The way forward for Khairy Jamaluddin

Sure enough, many will remain doubtful of Khairy. Instead of ridiculing and questioning him, why not offer him a few words of encouragement and some helpful guidance?

By TAY TIAN YAN, Sin Chew Daily

n yesterday's UMNO Youth general assembly, Khairy Jamaluddin did not hold up the keris, but instead honoured what he once said.

My colleague Helen and I interviewed Khairy three months ago. He said there was nothing like the so-called "Ketuanan Melayu" in this country, only "Malay leadership."

He even said he would give everyone a big surprise in the coming UMNO Youth assembly.

I was shrugging off what he said back then.

If he was saying this to the Chinese community, it would easily slip by without much hooha. But if his target audience had been the Malays, in particular UMNO members, he would need a lot of wisdom, and a whole world of courage, to do so.

To clash on UMNO's traditional value and bang hard on the party's sensitve zone, is never something rewarding for Khairy or anyone else.

If this matter is not handled well, or if his support base has not been strong enough, he will hit the wall real hard, crashing his own political future in the worst case scenario.

In yesterday's UMNO Youth assembly, Khairy did not hold up the keris, but honoured what he said several months earlier.

In front of the Youth delegates, including many who are skeptical of him, against him, or likely to stumble him, Khairy did not chant the "Ketuanan Melayu" mantra again, but asked UMNO to treat all Malaysians equally.

No matter how many bad things he has done before, I must congratulate Khairy this time for doing the right thing.

He has made a bold move forward.

"The UMNO Youth chief is treading a path on which Onn Jaafar and Tunku both failed."

I can't say for sure whether Khairy has changed. Even if he has, I have no idea whether he could keep up the momentum.

But I think, this is going to be a truly long and winding learning curve for Khairy, UMNO Youth, and even UMNO.

To become a race-oriented party in Malaysia is easy. That is exactly what UMNO was when the party was born 60 years ago.

To become a race-oriented politician is even easier. People and environment around you will make you one.

But, to jump out from the racial politics quagmire is next to impossible.

This path is going to be tortuous and thorny, one which UMNO has never quite taken successfully.

Both Datuk Onn Jaafar and Tunku Abdul Rahman flunked.

But that does not mean this path is inaccessible.

Our relatively matured social conditions today should put a higher chance of success for this approach.

The path that Khairy used to choose, is one of UMNO's traditional nationalist ethos, one that is easiest to traverse.

However, this path will no longer lead us to the New Era.

If Khairy sees the future, he will explore a new path which despite the many tough challenges ahead, is where the future lies.

Sure enough, many will remain doubtful of Khairy. Instead of ridiculing and questioning him, why not offer him a few words of encouragement and some helpful guidance?

Even if he fails, at least he has failed because of a good cause, not because of a rotten cause!

If he can push his way in full sincerity, he should be able to amass some people with him along his way. (Translated by DOMINIC LOH)

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I did mention to watch KJ in my earlier posting about two weeks ago as his voice no longer supports the  voice of many top leaders in UMNO. Hope he will drive the change for good. We Malays that is waiting for internal clean up in UMNO, will come back to UMNO once we see that UMNO is really clean inside out! Till then we will have to support PR!