Nazir Razak:This Is What The Malays Should Have Written About Him

Hantu Laut

My own article on Nazir and the NEP is still in the midst of construction but I would let this praiseworthy article by Tay Tian Yan go first.

This is what the Malays should write about him instead of ridiculing him for baring the truth about the NEP.

Insteads of calling him anak bangsawan, born with a golden spoon and a product of the NEP we should admire his capability as a rising star in the corporate world who has taken a bank from the gutter to what it is today.

Nazir Razak wouldn't have brought CIMB to become a respectable name in the region if he hadn't got it up there.Imagine if he is stuck to the Ibrahim Ali's mindset, insecure, myopic, medieval and feudalistic and one who still live in cloud cuckoo land.The Malays are better off without the likes of Ibrahim Ali.

Nazir Razak would not have succeeded if he had let himself be drawn to employing homogeneous management in his bank which was exactly what BBMB was before, mired in Malay monism.He has made full use of the talents of our pluralistic society and I agree with him the NEP was bastardised.

I quote what he said.

"As a personal example, when I took over the helm at CIMB, I resisted the tendency to surround myself with people who thought the same way as I did or with whom I was socially comfortable. Instead, I selected a very diverse management team, in age, race and gender, so that I could draw from our varied perspectives and arrive at better solutions than a homogenous team could have achieved."

The Malays need to do away with the "dengki'" culture if they want to progress.Below is what one appreciative Chinaman wrote.

Nazir Razak — Tay Tian Yan

August 19, 2010

AUG 19 — Some say if he were not Najib’s brother, he couldn’t have achieved this much today.

But some also say if he were not Najib’s brother, he could have achieved even more.

I have an inclination towards the second saying.

Nazir Razak is the youngest brother of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, and the youngest son of the country’s second prime minister Tun Abdul Razak.

Nazir is the chief executive officer of CIMB. About 10 years ago, he was instrumental in the merger between Bank Bumiputra and the Bank of Commerce in what everyone believed was a bailout for the ailing BBMB.

Not many viewed the merged entity’s future with favour. The fiscal conditions of BBMB back then, along with its modus operandi and personnel issues were tacky enough for anyone to fix.

Nazir’s challenge was to transform the government-sponsored bank plagued by a severe lack of competitiveness, rigidity and corruption into a highly efficient, market-oriented and profitable business entity.

Upon taking over the bank, Nazir embarked on a slew of ambitious restructuring policies.

He succeeded in convincing the board to lure elite bankers with attractive remuneration and bring in many non-Bumiputera managers. With the power in his hands, he reorganised the internal operations of the bank, weeded out connections, optimised the businesses and established a set of governance guidelines.

At the same time, he reinvented the bank’s branding position in a bid to reinstate customer confidence. He launched an array of financial services and products to meet the market needs. He even brought the company’s businesses overseas in an ambitious expansion programme.

This erstwhile dying bank has now received a new lease of life over the years, with capitalisation and profit margin both among the country’s top three.

Nazir’s competence is beyond doubt, and the corporate sector generally agrees that he is not merely an outstanding banker, but one of the country’s most capable CEOs too.

But Nazir is more than just a top-rated manager, he is also an initiator and advocate of open and progressive ideas.

He has since Mahathir’s time been making proposals to the government to reform the country’s economic structure, saying that it should further liberalise the economy and implement free market principles while uprooting antiquated and stale policies in a bid to create a more equitable and competitive business environment.

Among his most controversial proposals was the one calling for the abolition of the New Economic Policy.

He argued that the NEP had not helped the Malays in general, but had instead shut the majority of Malays out of the country’s economic activities while denying non-Malays access to the mainstream national economy, jeopardising the country’s overall economic performance in so doing.

His did not make the remarks to please foreign investors or non-Malays. He unapologetically hit out at the NEP during an exclusive interview with Utusan Malaysia some two months ago.

Nazir’s achievements had nothing much to do with his family, upbringing or his Bumiputera status, but his own wisdom and input.

