“As far as Chef Wan is concerned, read the Myth of the Lazy Natives, and if his intelligence quotient (IQ) is more than the vegetables and spices he cooks, then he has a chance of getting out of a colonised mind-set”
Another Brick in the Wall
The Sunday Times yesterday published an article by its columnist on legal matters, Salleh Buang, entitled Merging Felda plots the key.
There were hardly any arguments to convince the public that the amalgamation of smallholders’ land would be managed but that somehow became the title.
In fact, the above quote was the key takeaway of Salleh’s article. He was dwelling on the legal ownership of Felda settlers over the land and hardly expressed his agreement.
One can assume that Dato Abdul Kadir Jasin loyalist and NST acting CEO, Mustapha Kamil Mohd Janor, has started the public relation exercise for the Felda amalgamation after the disastrous launch on Hari Peneroka past week.
Can Azmin be trusted?
Dato Seri Azmin Ali denied he was “booed” while his boys went into “defensive mode” by saying the settlers left the hall early to eat.
Obviously, it was an unbelievable and rather amateurish attempt at crisis management. More so, he has been booed and sabotaged before when he attempted to promote the amalgamation of shareholders’ land.
Azmin was reported by media somewhere as saying that “we (the government) are going ahead.” Few days later, Azmin gave assurance that the government’s plan would not affect the settlers’ ownership. That is the key problem and Salleh saw that.
It does not help to have Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Chef Wan commenting on the prospects of oil palm with the latter also insulting the settlers as “lazy.”
It was Mahathir’s own conscious decision as fourth Prime Minister for Felda to focus on oil palm, but today, he is talking as though Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak made the wrong decision to focus on oil palm.
As far as Chef Wan is concerned, read the Myth of the Lazy Natives, and if his intelligence quotient (IQ) is more than the vegetables and spices he cooks, then he has a chance of getting out of a colonised mind-set.
This is the age of Internet where openness and the free flow of information is the order of the day. Azmin should not assume that settlers are not aware of what happened to the settlers of Selangor’s copycat of the Felda program in Ijok
Besides, Azmin must face the questions and scepticism of the public on the plan to amalgamate smallholders’ land. He simply cannot shy away from Parliament to avoid embarassment due to the Sandakan sex video.