J,
The problem is this. Indians will not be as active as the Chinese to deter state sponsored (Anwar and Mahathir) racism. The Chinese will. The meek shall not inherit anything. That's a load of Bible hogwash. If it’s not the Bible it is the Vedas. Fortune favours the brave or as the SAS has tattooed on the arm of each of their soldiers their motto "Who Dares Wins".
Remember the Rothmans case in the 1960s when a Chinaman supervisor at their factory was sacked for stealing a carton of smokes? They were forced to reinstate the thief because all distributors refused Rothmans products for not reinstating the man. He was a MCA operative at the time. (Read the Malay Dilemma).
You are quite correct in your criticism of the paper and the people involved. Somehow though I do not agree with the criticisms of Mahathir. He is an achiever and rewarded those who risked it like him and came along with him. I know Indians (apart from Malaysia's richest Indian Ananda Krishnan) who he rewarded without their asking and without their changing religion. The late Dr. Gopal Kumar and his wife Nalini (also a Doctor) from Ipoh who was a personal friend had anything and everything given to him by Mahathir for simply keeping his clinic open for him when Razak and the Tengku were after Mahathir.
Many Indians deserve their fate for bringing it upon themselves and refusing to change or to at least adapt to change. Change comes along and we have to at least adapt to it to survive. Adapting has its own rewards. That too Indians will not do because we are cultural chauvinists. So what if a Malay has Indian blood in him? It says little for Indians that there are those in their midst who are achievers who so desperately want to disassociate themselves from the larger body.
Anyway, the bit about the grammar and editors is so true.
Quintin
Q,
The New Indians are not at all like what you have described. Ask Hindraf. They are willing to risk jail and torture to win their rights. It would be foolish of Umno to take on the Indians. You can see it in their eyes. Even Samy Vellu, who used to get his way by screaming at the Indians and browbeating them into submission, is shit scared of the Indians these days. He keeps looking over his shoulders all the time and lives in constant fear of them.
Re AK, Mahathir had nothing to do with his rise. In fact, at one time, AK was trying to help make peace between Mahathir and Razaleigh.
There's one story that AK is behind Tony F of Air Asia and that's why the Air Asia flights start with the initials AK. Might be coincidence.
AK started in Manila as an oil trader. Petronas was new at that time and he used to buy oil from the company for sale in the international market. Probably, he sold to the Philippines which was then desperately short of oil and looking for secure supplies. If anyone helped him, it would have been Razaleigh or perhaps AK helped him make a success of Petronas. I understand from Dr Jeffrey Kitingan that 80 per cent of Petronas oil sales are tied up in longterm contracts with seven companies. The balance 20 per cent is sold on the open market. AK is believed to be among the seven companies. I could be wrong.
Remember you visiting me at Kumpulan Akitek sometime between 1973-76 at the Bank Bumi building in Jalan Melaka? I was on the 6th floor and Razaleigh was on the 11 th floor. He had just been appointed, at 32, as Chairman of Petronas by Tun Razak. He was also chairman of Bank Bumi. Mahathir used to hang around Razaleigh day and night like a leech in those days. Just ask Razaleigh.
Razaleigh fell out with Razak just before the latter died. But Razak couldn’t do anything about Razaleigh because he had already announced to the whole world that the latter’s post was equivalent to a senior cabinet rank. Razak’s death saved Razaleigh from political oblivion.
AK was already a big guy by the time Mahathir became PM and did not need Mahathir. When you have money you don’t need anybody. If a Government is hostile, you can always take your money and go elsewhere. This is what the Chinese in Malaysia are doing. They are going to China and elsewhere. I don’t think that they will come back because the Umno Government will never change. You only need a Government when you don’t have money.
Mahathir has been blamed for building the Petronas Twin Towers as a mega project. In fact, the Petronas twin towers were built by AK on turf club land that he owned. He leased the towers to Petronas. That’s why it carries the Petronas name. Later, I believe that he sold the towers to Petronas. Until recently, AK never used to keep any business for long. Basically, he was a wheeler dealer. Just set up something and then sell. The only things he kept were the race course, Binariang, Maxis and Astro. I don’t know whether he sold Astro to Hanif Omar, the former IGP.
