Landmines in a UMNO Economy Culture Liberating the Malay mind
“Basically, the game is up. Nobody is so stupid as to fall for it anymore. Malaysians have made up their minds how capable a PM Anwar will be and how capable a PM Najib has been. They will make their decision at the ballot box, and it will be in Anwar’s favor even if Datuk T screens a different sex video every night,” Batu MP Tian Chua told Malaysia Chronicle.
“There appears to be a change in what the people want. They want a new culture of debate rather than smear campaigns,” Merdeka Center director Ibrahim Suffian had said.
Opposition Leader Anwar had said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal the prime minister’s policies benefited cronies despite embarking on an economic reform programme.
But Najib returned fire in the evening, saying the opposition’s promises of abolishing tolled roads, writing off study loans and reducing fuel prices were “a recipe for economic disaster” as the government would have to absorb RM40 billion in study loans alone.
The year 2011 will be remembered as the time when many ever-optimistic US citizens began to give up hope. President John F Kennedy once said that a rising tide lifts all boats. But now, in the receding tide, those in the US are beginning to see not only that those with taller masts have been lifted far higher, but also that many of the smaller boats had been dashed to pieces in their wake.
In that brief moment when the rising tide was indeed rising, millions of people believed that they might have a fair chance of realising the “American Dream”. Now those dreams, too, are receding. By 2011, the savings of those who had lost their jobs in 2008 or 2009 had been spent. Unemployment cheques had run out. Headlines announcing new hiring – still not enough to keep pace with the number of those who would normally have entered the labour force – meant little to the 50-year-olds with little hope of ever holding a job again.
