Dasar Ekonomi Baru has nothing to do with Hak Keistimewaan Orang Melayu

This afternoon I received a phone call from my friend. He asked me to be in Shah Alam for a demo. This demo aims to 'deliver' a message to the Selangor government that the Malay people 'protest' for its move to abolish NEP. For anyone who doesn't know what the hell is NEP, it simply means that you are not apart of this country. NEP stands for New Economic Policy or Dasar Ekonomi Baru. My friend claimed that the special rights of Malay is on the verge of extinction. I said to him,"I'll go if I have time for it".

I believe this demo was organized by UMNO people. And for that reason, I detest to join it.

To my understanding, NEP is not apart of 'hak keistimewaan orang Melayu'. NEP was born in 1971 after the racial riot on May 13, 1969. It was aimed to combat the poverty issue among the bumiputera, especially the Malays, and to increase the Malays holding on corporate equity up to 30% by 1990. This policy dictated that it would end in 1990.

As of today, the Malay participation in equity has increased till 45% if we take into account of the Malay participation in government linked companies (GLC). This was done by the independent research team in ASLI.

For NEP sake, the Malay participation would require an estimated of RM 214.6 billion to achieve the 30% corporate equity. However, research found that in 2005, the Malay corporate equity in terms of volume has shot up till RM 325 billion. Given the total amount of market evaluation of Bursa Malaysia in 2005 is RM 715.4 billion, it is very clear that NEP has reached its target.

The question is, why NEP has not been abolished since it has achieved its target? The next question would be, why the Malaysia government produce a figure well below 30% for Bumiputera corporate equity?

But the real question remains, who actually benefit from this Dasar Ekonomi Baru? Is it the Malay per se, or only the UMNOputra?

It's time for us to reconsider the NEP. And please, NEP has nothing to do with hak keistimewaan orang Melayu. If we are terbilang, cemerlang and gemilang as what the UMNO claims, then why must we be afraid of the challenges without NEP? This will only strengthen our claim that we the Malay are indeed terbilang. cemerlang and gemilang.

After all, I just follow the advice of Pak Lah that "demo is not in our culture". Hehehehe.