Chinese failed Malaysian concept of 'gratitude'.

"If we win this by-election, you can come to Kuala Lumpur the next day to look for me. I will write a personal letter to approve the money and it will be transferred to the school board's account. If we lose, don't have to come."

The above was attributed to BN chairperson, Najib Abdul Razak who had allegedly said so during his campaigning in the Hulu Selangor by-election – see Malaysiakini Educational absurdity in Hulu Selangor.

The alleged quote has led MKINI columnist Azly Rahman to lambast Najib Razak for having reached the highest level of idiocy in charting the future of Malaysian education.

Azly lamented: How much shame must we parade in our desperation to win this or that election that is a theatre of the absurd anyway? The essential question is, how dare we use education - the only means for social and economic progress for ALL races - to bribe voters!

Then we come to Malaysiakini’s Tengku Adnan: Chinese will not be sidelined.

Perkasa leader, Ibrahim Ali, the ultranationalist who plays the game that UMNO used to play, namely, to pile on a siege mentality among the Malays by telling them that the Chinese will take over (or are arrogant etc), so that UMNO can conveniently slide in to be the ethnic warrior to save the 'threatened' malays.

The Perkasa agitator was the man whom Hulu Selangor MP Kamalanathan defended for his (Ibrahim's) outrageous bigotry, and as if that wasn't enough, hugged Ibrahim affectionately during the by-election campaign. Well, Ibrahim has been at it again.

As 75% of the Hulu Selangor Chinese cast their votes for PKR's Zaid Ibrahim, the Pasir Mas man wants the government to stop all allocations, grants and whatnot to those Chinese for not being “grateful” to the BN (read that as UMNO) government.

According to Malaysiakini, the @$$h*le suggested that the Chinese voters in Hulu Selangor should be punished by the government for not fully supporting MIC candidate P Kamalananthan.

However, BN sec-gen Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said that the government will not adopt the @$$h*le's suggestion because there are also HS Chinese who voted for BN in the by-election.

Do you see the difference in their mentality?

I don’t. Both believe government (or rather public) funds belong to a political party, namely UMNO, where to give or deny financial allocations will depend on the wannabe recipients’ show of gratitude to the UMNO-BN.

This attitude seems to stem from the days of Hang Tuah or even earlier, when the ruler was deemed a demi-god, endowed with wealth bestowed by divinity. It was a concept of divine rights inherited from Hindu India via the Sri Vijaya – Mahapahit religious socio-politico culture.

The Chinese also practised a variant of this belief, except in the case of the Chinese, it was the ‘mandate of heaven’, a green ticket given by god to a ruler to rule with legitimacy over the unwashed. But luckily for the Chinese, they have an escape clause, in that god could withdraw the ‘mandate’.

Thus unlike the Hindu version of perpetual divine rights, the Chinese mandate of heaven would only be valid so long as the ruler behaved – that’s when people like Koh Tsu Koon comes in with his KPI, to report on the conduct of the ruler.

If, say, the ruler misbehaved (do I need to provide any examples?) the god (or heaven) could and would withdraw its mandate. Then it’ll be open slather and slaughter when the naughty ruler could be overthrown, not unlike an election in a modern democracy. The mandate of heaven would then be transferred to the person who was likely to rule best.

Thus the Chinese had been overthrowing (or on a number of other occasions, attempted to overthrow) their bad 'emperors' regularly, those of the dynasties of Xia, Shang, Westen Zhou, Eastern Zhou, Qin, Western Han, Xin, Eastern Han, 'Wei, Shu & Wu' (3 Kingdoms), Western Jin, Eastern Jin, Southern & Northern Dynasties period, Sui, Tang, '5 Dynasties & 10 Kingdoms' period, Northern Song, Southern Song, Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming, Shun, Qing, Yuan Shikai's 'Empire of China, Sun Yat Sun's Republic, and some of the Communist Dynasty's like the notorious Gang of Four.

But not everyone subscribes to that, so there continues to be a belief that divine-chosen rulers can do what they like with the nation’s wealth, like their very own. And if you can get something from one of these divine rulers, indeed you ought to be grateful.

This may possibly explain why those Felda people felt grateful for receiving RM50,000 which in reality was their own money, and RM50,000 was only part of the sum owed to each of them. Their land had been sold off but they didn’t receive any payment, until now (and to remind everyone, only part of it).

I heard the next installment of the money owed to the owners will be during the next election (gratitude expected), with the 3rd in another possible by-election or general election (again their gratitude is mandatory).

Hand kissing is optional.