I am totally disgusted by what I heard and saw from the recently concluded Umno general assembly. Those who seem so passionate about defending the rights of the Malay race are truly doing their own race a great disservice.

Who are these people really? They are Umnoputeras and politicians who over the years have been feeding off a system (New Economic Policy) that was created to help the Malay race. The policy ended up being abused by these very people for their own personal gain.

I personally deal a lot with Malays from Kedah, mainly paddy farmers who are very humble and very down to earth but still very poor. So are many other Malays from the rural areas. The government ought to realise that the NEP is not helping those who really need help. The NEP is, in essence, being abused by the those in politics and those who are well-connected. These are precisely the people who spoke up so passionately about defending Malay rights and defending the NEP.

I think what they are trying to defend is their right to continuously enrich themselves at the expense of their poorer Malay brothers. What significance does the bumiputera equity ownership have on these poor Malays when they have no share in it ?

After nearly 50 years of independence, our leaders are still talking of continuing a policy that encourages rent seeking and encouraging the Malays to walk with 'crutches'. Compared to Japan, Korea, Taiwan and recently China, we can see how much they have transformed their nations in 50 years.

Sad to say in another 10 years, we will still be where we are today (if we are lucky) while India, Thailand and Vietnam would have surpassed us in both social and economic development. At a time when globalisation is fast becoming the norm for doing business, our government is still talking about policies that only retard the nation's progress and its competitiveness.

Instead of encouraging its people, irregardless of race, to run forward so to speak, it is deliberately retarding those who can run so that those who cannot, can catch up. Anybody will realise that a policy that cannot achieve what it was supposed to do after 50 years of independence surely must be scrapped.

I have really lost hope in our present government and as a Chinese, I am utterly disappointed with the MCA who really do not have the guts to fight for the rights of our race which it is supposed to represent. I fully agree with Lee Kuan Yew that the Chinese in this country are marginalised but unfortunately, our comedians in the MCA seems to think otherwise.

I have totally lost hope in our country's politicians (Umno and their other partners in the Barisan Nasional alike) and I am now 100 percent convinced they are only really a greedy lot who joined politics to take care of their and their families' interest.