His progressive psyche testifies that the Malays can still get plugged to the world so long as they are willing to deliver themselves out of the “kampung mentality” cocoon.

Some say he makes the most ideal candidate for finance minister, but the prime minister has been reluctant to bring his younger brother into the government or politics.

Having said that, there are voices calling for Nazir to play a bigger role so that he can change the largely conservative mindset of the Malays and help steer the nation towards greater progress. — mysinchew.com

Malaysian Insider

Why America is going to regret the Cordoba House controversy

Hantu Laut

The article below was written by a non-believer, a free-thinker and an atheist, if you may, who has his brain in the right place and makes more sense than those bigoted American politicians like Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Harry Reid and many others whose religious intolerance and misguided knowledge of Islam and Muslims defile Islam through their absolute ignorance and overwhelming arrogance.

What do you call them? Radical Christians and Jews or plain stupid Americans same as the cab driver I met in San Francisco many years back who thought Malaysia was in China.

Posted By Stephen M. Walt Tuesday, August 17, 2010 - 4:08 PM Share

Apart from a brief post praising New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's forthright stance on the Muslim community center controversy, I haven't said much about this issue. I had naively assumed that Bloomberg's eloquent remarks defending the project -- and reaffirming the indispensable principle of religious freedom -- would pretty much end the controversy, but I underestimated willingness of various right-wing politicians to exploit our worst xenophobic instincts, and some key Democrats' congenital inability to fight for the principles in which they claim to believe. Silly me.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what is going on here: All you really need to do is look at how the critics of the community center project keep describing it. In their rhetoric it is always the "Mosque at Ground Zero," a label that conjures up mental images of a soaring minaret on the site of the 9/11 attacks. Never mind that the building in question isn't primarily a mosque (it's a community center that will house an array of activities, including a gym, pool, auditorium, and oh yes, a prayer room). Never mind that it isn't at "Ground Zero": it's two blocks away and will not even be visible from the site. (And exactly why does it matter if it was?) You know that someone is engaged in demagoguery when they keep using demonstrably false but alarmist phrases over and over again.

What I don't understand is why critics of this project don't realize where this form of intolerance can lead. As a host of commentators have already noted, critics of the project are in effect holding American Muslims -- and in this particular case, a moderate Muslim cleric who has been a noted advocate of inter-faith tolerance -- responsible for a heinous act that they did not commit and that they have repeatedly condemned. It is view of surpassing ignorance, and precisely the same sort of prejudice that was once practiced against Catholics, against Jews, and against any number of other religious minorities. Virtually all religious traditions have committed violent and unseemly acts in recent memory, and we would not hold Protestants, Catholics, or Jews responsible for the heinous acts of a few of their adherents.

And don't these critics realize that religious intolerance is a monster that, once unleashed, may be impossible to control? If you can rally the mob against any religious minority now, then you may make it easier for someone else to rally a different mob against you should the balance of political power change at some point down the road.

Critics of the proposal are aware that their views contradict the principle of religious tolerance on which the United States was founded, so they have fallen back on the idea that building the community center here is "insensitive" to the families who lost loved ones back in 2001. (Presumably it's not "insensitive" that the same neighborhood contains strip clubs, bars, and all sorts of less-than sacred institutions). And notice the sleight-of-hand here: first, demogogues raise an uproar about a "Mosque at Ground Zero," thereby generating a lot of public outcry, and then defend this bigotry by saying that they're just trying to be "sensitive" to the objections they have helped to stir up.

But what if Newt Gingrich, Rick Lazio, Sarah Palin, and all the other people trying to exploit this matter had praised it from the start for what it was: a genuine and well-intentioned effort to combat the ignorance and hatred that had led to 9/11 in the first place?

I personally find the whole idea of a "Supreme Being" unconvincing, and I don't quite get why some many people continue to cling to a set of myths and fables dating from antiquity. But that's just my view, and someone else's religious convictions are their business provided they don't impose them on me. The Founding Fathers wisely understood that trying to impose religious orthodoxy on the new republic was a recipe for endless strife. Although it has hardly been observed with perfect fidelity over the years, that core principle has served the country remarkably well for over two centuries.

