By P Chong                                         Tuesday, 4 May 2010

That you may never know & may never too be able to give. That’s what made us different & distinct from you. That which is good & most treasured is time-honoured, respected & revered right through the ages . . . since the dawn of the history of mankind. If you have not been around this long as a nation or race (if ever there was such an “adulterated”race historically), you’d never be able even to understand. Without understanding, you can never acquired the culture & become the benevolent & gracious person that is expected of you.

Small man settles for the crumbs

While great man freely extends his alms.

In the history of mankind, even the great Napoleon Bonaparte in all his conquering glory feared China, leaving it alone for fear of wakening the sleeping Dragon. History does not lie – all truth & falsehood are revealed therein. Try as you might tear off the “unwanted” pages & insert “invented” pages of your own, truth will prevail. You just cannot change past history. The crux is you may not have much of a history as a race!

You cannot grow strong by doing others wrong. You may think it’s so easy to intimidate & dominate others by your threats & wielding your “kris”. Their apparent fear exists only in your mind & imagination. There is such a thing as lowering one’s dignity by joining you in the throng of doing wrong. God forbids. (I have better avoid the use of the word “Allah”).

On the “Bumiputra” question, being “son of the soil”, the connotation is so baseless & laughable with the benefits of special privileges & rights. The international court of law will rule this out as invalid & all acquisitions through this privilege ruled as unlawful & illegitimate. The true “Bumiputra” in Malaysia are the aborigines or as we used to call them “Sakai”. The word “putra”, if I am not mistaken means “prince” and not “son”. By Malaysian law, all other races, though born & bred in Malaysia, are not deemed as “Bumiputra” except the Malays. They don’t even have to be born to be legitimate under the law – so long they profess the Muslim religion & are of Malay origin. Now, you’ll be the judge and jury. What’s your verdict?

How can you ever stand tall, strong & proud by throwing your illegitimate weight about? Deeds & thoughts of great men in the past always provide the guiding light for those blind of sight. You can learn a great deal from Abraham Lincoln, who was perhaps the greatest of the American Presidents. He said:

• You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
• You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
• You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
• You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred.
• You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
• You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
• You cannot build character & courage by taking away man’s initiative & independence.
• You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could & should do for themselves.

Lincoln had that special ability of “painting with words” with the things he said, and he said it all in pure simple words – nothing bombastic about them.

A good many lessons can be learnt & drawn from the above wisdom for Malaysia. The principles should be advocated & applied to right the wrong, if the young nation hope to have any standing at all in the world stage.

What do the Chinese want? It’s all inherently stated by this brief & concise piece of my writing. Fairness & justice must be seen to be in practice for all Malaysians.

Take heed & implement righteousness with all speed

Squabble not & avoid planting hatred seed

Stand tall & erect as a man

Be fair & just to all in the land!

The writer is  “A Chinese by Descent . . . An Australian by Consent”