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Last week on Dec 11 an article was published on New Straits Times ’s ( NST ) website entitled ‘In defence of progressive Umno’ - the headline alone was enough for me to sputter and choke on a wonderful hot mug of green tea (first time using a Whittard tea infuser - what a waste of good tea it was).

I’m not writing to defend the headlines the author goes on about; I didn’t read the transcript of Khairy Jamaluddin’s speech and so am in no position to defend the outlets that said what was said - whether it was reductivist or biased is not for me to judge.

I did find a couple of things amusing though - the author, who was also KJ’s ex-political aide, (in this case, the ‘ex’ didn’t quite seem to hold ground) was leaping to his defence and pointing out that the fourth estate i.e. media can cl(aim) to be independent, but aren’t indifferent.

There’s a problem with that. First, the media’s lack of indifference necessitates its independence. Without a genuine drive to investigate, the media fails to serve its purpose as a governmental watchdog. Second, this article comes from an Umno Youth exco member writing an article for NST , a smaller part of Umno’s wider ‘corporate cornucopia’.

That’s about as good as a DAP MP claiming the ruling government is fraudulent in The Rocket.

The progressive Umno that the NST projects to the public is as good a claim as the supposed intemperance demonstrated at the Umno event that online web portals wish to, it would seem, disparage - one negates the other, which invalidates the argument.

A more important point that was raised though, and I’m sure a lot of Malaysians regardless of ethnic/religious background would agree on, is that it isn’t communal concerns that trouble us; it is enduring, racist (as opposed to economic class-based) policies that continue to act as a crutch to address wealth disparities for a select group and that fails to reward its people based on merit. Where is the fairness in that?

If our ‘barometer of progressiveness’ is ensuring ‘a leader doesn’t depart from the broader national position of mutual respect and ensures all... get a fair piece of action’ then the New Economic Policy (NEP) is a huge departure from that.

Bumiputeras staking their 30 percent claim to the economic pie is one thing; whether that 30 percent share is concentrated on a select group of people within a select race (an economic inception of sorts) is another question altogether. Who ensures that that wealth is accessible and distributed to all in an equitable manner within the group?

It means one thing to be progressive within the confines of Umno; but it is a different matter altogether to be an outward libertarian with traditionalist policies - that just makes one a self-contradicting muddle.


This article appears on the writer’s blog.

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