The principle of religious tolerance is not a piece of clothing that one can don or doff at will, or as the political winds shift. Indeed, it is most essential not when we are dealing with groups whose beliefs are close to our own and therefore familiar; the whole idea of "religious tolerance" is about accepting communities of faith that are different from our own and that might strike us at first as alien or off-putting. Tolerance doesn't mean a thing if we apply it only to people who are already just like us.

The latest example of tortured reasoning on this subject was New York Times columnist Ross Douthat's column a couple of days ago. Douthat explained the controversy as a struggle between "two Americas": one of them based on the liberal principle of tolerance and the other based on the defense of a certain understanding of "Anglo-Protestant" culture.

In addition to glossing over the latter's dark underbelly (slavery, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholic prejudice, etc.), Douthat's main error was to view these two aspects of American society as of equal moral value. In his view, it's legitimate to object to the community center because we have to respect the feeling of those Americans (including Douthat himself, one assumes) who believe that the United States is at its heart an "Anglo-Protestant/Catholic/Judeo-Christian" nation.

Even if one accepts this simplistic dichotomy, what Douthat fails to realize is that the history of the United States is the story of the gradual triumph of the first America over the second. The United States may have been founded (more-or-less) by a group of "Anglo-Protestants," and defenders of that culture often fought rear-guard actions against newcomers whose practices were different (Jews, Catholics, Japanese, Chinese, etc.). But the founding principle of religious tolerance gradually overcame the various Anglo-Protestant prejudices, which allowed other groups to assimilate and thrive, to the great benefit of the country as a whole. The two America's are not morally equivalent, and we should all be grateful that when those two Americas have come into conflict, it is the second America that has steadily given way to a broader vision of a free and open democracy.Continue reading.

