standing, mega billion rip-off in Malaysia. Meanwhile there's been no shortage of vacuous-minded supporters to fan that man's brand of racism and the Malay-first mentality of his rightist gang. In short, the hidden personal interests embedded in Umno's corporate welfarism sold as defending Umno to defend our Malay race has instead brought about the munafiqation of our Malays.

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