'Compete on the global stage on your own merits, or sink into your own morass. There's no world policeman to ensure Malaysia has its special advantages or bumiputeras their special rights.'

Ibrahim Ali: Market economy a threat to Malays

Perak Boleh: What an insult to the Malay race. After more than 40 years of the New Economic Policy (NEP), Ibrahim Ali thinks the Malays are too stupid to learn and catch up with the other races.

The root of this problem is the uneven distribution of wealth to only a selected few (Umnoputras) who benefited from the NEP, and the marginalisation of the majority from the rural and non-Umno-linked Malays by this minority group.

Kgen: Ibrahim, you think we can build walls around our economy forever? As a trading nation, we either globalise or fall behind. The outside world doesn't recognise bumiputera special privileges. Compete on the global stage on your own merits, or sink into your own morass. There's no world policeman to ensure Malaysia has its special advantages or bumiputera their special rights.

Habib RAK: In the state of Terengganu, where over 90 percent are Malays, what happened to all the oil and gas money? It was given to the Malay leaders. It is the Malay leaders who have screwed the Malays, and they are continuing to the screw the Malays by keep them dependant and ignorant.

Non-dependant Malays and non-ignorant Malays have moved on and are successful in every sense of the word. People like Ibrahim Ali are actually traitors to the Malays.

BTN: Ibrahim, at your age, you will not live to see the (culmination of) damage done to the Malays on account of this so-called threat to the Malays. Guys like you who issue threats but do nothing about it cheat the Malays of their ingenuity, ideas and competitiveness.

Poor Malays send their children to local schools and come out without the ability to communicate in English. They do not hold high positions in Umno. People like you send your kids overseas who come back to be loyar buruk (bad lawyers) and lead their community backwards.

For Malays to succeed and be recognised for their achievements, they have to break away from this misleading and indoctrinated threat and excel on the basis of their (own) hidden talent and capability.

Cherio: YTL (Yeoh Tiong Lay), Vincent Tan, Ananda Krishnan and Lim Goh Tong did well because they were given contracts by Umno. No issue there.

But similar, or far juicier, contracts were given to Halim Saad, Tajuddin Ramli, Abdul Rahman Maidin, Rashid Hussain, Mirzan and Mukhriz Mahathir and many other Umnoputras! Why is there no mention of any of these names? What do these fellas have to say about the issue? Are we not tired of this get-a-few-Malays-rich-first mentality?

Gk: In any modern economy, Ibrahim Ali, you can quote a price to take over Astro, Maxis, Genting, YTL (Yeoh Tiong Lay), etc. I believe that if the price is right, these 'towkays' would be willing to sell to you. But I can guarantee that you would not able to manage, and over time, you'd need the government to bail you out using taxpayers' money.

The NEP has been there for so many years for the purpose of affirmative actions that you described. But, what happened? You still asking for affirmative action. How many times has the government bailed out (government- and Umno-linked companies like) MAS, Bank Rakyat, Bank Bumiputra, Renong Group, Konsortium Perkapalan, Proton, etc

Eugene : I can't find anything from this interview that proves Ibrahim Ali is not a racist with extremely biased viewpoints. He referred to "Chinese domination, Chinese control", but the handful of Chinese he mentioned are just well-connected individuals who have nothing to do with the common man who, time and time again, have been neglected in everything, from education to the public sector.

Ibrahim also conveniently missed out on the incompetent Umno contractors who are actually getting the bulk of government contracts. In another part, he pointed out the rich, whom he later referred to as a minority, thus implying the Chinese are exploiting the poor.

Why doesn't he point out the rich Umno members who are exploiting both poor Malays and poor non-Malays? Aren't we all paying our taxes too? Why target us specifically?

Lastly, by not giving merit to real hard work, one only breeds incompetence. At the end of the day, incompetence makes everyone in this country lose out.

TKC: It is indeed painful to hear Ibrahim Ali's parochial views on the economy. I wonder how many more Ibrahim Alis we have out there.

Instead of coming up with constructive ideas on how we can grow our economic cake so that all of us can have a fair share, he is talking about sub-dividing an increasingly smaller cake.

Ibrahim, since you like football, may we remind you that once upon a time, the Malaysian team comprising of Mokhtar Dahari, Soh Chin Aun, Santokh Singh, R Arumugam, etc, were on par, if not better than, the South Korean team. Today, South Korea consistently qualifies for the World Cup, whereas our team ranks behind Rwanda in the Fifa world rankings.

Have you ever wondered what went wrong?

Takung: Assuming his football analogy is an accurate reflection of the situation in Malaysia; can Ibrahim share his vision/plan on how to get the Malays to be a team of the standard and quality of Manchester United? Does the team need new coaches or managers given that the existing coaches or managers have failed over the last 50-plus years?

How about hiring foreign players? Mandating that the other teams in the league only field players who are cripple? How about when the teams have to play against teams from other countries? Now for a radical thought: How about us forming teams that are not based on race?

Lee Heng Soon: How about the banks? Proton? Toll concessions? Government mega-projects? Government protection has benefited only a small fraction of the society. The greatest beneficiaries of the government control are its cronies, not the average populace.

Why not allow the economy to find its own level? Someone in this forum said that the Chinese or Indians do not make decisions on the economy of the country - the government does. So why blame the Chinese and the Indians for economic challenges Malays are facing now?

If the government had not intentionally blocked the progress of the private sector economy, and did not implement foreign investors-unfriendly policies, Malaysia would have been better off by now.

Private sectors create jobs for the rising population, not the government. Its job is to introduce and regulate policies fairly. The majority here are the Malays. When there are no additional jobs in the markets and Malays, Chinese and Indians suffer thereby, do you see this as a problem of Ketuanan Melayu ?

The: This is a guy who won on a PAS ticket and then betrayed PAS to talk like an Umno member. If, after 52 years of BN rule, the Malays are still ‘amateurs', shouldn't they look for a new and more capable leadership to lead them, like Pakatan Rakyat? Clearly BN's affirmative action failed.

Baiyuensheng: I agree that some sort of affirmative action is necessary, but this should not be confined to a selected group of people. All Malaysians, regardless of race, who need helps will be supported in a way that is fair and just. Some social programmes that would discriminate those who can afford to those who can't should be implemented. I would like to believe this is precisely the policies of Pakatan - multi-racial and all inclusive.

Al: Ibrahim Ali, I am a Malaysian, my tax money should go to help all Malaysians. Stop demonising selective parts of the tax-paying public.

Yun: When is he going to wake up and realise that poverty cuts across race and skin colour?