In a recent media interview, Umno Youth deputy leader Khairy Jamaluddin (a.k.a the son-in-law) gave a very good definition of ‘Ketuanan Melayu’ which should help educate new MCA leader Ong Tee Kiat who is on record for calling on Umno to drop the phrase from its political manisfesto.

Khairy’s explanation should also help to educate MCA’s new deputy leader Chua Soi Lek who is also on record as saying that the future relations between Umno and MCA should no longer be on a master-servant basis.

I bet very few Umno leaders, let alone Umno grassroots, could come up with a convincing intellectual discourse like Khairy’s when they are faced with a barrage of questions from the opposition as well as the non-Malays on controversial subjects like the so-called ‘social contract’.

But sadly that is the only good thing I would say about the interview because on many other subjects Khairy seemed to be contradicting himself through and through. For instance, Khairy said he is a Malay nationalist in the tradition of Abdul Razak Hussein.

Khairy said he strongly believes in press freedom and is criticial of today’s Umno which he said doesn’t like a free press.

Having gone to Oxford and done a lot of research on Umno, surely Khairy knows that Razak was a control freak who ordered Umno to take over Utusan Melayu then turning the independent newspaper into an Umno mouthpiece.

Razak also asked Tengku Razaleigh to take over the Malaysian side of the then Straits Times and renaming it the New Straits Times . The rest as they say is history.

Other than that, we have never heard Khairy complaining about Umno having complete control over the electronic media through its investment arm, Media Prima, which owns all the private TV stations and is engaged in many other media businesses which easily sideline the many Malay-owned event management companies etc.

Thus when RTM1 and RTM2 are owned by the government and all the TV stations (other than Astro) are owned by Media Prima, does Khairy really think that this would not hamper the success of Malay participation in the media industry?

It is heartening to note that he is contesting the Umno Youth No 1 post because he wants to make a difference but would Khairy dare to declare now that if he wins, the first Umno Pemuda struggle would be to completely free the electronic media from the Umno government’s ownership and institute US-style media ownership laws, etc?

Also, would he free up ownership of the print media as well have complete freedom for bloggers who have now become ‘mainstream’ for the simple reason that despite all the talk of openness, the government remains a control freak.

Once a genuine media freedom is installed, I am sure Malaysians will only spend time reading, watching and listening to good reputable news organisations while other dubious news outlets will die a natural death.

Secondly, Khairy also scoffed at all those talk that he is making a pile as Mr 10 Percent or whatever from the GLC companies and challenged those who made such allegations to come up with proof.

I agree, but in this general of climate of fear where the independence of the judiciary is being doubted and questioned, Khairy should make his argument more credible by disclosing his income tax returns to tell the Umno grassroots that he is no crook.

Not only Khairy but all those who are offering themselves for the forthcoming Umno elections should make public their income tax returns to tell the people how they acquired their present wealth.

Their wives and grown-up children, too, should do the same because we all know that unlike Western families, our Malaysian families are ‘very close’.

We may hate American values but we must adopt American values when it comes to media policies and rules and regulations for standing for public office.