A confluence of criticisms by a member of the National Economic Action Council(NEAC), a former Minister and the former US Ambassador to Malaysia, together with an announcement by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak himself have confirmed the death and irrelevance of the New Economic Model (NEM).
Instead, the Government has chosen to extend the lifespan of the New Economic Policy (NEP) with no expiry date in sight.
Reluctant NEAC member Datuk Dr Zainal Aznam Mohd Yusof argued that Najib’s administration has “insufficient political will” to implement the required reforms, and this has resulted in the canning of proposals such as the “Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC)”.
Similarly, the NEM Part II which was intentionally “watered down” reintroduced the NEP’s 30% bumiputera equity target, which was originally rescinded in NEM Part I. Instead the NEM Part I had proposed the “deliberate shifting of affirmative action towards moving down to the bottom 40 per cent.”
Helen Davey
Psychoanalyst and marriage and family therapist in private practice in West Los Angeles
Psychoanalyst and marriage and family therapist in private practice in West Los Angeles
Then the best part of all would be the stories we’d make up about what we saw. She encouraged my imagination, and I could make her laugh. However, when I was serious, she would always listen carefully. Elisabeth told the world’s best ghost stories — just vivid enough not to scare me too much. We would entertain ourselves for hours, lying on a grassy knoll surrounded by trees, munching on the delicious green apples from a tree that my father had grafted. When I was five years old, I remember telling Elisabeth my very important secrets. I knew I could trust her to keep them. When I was older and went to school, Elisabeth went back to her old duties, but to me she was always my special person. I have written about the traumatic impact of my father’s death when I was eight years old. Everything in our world changed, seemingly overnight. The restaurant and diner were sold, and my mother could no longer employ many people. Not only was my father gone, but also our extended family went away. I have no clear memory of when they left — especially Elisabeth. I can only imagine how helpful she could have been to me during this difficult time. I could have talked to her about my sadness and my fear and she would have understood. Instead of the vibrant, exciting life full of people that we had so enjoyed when my father was alive, our lives had come to a standstill; we were living on an isolated highway in the middle of nowhere. Because we had lived too far out of town for the school bus to pick us up, my father had always driven us to school. After he died, we began to ride the Greyhound Bus. I remember the first day that I saw Elisabeth from the bus window when we stopped at her little town of Brickton, where most of the local black families lived. As we pulled up beside her, I could tell that she saw me, and I felt overjoyed! I hadn’t seen her for several years, and I was so excited to show her how tall I was and how long my braids were. I smiled expectantly as she approached my row. There was a seat right by me, and of course she would sit next to me. And then the unimaginable happened: Elisabeth stared right past me as she made her way to the back of the bus. Her gaze was focused straight ahead, and her body language screamed, “Don’t touch me.” I knew that I shouldn’t follow her, but I didn’t know why. I felt heartbroken. Didn’t she remember me? Didn’t she love me anymore? I saw Elisabeth quite a few times on the bus after that. Eventually, I gave up hoping she would talk to me, but I always suspected that she was sneaking looks at me. I don’t think I ever discussed this with my mother, but it was around this time that I began to pay more attention to the bathrooms and drinking fountains “for colored only.” This was North Carolina in the early 1950′s, and the rules had been made long before I was born.
There is no love lost between Perkasa chief Ibrahim Ali and two of his latest detractors, as he spared nothing in attacking former US ambassador to Malaysia John R Malott and National Economic Advisory Council (NEAC) member Zainal Aznam Mohd Yusof today.
In his trademark fiery rhetoric, Ibrahim called both men “sick” – Malott for undermining Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s administration and Zainal Aznam for accusing Perkasa of forcing the government to water down the New Economic Model (NEM).
The Pasir Mas MP first trained his guns on Malott, saying that the former US envoy should go and have his head checked with a psychiatrist.
“I think there are Malaysians who have asked for his help. There must be people behind him, asking him to give negative views of our prime minister,” he said at a press conference at the Perkasa office in Kuala Lumpur.
“I believe Malott is backed by a Malaysian who is facing a political death, but I will not name names.”
Continuing his tirade against Malott, Ibrahim said the fact that Perkasa is pushing its bumiputera economic agenda does not make the organisation racist.
He stressed that their economic agenda is strongly supported by the federal constitution, which provides special privileges to the Malays and bumiputeras.
“There is article 153 (of the federal constitution), because the Malays and bumiputeras are important. What I am talking about is equitable economic share for all races, and 30 percent is just a threshold that we would like to at least achieve,” he said, referring to the 30 percent bumiputera quota provided under the 40-year-old New Economic Policy.
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