The cow dung and the flies

                                              

When a news portal reported on a speech made by a non-Malay tycoon who criticised the crony capitalism and corruption in Malaysia, it naturally raised eyebrows.

The tycoon complained that in countries like Singapore, Britain and Australia, he did not have to kow-tow favour or get to know politicians to do business.

For many Malaysians, the tycoon is someone seen as a crony of a previous prime minister. However, when he was asked whether he was a crony of this previous prime minister, he denied it.

A few days later, he denied even making the statement on cronyism in Malaysia and claimed that his speech was reported inaccurately.

It didn’t take long for the backlash to start. Utusan Malaysia, Tun Daim Zainuddin and Perkasa all hit out at the tycoon, accusing him of being ungrateful.

Perkasa even demanded that this tycoon return the wealth he had gained from his crony relationship with the Malay political elite.

In their condemnations are admissions that crony capitalism has always been a part of the Malaysia’s political-economy. These tycoons, Malays, Chinese and Indians, are the super-privileged in this country.  They enjoy a more princely status than the prince of soil (Bumiputera).

It takes two to tango in a crony capitalistic system. There has to be the capitalist and there has to be the political masters.

It is a symbiotic relationship where the two scratch each other’s back. Their relationship is as natural as the relationship between flies and cow dung.

It stinks to heaven and yet it persists. It becomes a problem when a fly starts being ungrateful towards the cow dung.

The fly becomes overconfident and thinks he can fly to Singapore, Britain and Australia and forget the cow dung.

Naturally, the cow dung is offended when the fly starts looking down at the cow dung and says that the cow dung stinks.

The crony capitalism formula has been in existence in Malaysia for a long time. The Malay elite and the non-Malay elite have always got along well and benefited from their relationship.

However, in order to justify their position as political masters, the Malay elite has to cultivate a sense of insecurity and fear of the non-Malays among the Malays.

Hate groups masquerading as NGOs help perpetuate these views with their racist and paranoid diatribes.

They have to make the Malays believe that they need the elite’s protection. In order to project the semblance of serving their people, the elite construct a Pak Belalang economy.

Many of us probably remember the scene from Tan Sri P. Ramlee’s movie “Nujum Pak  Belalang” where Pak Belalang was shown distributing wealth.

The formula used was “satu untuk kamu, tiga untuk aku” (one for you, three for me). P Ramlee was ahead of his time in understanding the dynamics of crony capitalism.

Let’s take a look at Genting Corporation. The company built the first and only casino in this country. The company was basically the initiative of a Chinese businessman who had the backing of a veteran Umno politician.

This Umno politician was also the father-in-law of two former prime ministers and was the grandfather of the present prime minister.

The same can be seen in some of the businesses seen by Malays as being in the “sin” industry such as gambling and production and sale of beer. There are Malays who sit on the board of these companies.

Lately, independent power producers (IPP) have been criticised for the lopsided deal, imposed by the government that favours them and very much creating a burden on TNB and the public.

The accounts in Tan Sri Ani Arope’s (former CEO of TNB) memoir show that TNB was forced by the Economic Planning Unit to hand over its land to companies that went on to become the first IPP operators.

The first IPP was YTL Power. TNB was also forced to buy electricity from the IPP at the price of 20 sen per unit even though TNB itself was producing electricity at only 8 sen per unit. Who benefited from this arrangement? Definitely not TNB and definitely not the public.

TNB then had to sell the electricity bought from the IPPs at 32 sen per unit. TNB was at that time selling its own electricity at only 17 sen per unit, lower than the price TNB had to buy from the IPPs.

Like any other crony capitalistic arrangements, on the board of these IPPs are Malays linked to the ruling elite.

Another soon to be built IPP co-owned by the tycoon mentioned at the beginning of this article reportedly has a member of one Malay royal family as a major shareholder. How does all this benefit the rakyat?

Remember Pak Belalang Economy 101.  It is not about benefit to the rakyat. It is about benefit for the flies and the cow dung.

Crony capitalism in Malaysia presents an alternative narrative to the one presented by the ruling Malay elite and hate groups masquerading as an Islamic organisation.

It shows that nothing is further from the truth than the spectre of the Chinese out to destroy the Malays. If there are indeed “Chinese penceroboh” out to harm the Malays and Islam, it is only happening because there are “Melayu bersubahat”  who are willing partners in the equation.

The reality is not a simple case of “us versus them” with the Malays being helpless victims and the Chinese being greedy predators.

This reality is probably difficult for hate groups masquerading as an Islamic organisation to comprehend. Likewise, it is not something a self-styled defender of Islam cum plagiarising academician can possibly understand.

Perhaps this is because of their ignorance, perhaps this is because of their naïvety and perhaps it is because of their narrow-mindedness.

If they have any doubts about it, just ask Utusan Malaysia, Daim and their compatriots in Perkasa.

As the Malay proverb goes “hanya Jauhari mengenal Manikam”. Likewise, the cow dung knows which are the flies.

* Rozhan Othman reads The Malaysian Insider.