Malaysia's Uneasy Dance with the Web

Written by Our Correspondent

Tuesday, 17 August 2010

Are authorities about to start to filter Internet journalism? On July 31, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who is rapidly becoming the stormy petrel of Malaysian politics, made a tough, uncompromising speech to the annual Malaysian Student leaders Summit in Kuala Lumpur. The 72-year-old Razaleigh, an elder statesman of the United Malays National Organization, called for the abolition Malaysia's Internal Security Act, the Official Secrets Act, the Printing and Publication Act and the Universities and Colleges Act, which circumscribes the freedom of expression of students and professors and which, Razaleigh said, "has done immense harm in dumbing down our universities." It was a major speech on an important occasion to Malaysia's future leaders. Other speakers included members of the judiciary, presidents of bar councils and many others. (It can be found here in its entirety) "Billions have been looted from this country, and Billions more are being siphoned out as our entire political structure crumbles. Yet we are gathered here in comfort, in a country that still seems to 'work': Most of the time," Razaleigh said. "This is due less to good management than to the extraordinary wealth of this country. You were born into a country of immense resources, both natural, cultural and social. We have been wearing down this advantage with mismanagement and corruption. With lies, tall tales and theft. We have a political class unwilling or unable to address the central issue of the day because they have grown fat and comfortable with a system built on lies and theft." Razaleigh's speech, controversial as it was, was not mentioned anywhere in the nation's mainstream press, despite the fact that among other things, he said that "over the last 25 years, much of the immense wealth generated by our productive people and our vast resources has been looted." Despite the fact that no newspapers printed any of the speech, Rejal Arbi, the former editor of the Malay language Berita Harian who is now a columnist, thought it merited exposure. However, Mior Kamarulbaid, the editor of the paper, thought otherwise. He spiked Rejal's column. Berita Harian is owned by UMNO, which is increasingly unsettled by Razaleigh's calls to clean out the endemic corruption in the party. Likewise, The Star, which is owned by the Malaysian Chinese Association, the second-biggest component of the Barisan Nasional, the ruling national coalition, didn't carry Razaleigh's remarks, nor did the New Straits Times, which is also owned by UMNO. Nor was it carried on the party-owned television stations. However, it was carried widely on Internet news sites, including being streamed on the independent Malaysiakini television. It was carried verbatim on the Internet-based news portal Malaysian Insider, among other Internet sites. This has assumed increasing importance because of an Aug. 16 report in the independent Internet news site Malaysian Insider that the administration of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is evaluating the feasibility of putting an Internet filter in place to block so-called "undesirable websites." According to the report, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission commissioned the Malaysian arm of KPMG, the accounting and advisory firm, to carry out a "'Study on Positive and Safe Use of the Internet' in early August to evaluate, among others, "the implementation of Internet Filter at Internet Gateway level" and "the impact of the various methods to Malaysian Internet users and Malaysia economy.'" A year ago, the government backed away from a similar plan for a filter to block websites it considered undesirable. After the story became public, Najib denied there was any plan to police the Internet. Although the rationale cited for such a filter is usually to keep pornography away from the nation's youth, it can be used to block undesirable political comment as well. In Thailand today, for instance, at least 13,000 websites have been blocked by the government, ostensibly to block unfavorable comment about the country's monarchy. But in fact, it is being used extensively to block political comment as well. It isn't clear what the KPMG study will be used for by the government. But when Internet journalism was just getting started in the late stages of the reign of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, the government took a decision not to place the same kinds of controls on websites that it maintains for the print media, which are onerous indeed. The Printing and Presses Act, passed in 1984, has been used repeatedly against such publications as The Rocket, the vehicle of the opposition Democratic Party, and others. Human Rights Watch reported from New York in July that "the government has effectively suspended indefinitely publication of Suara Keadilan, the paper of the opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat" and severely circumscribed the circulation of Harakah, published by the opposition Parti Islam se-Malaysia, or PAS. As a result of the fact that political parties control the mainstream media, the Internet in Malaysia has come alive, not just with opposition blogs and comment about the government, but with some solid – and some not so solid – journalism. But backing away from total internet freedom today is a difficult thing for any government to do and would generate considerable embarrassment, if not public outrage. In Malaysia, the Internet is broadly regarded as having played a major role in 2008 national elections that cost the Barisan Nasional its two-thirds majority in the parliament for the first time in the 50-year history of the country and delivered several states into the hands of the opposition.Read more.

The New Economic Superpower

On Monday August 16, 2010, 12:20 am EDT

SHANGHAI — After three decades of spectacular growth, China passed Japan in the second quarter to become the world’s second-largest economy behind the United States, according to government figures released early Monday.

The milestone, though anticipated for some time, is the most striking evidence yet that China’s ascendance is for real and that the rest of the world will have to reckon with a new economic superpower.

The recognition came early Monday, when Tokyo said that Japan’s economy was valued at about $1.28 trillion in the second quarter, slightly below China’s $1.33 trillion. Japan’s economy grew 0.4 percent in the quarter, Tokyo said, substantially less than forecast. That weakness suggests that China’s economy will race past Japan’s for the full year.

Experts say unseating Japan — and in recent years passing Germany, France and Great Britain — underscores China’s growing clout and bolsters forecasts that China will pass the United States as the world’s biggest economy as early as 2030. America’s gross domestic product was about $14 trillion in 2009.

“This has enormous significance,” said Nicholas R. Lardy, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “It reconfirms what’s been happening for the better part of a decade: China has been eclipsing Japan economically. For everyone in China’s region, they’re now the biggest trading partner rather than the U.S. or Japan.”

For Japan, whose economy has been stagnating for more than a decade, the figures reflect a decline in economic and political power. Japan has had the world’s second-largest economy for much of the last four decades, according to the World Bank. And during the 1980s, there was even talk about Japan’s economy some day overtaking that of the United States.

But while Japan’s economy is mature and its population quickly aging, China is in the throes of urbanization and is far from developed, analysts say, meaning it has a much lower standard of living, as well as a lot more room to grow. Just five years ago, China’s gross domestic product was about $2.3 trillion, about half of Japan’s.

