I refer to the Malaysiakini report Gov't aid to continue for Malays: PM .

Malaysia attained its independence from Great Britain on Aug 31, 1957. The colonial masters gave the newborn nation a tailor-made written constitution. Under this constitution, we have a concept of Malay monarchy or sovereignty. But then there is no such provision in the constitution for a system of absolute monarchy.

During Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s 22 years of leadership as the prime minister of Malaysia, he had amended the federal constitution between mid-1980 and the early part of 1990 which ultimately resulted in the decline of the privileges enjoyed by the monarchy, thus bringing into existence a redefinition of the concept of Malay sovereignty.

The federal constitution provides for the fundamental principles of liberty, equality without discrimination, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, assembly and association, freedom of religion, rights to citizenship, education and property.

Then there is the provision of Article 153 which provides for the ‘Reservation of quotas in respect of services, permits, etc., for Malays and natives of any of the states of Sabah and Sarawak’ with the caveat that under Article 136 ‘All persons of whatever race in the same grade in the service of the federation shall, subject to the terms and conditions of their employment, be treated impartially.’

In reality, this has not been the practice. The system we have in operation can at best be termed as ‘Malay apartheid’ which translates to ‘Segregation and domination by the majority of the minority.’

In 1970 Najib Razak’s late father the then Prime Minister Abdul Razak who assumed office after the May 13 riots - which was above all meant to be a coup d’etat to depose Tunku Abdul Rahman - ensured the rise and the entrenchment of the new Malay capitalist class through the introduction of the New Economic Policy which has now lasted for 40 years.

Then after March 8 2008 general elections, Najib with the connivance of Mahathir, compelled Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to step down as the prime minister and took over the helm of the Umno and was appointed as the prime minister of Malaysia.

No sooner after his appointment, Najib announced the formulation of a new concept termed as the ‘1Malaysia’ concept. This illusive concept has further been commercialised. These Umno politicians and all their sycophants from the MCA, MIC, Gerakan and all the other component parties which comprise the BN - which forms the Government - have illustratively endorsed this illusive concept which appears to them - according to their ideology - to be logical.

What these BN politicians fail to realise is the fact that a mere concept which is created as a passage of convenience can never replace the fundamental rights of the people as enshrined under the federal constitution.

Then we saw the holding of the 62 ^nd annual general assembly of Umno. This time around there was no ‘keris-wielding’. Maybe it has been sent for display in a museum. But then two actors namely Khairy Jamaludin, the Umno youth leader and Najib, the president of Umno did deduce in their speeches the fundamental notions of their logic of their special privileges which are impossible to be stripped from the federal constitution.

On the whole, their notions of logic were either flawed or contradictory and were more of a myth.

Khairy’s notion was premised on ‘the new Malay dilemma’ where he saw the need to change both vision and the mechanism to see the Malays forge ahead with the ‘abolishment’ of the 30% bumiputra equity in the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of public-listed companies.

On the other hand, Najib in delivering his presidential address, stressed that ‘those who have enjoyed the benefits of the New Economic Policy (NEP) should not be calling for its removal and deprive others who still needed help’.

Najib further stressed that the main consideration when the NEP was formed ‘was that Malay equity was merely 2.4% and the objective was to increase it to 30% in 20 years. However the Malays managed to own only 19.2% of the economic cake’.

Contrast the presidential address of Najib’s above remarks with what Khairy, the Umno Youth chief stated a day earlier, and we quote:

‘The president himself mentioned that from RM54 billion worth of shares given to bumiputeras through this mechanism, only RM2 billion remains - (the rest) sold for a quick profit. Thus proving that there are symbols and mechanisms we defended in the past, which have not succeeded in their objectives.’

It follows that based on the cardinal number of RM54 billion as stated by Najib and categorically confirmed and announced to the whole world by Khairy, Umno will continue to be crippled by its own conceived and created illusions.

Therefore, on the face of the above facts, it is compelling clear that there is arithmetic proof that the NEP has been achieved. Umno seems to have an inbuilt culture which can be safely termed as the ‘Umno paradox.’

Hence, the objective provisional answer to the ‘Umno paradox’ would in all likelihood be based on the speeches of both Najib and Khairy. The propositional conclusion has to be that whilst their respective speeches do sound logical, nevertheless all the Umno leaders’ logical pronouncements - which include the ‘1Malaysia’ concept - are only good for the dustbins of logical fictions.

This so as their own arithmetic proof that there are fewer things in heaven or on earth that would make any sense in philosophy.