Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's renewed criticism of Malay Malaysians' incompetence and irrelevance is more akin to claiming himself right than actually dealing with the issue.

If Mahathir believes that he can use the pulpit of his office and personality to force Malay Malaysians to improve themselves and be more competitive, he is delusional. The failure of communist states is proof that nothing short of real competition is what motivates people to excel in whatever they do.

The privileges accorded Malay Malaysians under the new economic policy was not unlike the policies that people in communist Russia and China enjoyed in the early days when things were peachy, too!

The scary thing is that we do not know if Malays have improved relative to the rest of the world over the last 40 years. Statistics about educational and professional levels in a declining standard, and on improved absolute income in a sheltered economic environment, do not say anything.

The only way to improve is to remove the New Economic Policy (its current variant is the National Vision Policy) and open up the economy to free competition.

Let me just state here that I am not against affirmative action but that based on experience even in the United States, affirmative actions have very limited effect. Blacks and minorities in the US have made more gains in the last 10 to15 years under fewer affirmative action programmes than they did in previous years.

The welfare state experiment in the west and communist states has proven that it is best to use it sparingly and to allow people the freedom to make logical economic choices. By all means, give scholarships to deserving Malay students or loans to those who need it but make sure they honour the repayments.

Contracts given to Malay Malaysians should be made non-negotiable (non-saleable). Take away the bumiputra quota in everything but set up networks or schemes where they can go to improve themselves. Non-Malay students could be encouraged to tutor Malay students in exchange for discount on tuition, choice of study and meritorious awards.

In the end, our leaders have to come to terms with pure meritocracy, warts and all. After all, relevance and competence is about being meritocractic, pure and simple.

The truth is our forebears made fundamental mistakes when they decided to pander to the populist interest of the races, particularly the Malay Malaysians. From history books, we know that they were made not by choice but because of political compromise.

Mahathir should look at himself and come to terms with the failures of his own policies. He must recognise the limitations of his pulpit and if he is a true nationalist he must lead the people on the road to meritocracy before he leaves. Otherwise, he should just go and let us be damned for who we are.