YOURSAY | ‘Malaysians have to accept that the heyday of oil wealth might well be in the past.’

It’s the economy, stupid

Prudent: Land security will relieve poverty? As with the rural Malays since the British times who have land security but have remained poor?

Even now, massive parcels of land are left idle and they have remained poor even with massive amounts of Umno handouts over multiple generations.

Instead, the rural Malays are unable to uplift themselves. Social problems - drug addiction, larceny, spiralling divorce rate, baby-dumping, etc - are building up and being blamed on others by politicians, who were and are exploiting their plight for personal advantage.

Please do not repeat the same mistake for the Sarawak natives. Do a thorough objective study as to why there is grinding poverty in Sarawak.

And avoid blaming others as the Malayan (Royal Professor) Ungku Aziz Ungku Abdul Hamid did by blaming Chinese middlemen for rural Malay poverty in the 1950s and 60s.

And writer Keruah Usit, land as the primary source of wealth is both medieval and delusional. The rise of the landless bourgeoisie in the French Revolution of 1789 demonstrated that decisively by overthrowing the land-based and serf-based feudal system.

Due to changes in consumer preferences, competition and other factors, the modern source of wealth is informational, intellectual, and therefore, human resource-based.

There is no alternative, besides provision of healthy water, electricity and roads (the rural Malays in Malaya now have these and yet remain economically helpless) and an effective education system from primary to secondary schools that can raise the intellectual level of the rural people from birth.

From my experience, IQ and related intellectual prowess are not all fixed by DNA but can either retrogress by misuse, abuse, etc, or enhanced by good education and training, just as a barren field can be made fertile with ploughing and fertilisation. Try it and you will uplift the natives.

Lexicon: Prudent, land has only been a source of feudal wealth for a minority ruling class of Dayak, within the class-based hierarchy of the Kenyah, Kayan and Kelabit.

Among most modern Dayak and Orang Ulu today, land is a buffer against the demands of the cash economy and it provides food security.

It is a source of joy and culture - and that is a form of wealth that may be more meaningful than "intellectual property" or "information".

The Analyser: It sure is all about the economy and Malaysians have to accept that the heyday of oil wealth might well be in the past.

So let’s take a look at that era of Umno extravagance where every irrational impulse of a clique of elitist politicians was pursued.

Why was nothing done to address those indulgence? Why was there not a Norwegian-style trust fund developed to ensure the welfare of the Malaysian people?

I'll suggest you can't blame the Malays because in that era they were well and truly manipulated by Umno to accept gratefully the tokenism that Umno felt was their due.

What about the Chinese then? The Chinese were too busy enriching themselves with the crumbs that fell from the table of Umno. The Ali Baba entrepreneurs who, while the going was good, forgot all about what little principles they had and their responsibilities to the nation.

Those are the Malaysians who sat back while Dr Mahathir Mohamad allegedly squandered money and institutions as though they were going out of fashion.

Sarawakians have got to get over the fact that they think they are the only underprivileged people in Malaysia. Underprivileged is a problem right across Malaysia.

At best, facilities are token, poorly maintained, badly staffed and improperly managed. An appalling situation considering the obscene wealth that exists in some quarters.

And do you think anyone cares? Sure, there are whole government departments to address these problems, but lack of motivation, selfishness, incompetence and corruption have ensured that those departments are totally ineffective.

What about the various opposition parties which desperately want the votes of the underprivileged? What have they planned for you?

This is what they have planned - nothing. With opposition governance there is nothing to tell you what you might expect from them, there is nothing to give you faith in their ability to govern and there is nothing to make you think they care for anyone but themselves.

Headhunter: DAP’s "Impian" project is an excellent tool to engage the rural population. It may not match BN’s overpriced goodies but it can showcase the opposition's sincerity in serving the rural community.

It also involved the individual community itself as it participates in carrying out these projects, giving it a sense of achievement and pride.

Who doesn't know that the BN can throw money anywhere, anytime when it chooses to do so because it is not its money anyway?

These rural people also know that the money spent for these projects are hard to come by and are contributions by caring individuals and the opposition party involved and not from the public fund.

They also know that most money spent on BN government projects are pocketed by the politicians and their cronies.

That's why no matter how small the "Impian" projects are, their value is considered more than those given by the government.

Tangling: Sad to say this, but to most rural folk, terms like RM2.6 billion do not resonate in their minds. But like little schoolkids, pictures and drawings are much easier to understand.

See how simple and straightforward Zunar's cartoons are (simple to understand and with only a few words).

Try drawing pictures of how much infrastructure can be built with RM2.6 billion. Example - draw RM2.6 billion in cash on the left, on the right draw how many bridges, road, pipes, electric poles, schools, village clinics it would have built.

I'm sure little kids would understand it straight away.

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