Open Season to Hantam the Malays.

It is open season if you want to hantam the Malays.

Every blasts that comes our way (for I am a Malay!) touches me in ways that makes me weave, duck or run depending on the ferocity and the velocity of the bullet coming my way. I cannot put up much of a defense.... the past and present deeds of Malay leaders in Umno has left me defenceless and out in the open without cover to hide from any harm that might come my way...and more worrying, without the means to stand up and fight to defend my race, my people and the Malays that are, like me, not deserving of such hostility and contempt.  

I can tell you that the Malays are not deserving of such spite and vitriol.

All that has been done in the name of the Malays has been the product of a toxic and destructive political culture embraced by Umno for its own purposes - or should I say for the purposes of its political elites. A political culture that makes sensible government impossible and has been responsible for the misery of the Malays in the five decades since Merdeka. Ironic is it not? Freed from the yoke of the British only to come under the yoke of its own kind.

Are the non-Malays laughing at us? Some of them are.

Are the non-Malays making fun at the folly of our Malay leaders and the stupidity of the Malays that still follow them? Some of them are.

But for the most part the non-Malays are impatient at the inability of the Malays to pull themselves together and join them in making Malaysia in their image - that of a gracious and respectful nation that wants only what is good for all its people.

For the Malays their dire plight caused by the failure of their political leaders to do what was needed to keep the Malays at par with the other races is now being critically examined by the Malays themselves. Here and there voices are being heard and thoughts are being put down on paper to be shared with others as the Malays themselves asks why the Malays are behind the other races when all that was required for them to come up to par with the others have already been provided for? 

Education, business opportunities and political power are all in the hands of the Malays to be use to advance Malay interest and Malay causes.          

Question are being asked by Malays themselves of their leaders in government who they think have failed them - and when answers are not forthcoming, the Malays will do more. 

Social and political activism that questions corruption, money politics and the sense of entitlement that Umno leaders insists upon, are now becoming a rite of passage for many Malays - especially the young. They want to do the right thing by the Malays, by the others in Malaysia and it has all to do with wanting a future that is better than the one they now have under Umno.    

For Umno today, the threat to its political survival lies in its ability to deal with the increasing activism amongst the Malays who are questioning the long term relevance of Umno  - the Umno that they now know to be corrupt and arrogance. 

The Umno they no longer regard as their own - what more as the champion for the Malay cause. 

The Chinese, the non-Malays and Christianity are no threat to the Malays or to Islam, A distraction certainly but not a threat.

The Chinese politicians however are exceedingly well organized and focused and their political "threat" is way beyond the electoral numbers they are able to garner during elections. 

Their threat to Umno is in what they can do with the Malays who are disenchanted with the failure of Umno to champion the Malay cause in the last five decades and counting. 

The Chinese are harnessing these disenchanted Malays into a potent force of dissent against Umno and in the process of doing so, they are taking from Umno that "bank" of voters that Umno has always considered as it own - be it from the urban or rural sector. 

These disenchanted Malays together with the Chinese and the other non-Malays have given Malaysian an alternative to the Umno led Barisan Nasional coalition during the last general election - an alternative that secured more electoral votes than the reigning Barisan Nasional coalition.

These are still early days and the Pakatan Rakyat coalition has proven to be brittle and lack real cohesion....but the idea of change, the idea of having a viable opposition and the idea that maybe, just maybe, Umno will lose government in the near future, has already been planted in the minds of all Malaysians and elections will never be the same again for Umno. 

Umno can lose a general election! 

For most Malaysian the idea that change is possible is enough to give hope that the future can be better. 

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time to happen has come and that idea for change in Malaysia has already been implanted in the minds of many Malaysians.  

So for me let it be open season to hantam the Malays. It will only do us good - for Malays and non - Malays.