Re Maxis, he was fed up with the Malaysian Government interfering with his business. So, he took it private and expanded to India and Indonesia where no one will disturb him. Now, Najib is begging him to re-list Maxis which is capitalised at RM 50 billion. The idea is to help lift the KLSE. Maxis was the largest company listed on the KLSE before its delisting. Basically, AK had Maxis delisted because he felt that the worth of the company was not reflected in the share prices.
Tony F is another person thinking of taking his company private but the global financial meltdown has delayed his plans. He has expanded to Thailand and Indonesia to help ease the Malaysian Government pressure on him.
As PM, Mahathir was noted for his Melayuisation policy. He believed that everything in Malaysia should be run by Malays and the others reduced to irrelevance. That’s why he started the Buy British Last and Look East policies i.e. to replace the Chinese role in Malaysia with the Japanese provided they helped the Malays to replace the Chinese role in Malaysia. It has nothing to do with imbibing Japanese work ethics. However, the Japanese were not interested in screwing up anybody especially the Chinese who they felt worked hard for their living. Besides, the Japanese themselves were not interested in helping the Malays for various reasons.
According to Penang Chief Minister 2 Professor Ramasamy’s Phd thesis, it was Mahathir who advised the civil service to throw away the application forms of non-Malays. The result is that 90 per cent of the civil service today is Malay. Even the Malay Special Privileges (CISO) only reserves a certain percentage of civil service jobs for Malays. There are three other Malay Special Privileges: intake into institutions of higher learning; scholarships; and opportunities in business. What the Malays have today is way above what has been provided for by the Special Privileges and that's because of Mahathir. The Special Privileges doesn’t provide for Melayuisation.
The Police Force used to have a lot of Indian officers. Mahathir got rid of all of them.
True, Mahathir did not disturb the Indians like Badawi who presided over the demolishment of Hindu temples etc. Mahathir just ignored the Indians and took away whatever little they had and gave it to the Malays. It was easier for the Malays to grab from the Indians than from the Chinese. It became even more difficult after the Look East Policy failed and the Chinese business community reduced the NEP to AliBabaism. Mahathir resigned a very disappointed man because he could not help the Malays (or rather his group) replace the Chinese role in business. All the Malays he helped in business eventually went bankrupt and things would have been even worse if he had not set up Danaharta after kicking out Anwar whom he felt was a stumbling block to his grandiose plans. Mahathir cares two hoots about Anwar’s sexual preferences, if any.
The only relationship that Mahathir has had with an Indian was with Samy Vellu. He and Harun Idris were the only people who used to still visit Mahathir when he was out in the political wilderness. Mahathir never forgot that. Mahathir is old-fashioned in that respect. If someone is loyal to him he would remain loyal to that person no matter what his race or religion. That’s the kind of relationship that Mahathir had with the non-Malays whose success is attributed to him. They succeeded not because Mahathir wanted to help the non-Malays but because they were his loyalists through thick and thin.
Similarly, Mahathir felt that Anwar had been disloyal to him and that’s why he cooked up the sodomy charges and went after him hammer and tongs. The rest is history.
It’s true that it was Mahathir who told MAS and DRB-Hicom to sell Pelangi Airlines, which they jointly owned, to Air Asia. At that time, Pelangi had only two small planes and had debts of RM 40 million. Mahathir’s formula was to sell Pelangi to Tony F for RM 1 provided he assumed RM 20 million of the debts. That’s how Tony F got started. He didn’t know Mahathir but went to see him with someone who knew him: his chairman Pahamin, the former Director-General of the RTD. Pahamin did law after he retired and has a legal practice together with his two daughters who are both lawyers. Pahamin is no longer with Tony F and he has since appointed an old friend from his music days, Aziz Bakar, as the Air Asia chairman. Tony F is another person who doesn’t forget his friends. Most of his senior employees are people from his music days.
I don’t think that Mahathir himself expected Tony F to succeed unless he’s a prophet who can see the future. So, we should not credit Mahathir for the success of Air Asia.