This country has roughly the same land mass as the United States, but it is burdened with a fifth of the world’s population and insufficient resources.

Its per capita income is more on a par with those of impoverished nations like Algeria, El Salvador and Albania — which, along with China, are close to $3,600 — than that of the United States, where it is about $46,000.

Yet there is little disputing that under the direction of the Communist Party, China has begun to reshape the way the global economy functions by virtue of its growing dominance of trade, its huge hoard of foreign exchange reserves and United States government debt and its voracious appetite for oil, coal, iron ore and other natural resources.

China is already a major driver of global growth. The country’s leaders have grown more confident on the international stage and have begun to assert greater influence in Asia, Africa and Latin America, with things like special trade agreements and multibillion dollar resource deals.

“They’re exerting a lot of influence on the global economy and becoming dominant in Asia,” said Eswar S. Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell and former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division. “A lot of other economies in the region are essentially riding on China’s coat tails, and this is remarkable for an economy with a low per capita income.”

In Japan, the mood was one of resignation. Though increasingly eclipsed by Beijing on the world stage, Japan has benefited from a booming China, initially by businesses moving production there to take advantage of lower wages and, as local incomes have risen, by tapping a large and increasingly lucrative market for Japanese goods.

Beijing is also beginning to shape global dialogues on a range of issues, analysts said; for instance, last year it asserted that the dollar must be phased out as the world’s primary reserve currency.

And while the United States and the European Union are struggling to grow in the wake of the worst economic crisis in decades, China has continued to climb up the economic league tables by investing heavily in infrastructure and backing a $586 billion stimulus plan.

This year, although growth has begun to moderate a bit, China’s economy is forecast to expand about 10 percent — continuing a remarkable three-decade streak of double-digit growth.

“This is just the beginning,” said Wang Tao, an economist at UBS in Beijing. “China is still a developing country. So it has a lot of room to grow. And China has the biggest impact on commodity prices — in Russia, India, Australia and Latin America.”

There are huge challenges ahead, though. Economists say that China’s economy is too heavily dependent on exports and investment and that it needs to encourage greater domestic consumption — something China has struggled to do.

The country’s largely state-run banks have recently been criticized for lending far too aggressively in the last year while shifting some loans off their balance sheet to disguise lending and evade rules meant to curtail lending growth.

China is also locked in a fierce debate over its currency policy, with the United States, European Union and others accusing Beijing of keeping the Chinese currency, the renminbi, artificially low to bolster exports — leading to huge trade surpluses for China but major bilateral trade deficits for the United States and the European Union. China says that its currency is not substantially undervalued and that it is moving ahead with currency reform.

Regardless, China’s rapid growth suggests that it will continue to compete fiercely with the United States and Europe for natural resources but also offer big opportunities for companies eager to tap its market.

Although its economy is still only one-third the size of the American economy, China passed the United States last year to become the world’s largest market for passenger vehicles. China also passed Germany last year to become the world’s biggest exporter.

Global companies like Caterpillar, General Electric, General Motors and Siemens — as well as scores of others — are making a more aggressive push into China, in some cases moving research and development centers here.

Some analysts, though, say that while China is eager to assert itself as a financial and economic power — and to push its state companies to “go global” — it is reluctant to play a greater role in the debate over climate change or how to slow the growth of greenhouse gases.

China passed the United States in 2006 to become the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, which scientists link to global warming. But China also has an ambitious program to cut the energy it uses for each unit of economic output by 20 percent by the end of 2010, compared to 2006.

Assessing what China’s newfound clout means, though, is complicated. While the country is still relatively poor per capita, it has an authoritarian government that is capable of taking decisive action — to stimulate the economy, build new projects and invest in specific industries.

That, Mr. Lardy at the Peterson Institute said, gives the country unusual power. “China is already the primary determiner of the price of virtually every major commodity,” he said. “And the Chinese government can be much more decisive in allocating resources in a way that other governments of this level of per capita income cannot.”