Watching the way Umno handle its Malay masses ( Crackdown on schools, mosques part of Mahathir's struggle for Muslim votes ), I cannot help but feel sad. Very sad. In the Umno and Malay masses relationship, it's clear that Umno acts like the master and Malay masses their-good-for-nothing-except-a-stepping-stone-to-power slave.

That's why Umno cares less about what the Malays think when they want to do anything that will affect the Malays. Hey, we're the masters! We know what's good for our slaves!

In contrast, in the MCA-Chinese relationship, at least we can see that Chinese masses are at equal footing if not on higher ground than MCA. Thus, when Chinese masses disagreed with the English language issue, MCA listened. And they listened very carefully till it almost rocked the BN foundation.

But not in Umno-Malay case. Umno will bulldoze whatever decision their MT (Majlis Tertinggi or MasTer?) have taken. In the past months, the master has decided that their slaves must now learn Maths and Science in English. The slaves must listen, or be severely punished.

Now the masters have again decided that the per capita aid to Sekolah Agama Rakyat (Islamic schools) will be stopped, unless the school is proven not to be pro-BA. Again, the slave could only watch the wrath of their masters.

Do the masters care about the fate of the already underpaid teachers (average pay of RM500)? What about the fate of Malay students who mostly come from poor families? Then again, the masters do not care much about the slaves. The masters must survive first. The slaves can die or starved to death. The masters must survive.

Amazingly, this is how Umno handles its eroding Malay support. I think Umno has missed the point. Because Umno slaves have now found their saviour in PAS and Keadilan. The more, the old and archaic master Umno punish them, the more the Malay masses will run away from them.

The next election will be interesting to see if the slaves of Umno will turn the table on their old masters or not.