dr m’s interview on BBC’s ‘talking point’

remember my blog titled ‘any questions for the PM’? it was questions for him during BBC’s ‘talking point’ programme, in which he was interviewed. (the programme was aired on astro on 12 oct).

well, under comments in that blog i had put forward my question and it was about the ‘crutches’ given to the malays. and guess what… seems that somebody had asked him something on crutches too and dr m stated that: the chinese would be way ahead now if these same crutches were given to them. here is an excerpt from the NST article

On whether giving special privileges to the Bumiputera was akin to an “apartheid in disguise”, he said giving privileges was not based solely on their race, but because they were far behind the others in their economic development.

“In America you have affirmative action – of course you went to the court and said that it is against the constitution. But here every race in Malaysia supports this policy otherwise why do they keep on returning the same Government to power every time?” To a question by a Malaysian Chinese viewer on feeling like a second class citizen and whether all citizens could be treated equally, Dr Mahathir said despite their privileges, Malays felt they were second class citizens too because they were poor. “They have to work as drivers for the very rich Chinese. So they feel that they are second class – so both are second class, there’s no first class,” he said.

complete article can be found here. read also this report for context.

it’s interesting to note that somebody dare to ask him are the crutches akin to’apartheid in disguise’, but more equally interesting to hear his respond that the crutches are not given based solely on race but because the malays are far behind in the economic development. who is he kidding? does this means, let’s say the chinese or the indians are far behind, they will be accorded special priveleges too? surely not! so it is the race matters that matters, no matter what you say, mahathir.

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note: perhaps you might be interested in this letter in malaysiakini, where the writer talked on the ‘crutches’ (NEP) as racial discrimination, which is apartheid malaysian style to some.