Resource:
Once Upon A Time in Ipoh & Malaysia - Tales from the Past & Present
by Philip George (b. 1952, Sungai Tinggi Estate, left before the termites took over).
Ahmad Shauki and I could have been classmates in some sun scorched rural school ,he in Kedah, I in Sungai Tinggi Estate, Kuala Selangor. Two boys born in huts made of tin, timber, and stubborn hope. The only luxury we had was fresh air, which we shared with mosquitoes on equal terms.
He was born in 1955, I in 1952 — near enough in age to remember when Malaya still had promise and not yet had policies. Both of us from poor families who worked rubber and rice, and both of us, somehow, born into a nation that would later specialise in rubber stamping mediocrity.
The difference is simple: he stayed to watch it decay, I left in September 1970, the very month, I like to joke, when the rot formally reported for duty under Tun Razak.
The Great Malay Amnesia.
We Malaysians once called ourselves just that, Malaysians. Not “Bumiputra” or “Non-Whatever.” We were all immigrants’ grandchildren trying to make something decent of a messy inheritance.
My parents, like Mahathir’s, came from Kerala. Same monsoon, same spice routes, same migratory optimism. But where my parents worked the estates and the mud, Mahathir learned to work the system and the myth. From the same stock, one of us ran toward ideals, another toward ideology. And the irony? He became the Mostest Purest Malay of Indian Parentage. I just became someone who preferred honesty over honourifics.
The New Economic Policy. A New Way to Spell “Nepotism”.
Tun Razak’s 1970 New Economic Policy (NEP) began with noble intentions: uplift the Malay poor, balance opportunity, forge unity. What it became, of course, was state sponsored piracy in a songkok.
Government contracts were handed to “Bumiputra businessmen” whose chief skill was knowing the right cousin to call. They’d sell the contracts to Chinese subcontractors, pocket the markup, and call it “affirmative action.”
Meanwhile, the real Bumiputras,the Jakun, Senoi, Temiar continued to live in huts without electricity, wondering which minister had sold their forests this week.
Mahathir perfected this into an art form. Under him, UiTM became a shrine for mediocrity and a morgue for merit. Malaysia became a place where excellence was suspicious, and connection was currency.
Malaysia Boleh! (Provided You Know the Password).
By the 1980s, Malaysia was booming on paper. The skyline rose, the slogans soared, the corruption seeped into the wallpaper. Every scandal came with a ribbon of nationalism around it.
The Bumiputra myth wasn’t just policy, it was theatre. The richest Malay millionaires collected timber licences like Monopoly cards, while their Chinese partners did the actual logging. The poor Malays were still in kampongs watching politicians drive by in BMW’s.
When you asked, “What do Malays think about their privileges?” the honest answer was: most of them never saw any.
It’s a pyramid scheme of privilege with the poor Malay at the bottom holding the weight of the flag.
Reverse Engineering a Ruined Dream.
If you reverse engineer Malaysia’s decline, you don’t find bad luck. You find bad leadership, consistent, creative, and bipartisan.
1. 1957–1970: Hope, unity, idealism.
2. 1970–1981: Nepotism with a smiling face.
3. 1981–2003: Authoritarian capitalism, corruption by design.
4. 2003–2025: The long aftertaste of decay, served with sugar and slogans.
Ahmad Shauki writes like a man dissecting his own autopsy report. His essay is an X-ray of what went wrong, and why we kept applauding the disease.
I read his words and see my own reflection, a mirror fogged by nostalgia, irony, and a faint smell of burnt rubber from those old estate days.
Epilogue: Mud, Memory, and Malaysia.
We were two boys from two huts, both raised by parents who came from far away lands, both taught that decency, resilience and diligence mattered.
One stayed and watched a country rot politely.
One left when the termites began their morning shift.
Half a century later, I can only laugh, gently, bitterly, fondly. Because laughter is the only disinfectant left.
Malaysia didn’t collapse overnight. It was reverse engineered bolt by bolt, bribe by bribe into a magnificent ruin.
And we, the children of the rubber trees and monsoon winds, are its living footnotes.
Philip George is a Malayan born writer and legal thinker living abroad since 1970.
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30 October 2025: 8.07 a.m
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