Sudut Pandang..

The REAL Umno agenda
post info By Raja Petra Kamarudin
Utusan Malaysia is very mischievous and we should not allow them to get away with this. We should go out and buy some copies of Utusan Malaysia and burn them. Can we organise a ‘Burn Utusan Malaysia Day’? Then we should ask all the newspaper vendors and shops to boycott Utusan Malaysia.

Read the following piece published in Utusan Malaysia yesterday (Bangkitlah Melayu). If this is not considered seditious then I really don’t know what is. Opposition supporters, me included, have been made to face the court on sedition charges for lesser than what Utusan Malaysia wrote below.
The article starts by asking the Malays to rise up and unite in facing the ‘extreme demands’ of the ‘other races’. ‘They’ must be aware and remorseful about the current political situation that is witnessing all sorts of demands by the non-Malays that can result in Malay political power being jeopardised. Malays are asked to not bow to these extreme demands but on the other hand must rise up and unite to defend their rights and interests.
The article goes on to say that there are enough ‘Malay’ seats in Parliament for the Malays to form the government with just Malay seats. In other words, the Malays do not need the non-Malays to form the government. Therefore, the government must fulfil whatever demands of the Malays because the Malays are the majority and there should be no compromise with the non-Malays.
Umno will become strong if it looks after the interest of the Malays. So Ummo needs to focus on the Malays and not fear the non-Malays, as the non-Malays will automatically support Barisan Nasional if Umno is strong like in the past.
And the article goes on to say that the government must only worry about the Malays and not be too concerned about the non-Malays and that Umno must do whatever is necessary in the interest of the Malays.
That is not what I am saying. That is what Utusan Malaysia said. And Utusan Malaysia is owned by the political party in power and speaks on behalf of the political party in power. And what Utusan Malaysia is saying is a repetition of what Ali Rustam said at the PPP Melaka convention in 2007 — that the Malays have ruled this country for 50 years without the help and support of the non-Malays and can continue doing so for another 50 years.
Utusan Malaysia is talking crap. In the 2008 general election, Barisan Nasional garnered 4,082,411 or 50.27% of the popular votes to win 140 seats in Parliament. That is slightly over half the eight million votes cast. With the loss of Kuala Terengganu in the recent by-election, it is now down to 139 seats.
Three million Malaysians who are registered voters did not bother to vote and another four to five million did not register as voters. That means, while eight million Malaysians voted, another seven to eight million did not. And that also means Barisan Nasional formed the government with votes from just 25% of the eligible voters or votes from 15% of the entire Malaysian population.
That is not really so great is it? How does Utusan Malaysia figure out that Umno or Barisan Nasional commands the support of the majority of Malaysians, in particular Malay Malaysians?
Umno won only 79 out of 222 parliament seats in the 2008 general election. That includes Kuala Terengganu, which they have now lost, and 13 more seats in Sabah. That means Umno has only 65 parliament seats in Peninsular Malaysia. That is less than 30% of the seats, not really enough to form a government without the non-Malay seats.
Maybe Utusan Malaysia was looking at the 20 ‘Malay’ seats from PKR and the 23 (now 24 with Kuala Terengganu) from PAS. If the 44 ‘Malay’ seats from Pakatan Rakyat were merged with Umno’s 78 (assuming the 13 seats in Sabah remain with Umno), the Malays would now control 122 seats in parliament, a majority of only 11 seats considering 50% of 222 is 111. Nevertheless, it will still just be a simple majority and worse than what Barisan Nasional has now, 139 seats.
How does Utusan Malaysia figure that the Malays can run this country with just Malay seats? They can form a federal government no doubt but it will be a government with a simple majority and with lesser seats that what it has now. Anyway, this is a purely academic discussion because, in the first place, the 44 Pakatan Rakyat ‘Malay’ seats will not swing to Umno — expect for maybe two and we know whom those two are.
In the 2008 general election, Umno garnered only 2,381,725 or 29% of the votes. But not all these votes came from Malays. Umno actually won these seats because many non-Malays voted for it. If based just on Malay votes, Umno would have been demolished just like the other component members of Barisan Nasional. The next time around, Umno is not going to get these non-Malay votes as the four by-elections since 8 March 2008 have proven (unless the Chinese, Indians and ‘others’ are still bodoh macam lembu).
PKR, on the other hand, garnered 1,509,080 or 19% of the votes while PAS garnered 1,140,676 or 14%. This means, while Umno won 79 seats and PKR-PAS a total of only 54 seats on 8 March 2008, PKR and PAS combined garnered more than 2.6 million or 33% of the popular votes. That is more than what Umno got.
Figures don’t lie. And the figures show that Umno did not really do as great as they pretend they did. And there would be no way Umno can form the government with just ‘Malay’ seats even if PKR and PAS agreed to merge with them because UMNO, PKR and PAS all won their seats with non-Malay votes as well and not purely on Malay votes. And, in the first place, why should PKR and PAS want to merge with Umno when Umno’s ideology is Malay Supremacy or Ketuanan Melayu and PKR and PAS are both opposed to this?
And that, fellow Malaysians, is the real issue. Umno knows what we know. They are not stupid. In fact, they have plenty of money and can afford to buy the best brains to work for them. And they have been told that their days are numbered unless they can get the Malays to abandon the opposition cause and come and ‘unite’ under Umno.
Yes, that’s right. Umno wants the Malays to unite. But it must be to unite under Umno. If the Malays unite under the opposition — or the Malays unite with the Chinese, Indians and ‘others’ — then that is not considered uniting. That is considered berpecah.
Utusan Malaysia is very mischievous and we should not allow them to get away with this. We should go out and buy some copies of Utusan Malaysia and burn them. Can we organise a ‘Burn Utusan Malaysia Day’? Then we should ask all the newspaper vendors and shops to boycott Utusan Malaysia. And if any shop continues to sell Utusan Malaysia then we should boycott that shop. And those shops must be told that we are boycotting them and why we are boycotting them so that they know and will stop selling Utusan Malaysia if they want us to end the boycott of their shops.
Malays should start this campaign. This will be a message to Utusan Malaysia and Umno that Malays too do not subscribe to racism and dangerous rabble rousing with racial overtones. Malays must demonstrate to their non-Malay brothers and sisters that the Utusan Malaysia and Umno agenda is not the agenda of the majority of the Malays.
Yes, I know, this article is going to now get me into trouble, again, and the police will soon be raiding my house to confiscate my computer, and I will be called in for interrogation and charged in court, yet again, for sedition. That is my problem. In the meantime, can we show our displeasure at the attempt to make Malays and non-Malays fight by making a bonfire out of Utusan Malaysia?