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'Awang Selamat' should wake up to reality

It is clear for all to see that the parts of Malaysia that are well ‘developed' are those areas where a lot of ‘pendatang' settled.

People like ‘Awang Selamat' have a simplistic view of the world. Malaysia is a land of milk and honey. The foreigners came herewith the connivance of the Malay rulers and the British.

They took advantage of the poor but kindhearted Malays and continued to take their share. And a large proportion of it too! Leaving the Malays little.

We now have the power. We are very generous. We can force you all to leave. If you are still not happy, then just go. The reasoning is that if the foreigners just go away, all the wealth will rightly flow back to the Malays.

If Malaysia is oozing with milk and honey - ‘kaya raya' - then how come huge tracks of poverty exist along the East Coast, Kedah and Perlis as well as in Sabah and Sarawak? Awang Selamat should wake up to reality.

The Chinese tin miners came at the invitation of the Malay chiefs. Awang Selamat should know that ‘taxes' were collected by these chiefs. Of course, he might want to think that the money was spent on helping the people under these chiefs. The miners were doing work the Malays were not willing to do.

Did they snatch jobs from the Malays? Shanty mining towns, dirty, unhealthy and dangerous - were these places. Were the Malays being displaced from these places? Would Awang Selamat want to live with these people?

Awang Selamat should note that the money (nowadays we call them Foreign Direct Investment) was being raised in London. Interestingly, the products were not of much use to the Malays. The ‘technology' employed to mine the mineral was foreign.

The demand for the products was also from far-far away. If not for this supply of money and demand for the product, there would have been very few foreigners.

The land flowing with milk and honey also had no rubber trees. Awang Selamat might claim that rubber was ‘actually' exported to Brazil during the time of the Malacca Sultanate. The people who wanted rubber were the foreigners. They had money. Again raised in London.

Did they take land or evict the Malays from their land? The Malays were living elsewhere. They were fully and gainfully occupied. And the ancestors of Awang Selamat in our land of milk and honey were not in need of rubber. So these white people brought or caused to be brought a large number of people from India.

The jungles were cleared, the hillslopes were levelled. Two acres? No, it was two to three million acres. Of course, they had no bull dozers and machinery so that effort was not done quickly. The Indians were not native to the land of milk and honey.

Maybe Awang Selamat should ask the slave labourers from India whether they had landed themselves in a land of milk and honey.

Of course, the tin and the rubber had to be transported to the ports. The land of milk and honey only had rivers. So who built all the roads, the buildings, the piers etc? Awang Selamat might know?

God gives us all a a great instrument - the brain. It is the source of all wealth and happiness. But you need to work hard. You must learn, learn and learn. You must acquire as much knowledge as you can.

Then you must work hard. Then you have a chance. But if you put garbage or pseudo-knowledge in, then your brains will be full of that. The land of milk and honey will become a failed state soon.

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