Of Mental Midgets and Self-Imposed Alienation

Apparently Chief Minister Lim is still at it, at least according to rockybru, Annie, Helen, and a score of others covering the Sungai Limau by-election.

I am not going to waste my time pondering on the obvious lack of political maturity being displayed by the DAP Great Leader.

His inability to actually speak publicly without taking potshots at his political rivals and his tendency to badmouth his own country and countrymen when addressing foreigners is a sure sign that his mental capacity isn't capable of thinking beyond lame midgetry and racial incitement to justify his existence.

We can only thank God for the infrequent opportunity for him to embarrass us with political potshots at BN and Umno at international events where he is supposed to maintain the decorum and dignity of a state leader.

I am, however, quite curious about how the majority of the cina in Malaysia who claim to be educated and superior in every way than the Malays could be so full of themselves, so steeped in self-pity, so lacking in mental fortitude and logical reasoning that they could actually fall for such an obvious political ploy meant to incite racial hatred in order to gain political support.

I wonder whether this completely self-absorbed and insular mental state is a common cultural trait of the ethnic cina or if it is a result of indoctrination from childhood of their imagined superiority while at home, at the chinese vernacular schools, among their peers and also within the chinese trade associations of Malaysia.

It doesn't help that the cina of Malaysia maintained an almost "jijik" attitude when it comes to the Bahasa Kebangsaan, such that the majority of them who were born and bred in this country couldn't communicate effectively in the national language, whereas I have met a Bangladesh national who have been here for less than 4 years to have better command of the language than many cina I have met.

They would rather speak in broken English than in broken Malay.

The irony is, the greatest champion of vernacular schools and chinese trade associations is MCA who has been providing not only financial funding and business networking, but more importantly lobbying for contracts in the public sector.

In my opinion, if there were any lacking in the quality of life of the ethnic cina in this country, or ethnic indian for that matter, the blame should be laid at the feet of their own political and business leaders who have not done as much for their respective communities as were expected of them despite being given positions of power in the government, business licenses to operate without restrictions, government contracts aplenty, even financial funding for their respective vernacular schools and tertiary colleges.

Now they are all blaming Umno because that is too easy and far more convenient than sincerely asking themselves what they have done for their respective communities and that whether all these while they have taken advantage of ethnic differences to the point of alienation to put Umno to ransom purely for personal gains and political mileage.

I am not particularly fond of most Umno leaders, but I will not be party to the perpetuation of a myth that non-malay political leaders are blameless for their becoming irrelevant to the very people they claim to represent, the reason why I took offense to statements of Gerakan leaders at their convention.

I find such posturing despicable.

At the end of the day, I have found that the saying "it's every man for himself" is absolutely true in business and politics, regardless of what they claim in public, and I doubt that Chief Minister Lim is any different.