An Unfulfilled Quest

I wonder how the soul of the late Onn bin Ja’faar must be feeling today.

Sixty years after he formed UMNO to fight for Malaya’s independence, the party honours the man who could have been the first Prime Minister of Malaya.

A man of great vision, Onn bin Ja’faar knew that communal politics would not be good for the future but he could not persuade the Malays to accept the other races into the party and so he left the party he founded. Maybe Ariel Sharon followed his example when he left the Likud Party of Israel that he founded 30 years ago.

Sixty years after the founding of UMNO, race based political parties are entrenched in the nation’s psyche and no one knows how to get rid of the “us and them” thinking that is so potentially dangerous especially when we have racial discrimination policies like the NEP.

The NEP in the original plan was to eradicate poverty but after 35 years, it has become mainly the tool to enhance the wealth of rich and well-connected while the poor still struggle to eke out a mere existence.

Onn bin Ja’afar resigned from UMNO in 1951 as he was disillusioned with the party. I wonder if UMNO will also mark that occasion with a call to reform its politics so that its great founder will finally rest in peace.

photo:http://www.edwebproject.org/balkans/pics/istanbul.tombstones.jpg