Malays are lazy, dishonest and prefer to be Mat Rempit, Tun Dr Mahathir lamented!

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Malays are still unwilling to change their "lazy" ways

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Malays in the country are lazy, dishonest and complacent.

In an exclusive interview with Mingguan Malaysia, Dr Mahathir said Malay men are also lagging behind the women, with many of them preferring to become 'Mat Rempits'.

"The Malays are lazy and they are not interested in studying. If we go to the universities, 70% of the students are women, so where are the men?," he asked.

"They prefer to become Mat Rempit, that is why I said they are lazy," Dr Mahathir was quoted in the report.

In the interview, the longest serving former premier had also said that the largest race in Malaysia has not changed their “lazy” ways and also lamented over the fact that he has not been able to change that during his tenure as Prime Minister.

“I have never wanted to fool myself. If they’re lazy, I call them lazy. If people don’t like it, then be it. When I was UMNO president, I used to nag all the time,” he said commenting on the criticisms he received over his comments.

Dr. Mahathir also added that apart from being lazy, the Malays tend to be dishonest where money is concerned, and often forget themselves when they have money.

“Now I have a bakery. I want to say honestly, I am ashamed because among the Malay, Chinese or Burmese or any other workers, the Malay ones sometimes when they see money, they forget themselves, they become dishonest," he said.

He said he was forced to sack many of his Malay staff working in The Loaf, his Japanese-inspired bakery, for swindling money.

In the interview, Dr Mahathir also said that Malays often refuse to pay their debts, although they have the means to do so.

"How many Malays are there who refuse to settle their debts? They receive scholarships and student loans but refuse to pay back.

This is not a question of being unable to, they have the money but just refuse to honour their commitments. We must be honest," he was quoted.

He said this was the reason why many contacts are being awarded to the Chinese, who he said are more trustworthy, than the Malays.

"We have to be trustworthy so people will give contracts to us. When we want to give contracts, we give to the Chinese instead because we know they will do their work properly. This is our weakness, we are not trustworthy."

He said Malays should also take the Japanese as an example to become better.

"Why did I introduce the Look East policy in 1982? It was because I admired the Japanese for their attitude when it came to work," he said.

Contributed by Izza Izelan, Astro Awani September 14, 2014

The familiar lamentations of Dr Mahahir

The former premier’s latest remarks about ‘lazy Malays’ cause a stir among Malaysians.

TUN Dr Mahathir Mohamad used to have only two upmarket bakery outlets known as The Loaf – one in the picturesque Telaga Harbour, where luxury yachts berth in Pulau Langkawi, and the other at Pavilion, Kuala Lumpur.

The number of his outlets, which sell breads and pastries using Japanese techniques, has grown to more than five. As such, he has to hire more staff.

A few months ago, a manager was caught stealing money from the cash register.

The suspicion began when the daily collection was not deposited into the bank. The Malay manager was caught red-handed and the incident infuriated Dr Mahathir.

“I am operating a bakery and have given many opportunities to Malays to hold management positions. Unfortunately, time and time again, honesty and integrity appear to be lacking as there have been staff who keep stealing money,” he said at the launch of the book Wahai Melayu: Allah Tak Akan Ubah Nasib Melayu Kalau Kita Tak Ubah Nasib Kita Sendiri by Anas Zubedy.

“They do not seem to understand that it is wrong to take what is not theirs; they do not think of the big picture or the long term,” he said.

The statesman repeated the criticism in an interview with Utusan Malaysia last Sunday.

That led to various interpretations, particularly on his criticism of the leadership, especially the current prime minister, especially at a time when the Umno general assembly is coming up.

But those present at the book launch believe that his remarks were in line with what he has consistently brought up, whenever the occasion suited it. They dismissed any suspicion of political conspiracy.

The book by Anas, a writer and speaker on motivation, is aimed at young Malay entrepreneurs. In the foreword, the author debunks the myth that the Malays are a lazy race who are only good in politics and the arts, but not in business.

“These are self-limiting artificial boundaries and we ought to break them,” he writes.

“What we need to do is to find the right motivation and inspiration for a specific culture like the Malays.”

But in his hard-hitting speech, Dr Mahathir spent 20 minutes arguing that Malays “lack honesty and inte­grity” and that they fail to “handle money properly” unlike the Chinese or even Myanmar nationals.

