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©The Sunday Star (Used by permission)

PETALING JAYA: The Malays have loosened their grip in political power to the point where non-Malays no longer respect them and their institutions, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.

The former Prime Minister said everything deemed as Malay privileges had been questioned and challenged by the non-Malays.

“And the Malays are not doing anything to counter all these and strengthen their positions,” he said in his latest posting on his blog www.chedet.com.

Instead, he said the Malays asked others to defend their position.

“But this is 'passing the buck' including the excuse that it is all because of Dr Mahathir who led for 22 years and chose Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as his successor.”

Dr Mahathir said that in the 50 years of independence, political power was in the hands of the Malays and they could call themselves tuan (masters).

However, he said the Malays could only become tuan if they were capable and successful economically and socially.

“This can be achieved if we are willing to master knowledge and skills in the IT era. But we are lacking efforts in that direction.

“We are more inclined to look for short cuts and let others feed us everything.”

Dr Mahathir said the fate of the Malays was in their hands.

He said Malays could not call themselves tuan if they had to depend on others and it was pointless to call themselves tuan when they were actually slaves.

“We can be tuan if we act boldly, we are willing to face risk, we make efforts to conquer knowledge and efficiency until there is no need to depend on anyone.

“Denying reality will not result in anything. Only by admitting that we have a big problem and we act to overcome it, can we redeem our dignity. Then we can call ourselves tuan. The world will recognise us as the real tuan,” said Dr Mahathir.

In Johor when attending a forum and dialogue on the recent general election organised by Johor Umno grassroots and MYKMU.NET yesterday, he labelled all Umno division chiefs as traitors to the Malays as they did not have the courage to stand up to Pak Lah.

“In a democratic system, the people can force a leader to step down if he is wrong.

“The division leaders sympathised with Pak Lah so they will be the one who destroys Umno,” he said adding that the leaders cared more about their personal interests.

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