I remember Tony R, your brother, telling me about his university mate who used to work at Maha Clinic in Alor Star. Mahathir was not only never around for months but never used to pay his salary for as long as four months at a stretch. Finally, I believe that he left. I don’t know whether that is the Gopal you are referring to.
If Umno was bad for the Indians, Mahathir’s 22 years was even worse for them. That’s 50 lost years.
J
August 16, 2009
The Nut Graph had it coming
http://thenutgraph.com/the-nut-graph-needs-your-support#comments
I am not surprised that this has happened although I am sorry to get this news. But I am more surprised that this did not happen sooner.
Basically, your editorial approach is naive and needs to be changed. An online news portal will only succeed if it gives space to issues that are denied space in the mainstream media. This is particularly true of political news. Read the various Acts that govern the media in this country and that's where your Business Plan and Business Model should lie. For this to happen, you must come off your high horses and give the readers what they want to read and not what you think that they should be reading.
Frankly, I didn't even bother to read TheNutGraph until just recently when I was curious to find out how low you have fallen and wanted to make some comparisons with other online news portals.
I remember getting an email once from Surin in which she pontificated sanctimoniously on The NutGraph's editorial philosophy, policy, concept, product mix etc and I knew immediately that this website was in trouble. It's not enough to be idealistic unless you are Bill Gates and can do what you want. Generally, the problem with TheNutGraph is that it is run by people tainted by a long association of apple polishing in the mainstream media. The truth hurts but if you can accept the truth, it will set you free.
You are not the first to bite the dust. I remember that agendamalaysia, similarly run by very naive people, folded up within a year and the people there are now back with the mainstream media.
If you seriously want people to contribute money to keep TheNutGraph going until you can stand on your own two feet, you must change your editorial content. Otherwise, any donation will be like throwing money down a bottomless pit.
I wonder whether I am really getting through to you guys with this comment.
Everybody is busy talking at the same time and no one is listening. That's evident from the postings.
In Malaysia , the alternative media can be successful as going business concerns because of the various repressive laws and the pronouncements of childish, moronic and racist ministers. What stifles the print media is what is behind the success of the alternative media.
Take RPK for example, the web version of the weekly trashy tabloids in the west. He is an entertainer.
He takes a little bit of truth and mixes it with a lot of fiction, fixations, pet theories, hang-ups, prejudices and baggage, whether true or contrived, along the lines of the "Elvis is Alive" School of Thought. He should be making movies using his postings as scripts. It's pure art.
There should be a law against prosecuting entertainers like RPK but there isn’t because the authorities frown on art of this kind.
This is just an example to illustrate commercial success. I am not suggesting the RPK-style format for TheNutGraph unless you want to flatter the original. Some people can do an RPK and not bat an eyelid. Others would be bugged by their conscience.
Instead, TheNutGraph should give malaysiakini a run for its money. A little competition is good. Perhaps, it should consider changing its name to theTruthGraph.
TheMalaysianInsider and malaysianmiror are not competition at the moment but cast in the same pathetic mould as TheNutGraph although it might not be that immediately obvious. MI and MM are trying to be online versions of the print media. Again, except for Francis Paul Siah at MM, these two online news portals are not exactly run by rebels from the print media but Surin-type characters. Many of them are VSS journalists. Who are they kidding? Even the print media doesn’t want them.
The alternative media should be getting down on their hands and knees and praying day and night that the Federal Government will continue to maintain the Printing and Publications Act and the various other draconian, repressive and evil acts that stifle democracy in Malaysia and the tradition of keeping childish, moronic and racist ministers. The moment such laws are removed from the books and childish, moronic and racist ministers given the boot, the harder it will be for the alternative media in Malaysia to compete with the print media except in terms of real time.
The print media should be lobbying for the liberalisation of the media to save themselves from the alternative media but obviously they are too stupid to do this. Besides, if the laws are liberalised, Umno will be history.
There is no reason why TheNutGraph cannot be successful. The reason why it has failed is because it is exercising self-censorship and trying to be goody-goody, God alone knows for what reason. Put it down to being too long with the print media.