Ethnic Chinese, he said, were more honest compared to native Malays where money is concerned. He said these were the reasons for the Malays’ economic failures.

“We have to be trustworthy so people will give contracts to us. When we want to give contracts, we give to the Chinese instead because we know they will do their work properly. This is our weakness – not being trustworthy,” he added.

“If we fail, we should not blame anyone but ourselves. We have failed because we did not do what was right,” he said.

In the Utusan interview, Dr Maha­thir said Malay men were still lazy, citing the gender imbalance at institutions of higher learning, where the majority was women.

“They (the men) are not interested in studying and revising. If we go to the universities, 70% of the students are women. Where are the men?”

“They prefer to be Mat Rempit, that is why I said they are lazy.”

Dr Mahathir’s comments raised a storm, with some in social media suggesting that he should be arrested for sedition. The Selangor chapter of Malay rights group Perkasa, however, termed his remarks as “father­­ly advice”.

Veteran journalist Datuk Kadir Ja­­sin reportedly said people should not get upset or sulk over Dr Maha­thir’s remarks, especially with regards to the Malays being lazy, as there were those who were hardworking and excelled in whatever they did.

“Give them a crutch and they will turn it into a paddle and a pillar,” he said, adding that there were those from the community who had succeeded and made a name for themselves in the country and all over the world.

Citing legendary warrior Hang Tuah’s famous rallying cry that Malays would not vanish from the world, Kadir said the Malays were rulers and made up the bulk of the civil service, such as the police force, Customs and Immigration departments, and the teaching profession.

Not all Malaysians would agree with Dr Mahathir’s assessment, with some saying he is still caught up in racial stereotyping, even if it is aimed at his own community.

Nobody in his right mind would say Malays are lazy, Chinese are greedy, or Indians are disho­nest. In fact, few Malaysians, especially the younger ones, would link any race in Malaysia with any specific trait or even a vocation.

The NEP has, in many ways, succeeded in its two-pronged strategy of eradicating poverty for all Ma­­laysians as well as reducing and subsequently eliminating identification of race by economic function and geographical location.

Lazy and indolent natives were a favourite theme of 19th century colonialists who wanted the natives to work at producing food while putting migrants to work on the modern economy for their benefits.

Thus grew the myth of “lazy” natives and this myth continued after independence and was even believed by some Malaysians. It was only put to rest by scholars like Syed Hussein Alatas, who wrote a seminal work The Myth of the Lazy Native to explain British colonial policies.

Dr Mahathir is, however, a smart man.

Not only was he the longest ser­ving prime minister, but he also turned the country into an economic powerhouse, and only smart people could achieve that.

He also believed in throwing good money at individual Malays in the hope that he could achieve a successful Malay entrepreneurial class in a short time.

Some of his efforts ended in failure while others succeeded – but the failures always got the bigger headlines.

Thus was born one of the great themes of his political life – that he had failed to change the Malay mindset and that they preferred to live poor in a rich country.

Thus was also born the phrase, Melayu Mudah Lupa (Malays forget easily).

But while such generalisations will guarantee headlines, the reality is that one simply cannot tar a whole race with the same brush, the way you tar a person or two.

Dr Mahathir might have repeated the “lazy native” syndrome perhaps to get the attention of the Malays, in particular Umno members who are in the midst of division meetings and passing resolutions in support of Islam, Malays and the rulers.

It is a given that even after his retire­ment, Dr Mahathir needs to be at the centre of national life. He needs to have everything revolving around him and needs to command the national dialogue.

So he relies on an old theme that is sure to spark a huge controversy – like the myth of the “lazy Malays”.

But Malaysians want to move on. They want to get out of this race trap and the least said about such stereotyping would be better for Malaysia.

Comments contributed by Baradan Kuppusamy The Star/Asia News Network

The views expressed are entirely the writer’s own.

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How frail the Malaysian unity!

How frail our unity is

WHY NOT? By WONG SAI WAN saiwan@thestar.com.my

Malaysians always boast about how we can live with each other but yet that multi-racial fabric is easily torn.

REPORTERS for English newspapers in Malaysia are taught from their very first day not to write their reports on racial lines but to promote national unity and, more importantly, not to incite racial hatred.

