It is understandable that any mention of the capitalists would invoke mixed feelings and reactions within many of us who were not born from privileged backgrounds.

But we also can’t deny that the capitalists also play a very important role in the current debt-based economic system that many countries in the modern world are now forced to participate in.

The recent event involving the sale of shares of our country’s strategic and profitable national asset, MAHB to an American based asset manager, BlackRock has sparked protests from regular Malaysians demanding that the government to not proceed with the deal as to protect our nation’s security and sovereignty.

It is also worth mentioning that BlackRock has a history of acting by the instructions of the United States government, intervening through a series of asset purchases during both the 2008 and 2020 financial crisis in order to “stabilize the financial markets”.

By privatization, we are exposing such an important national asset like MAHB to foreign financial forces such as BlackRock that would make Malaysia more susceptible to the risk of market manipulation.

They won’t care about what happens to the overall Malaysian economy as well as the livelihood of our beloved Malaysian people once they decided to exit their investments.

Patriotic capitalists on the other hand, care about the economic state of the country.

They care about the wellbeing of the good people of Malaysia, and ready to invest their money to see us thrive further as a nation.

Sure there are constant bickering between our diverse communities every now and then, but I believe within each of our respective communities be it Malay, Chinese, Indian and others, there will always be those of us who deeply cares for this country including those that have the financial capability to help defend our nation’s assets against this modern economic colonialism.

Now is the time to seek them out as the pendulum starts to swing to the global south. If we play our cards right, an ASEAN economic bloc might even emerge as an unexpected wild card.

Jauhari Johar
30th May 2024