I don't know what career Surin’s talking about with The Sun etc where you can become a columnist by just foaming at the mouth after spending most of one’s hours at the various watering holes in the city. You call sycophancy and being an apologist a career unless you have a slave-mentality and make a virtue out of this?
I am not surprised that this has happened although I am sorry to get this news. But I am more surprised that this did not happen sooner.
Basically, your editorial approach is naive and needs to be changed. An online news portal will only succeed if it gives space to issues that are denied space in the mainstream media. This is particularly true of political news. Read the various Acts that govern the media in this country and that's where your Business Plan and Business Model should lie. For this to happen, you must come off your high horses and give the readers what they want to read and not what you think that they should be reading.
Frankly, I didn't even bother to read TheNutGraph until just recently when I was curious to find out how low you have fallen and wanted to make some comparisons with other online news portals.
I remember getting an email once from Surin in which she pontificated sanctimoniously on The NutGraph's editorial philosophy, policy, concept, product mix etc and I knew immediately that this website was in trouble. It's not enough to be idealistic unless you are Bill Gates and can do what you want. Generally, the problem with TheNutGraph is that it is run by people tainted by a long association of apple polishing in the mainstream media. The truth hurts but if you can accept the truth, it will set you free.
You are not the first to bite the dust. I remember that agendamalaysia, similarly run by very naive people, folded up within a year and the people there are now back with the mainstream media.
If you seriously want people to contribute money to keep TheNutGraph going until you can stand on your own two feet, you must change your editorial content. Otherwise, any donation will be like throwing money down a bottomless pit.
I wonder whether I am really getting through to you guys with this comment.
Everybody is busy talking at the same time and no one is listening. That's evident from the postings.
In Malaysia , the alternative media can be successful as going business concerns because of the various repressive laws and the pronouncements of childish, moronic and racist ministers. What stifles the print media is what is behind the success of the alternative media.
Take RPK for example, the web version of the weekly trashy tabloids in the west. He is an entertainer.
He takes a little bit of truth and mixes it with a lot of fiction, fixations, pet theories, hang-ups, prejudices and baggage, whether true or contrived, along the lines of the "Elvis is Alive" School of Thought. He should be making movies using his postings as scripts. It's pure art.
There should be a law against prosecuting entertainers like RPK but there isn’t because the authorities frown on art of this kind.
This is just an example to illustrate commercial success. I am not suggesting the RPK-style format for TheNutGraph unless you want to flatter the original. Some people can do an RPK and not bat an eyelid. Others would be bugged by their conscience.
Instead, TheNutGraph should give malaysiakini a run for its money. A little competition is good. Perhaps, it should consider changing its name to theTruthGraph.
TheMalaysianInsider and malaysianmiror are not competition at the moment but cast in the same pathetic mould as TheNutGraph although it might not be that immediately obvious. MI and MM are trying to be online versions of the print media. Again, except for Francis Paul Siah at MM, these two online news portals are not exactly run by rebels from the print media but Surin-type characters. Many of them are VSS journalists. Who are they kidding? Even the print media doesn’t want them.
The alternative media should be getting down on their hands and knees and praying day and night that the Federal Government will continue to maintain the Printing and Publications Act and the various other draconian, repressive and evil acts that stifle democracy in Malaysia and the tradition of keeping childish, moronic and racist ministers. The moment such laws are removed from the books and childish, moronic and racist ministers given the boot, the harder it will be for the alternative media in Malaysia to compete with the print media except in terms of real time.
The print media should be lobbying for the liberalisation of the media to save themselves from the alternative media but obviously they are too stupid to do this. Besides, if the laws are liberalised, Umno will be history.
There is no reason why TheNutGraph cannot be successful. The reason why it has failed is because it is exercising self-censorship and trying to be goody-goody, God alone knows for what reason. Put it down to being too long with the print media.
I don't know what career Surin’s talking about with The Sun etc where you can become a columnist by just foaming at the mouth after spending most of one’s hours at the various watering holes in the city. You call sycophancy and being an apologist a career unless you have a slave-mentality and make a virtue out of this?
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