The most common example of this is reporting on court cases.

This is why court reporters go out of the way to find out the occupations of the protagonists in the trial.

More often than not, one would read in a paper like ours that “a factory worker was charged with stabbing a clerk at a shopping complex”, without reference to the ethnicity of the people involved.

The thinking of our newspaper gurus in the early days was that although we were made up of various communities, it was best we saw each other as Malaysians, and to mention someone’s ethnic background was considered bad form.

Of course, there was an underlying reason for it.

Editors those days were also conscious of promoting unity and maintaining good race relations.

Imagine the sort of problems that could arise if the story above read: “A Malay factory worker was charged with stabbing a Chinese clerk at a shopping complex.”

Such writing, it was argued, would do nothing for the development of the country or race relations.

In fact, there were some who argued that such a writing style would only inflame hatred, especially if the report was about violence.

It would not be wrong to say such thinking became even more pronounced after the racial riots of May 13, 1969.

I was taught this no-race mantra when I joined this newspaper in 1984. In fact, my editor told me, the mere mention of the name would be a dead giveaway of the person’s race (his words, not mine).



“Wong Sai Wan cannot be an Indian person” was his favourite reminder to me each time he caught me writing an article where I mentioned someone by his ethnicity.

However, things have changed over the past three decades.

Although most English language newspapers in this country still do not report crime and court articles according to ethnicity, most of us now allow mention of language or ethnicity if it gives perspective to an article, especially features.

After 40 years, we would have all thought that we would be mature enough to handle any form of differences without referring to it in terms of race or religion.

Along with the millions of other Malaysians, I often shake my head in disbelief when opportunist politicians try to use the race card to shore up their flagging popularity.

I was so proud to see young Malaysians reject the position taken by these older politicians from both sides of the divide and instead to treat any issue based on merit and not on the colour of one’s skin.

Since 2008, I have been slowly converted to the position that Malaysia has become mature enough to handle conflicts and criminal violence even if the perpetrators were identified by race or religion.

Yes, our society has created code words to describe each other and most of the time these descriptions are taken in good humour.

These code words evolve with time. For example, during my younger days, all Malays were referred to as Ah Mat, Chinese as Ah Chong and Indians as Muthu.

Nowadays, the nicknames have changed to Mat Rempit, Ah Beng and Macha.

These monikers are slightly crude, but not derogatory – at least that’s what I think and see from the reaction within our modern society.

However, then came the infamous I-City KFC incident.  It was a simple case of a restaurant worker losing his cool and punching a customer who obviously also lost his cool.

However, the incident, unlike similar fights that had happened numerous times in other restaurants, was captured on video and uploaded on YouTube.

It went viral after it was shared on Facebook. The clip was uploaded without moderation to give it some sort of perspective.

The person who taped it with a handphone described it as a fight at KFC.

What happened over the next few hours of the uploading of the video on cyberspace was truly disgusting. Malaysians put a racial slant on the incident.

Most of those who took the side of the customer, Danny Ng, were non-Malays, while the restaurant staff were mainly defended by Malays.

On Facebook, supporters on either side started to verbally attack each other – with some making up various stories of how the incident started, and the supposed quarrel between Ng and the staff.

The words used by the two groups to attack each other were derogatory and racist. The so-called unity we boast about was shattered.

Ng has since denied that the incident was racial in nature and clarified that neither he nor the KFC staff used any racial slurs.

However, those on the social media ignored this and continued to make all sorts of comments.

Facebook and YouTube are the most popular forms of social media. Opinions are shaped on these two websites.

Comments there become a strong reflection of the state of our own society.

Sadly, in this case, we failed big time. Malaysians have come across as immature, racist and unforgiving.

Malaysians need to show the world that we can handle ourselves, accept each other and celebrate our differences.

Fortunately, the “quarrel” occurred over cyberspace, and maybe it was a good place to let off steam without taking it into the real world.

This incident has shown that our unity is very fragile and our race relations far from adequate.

Our leaders must realise this and not rely on bigotry to gain popularity with only a certain segment of society.

> Executive Editor Wong Sai Wan loves his fried chicken but also hates poor service.

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Let’s all be Malaysians first !