In the book, he cited one instance of a "denigrating" view of the natives, when a German scientist suggested that the Filipinos made their oars from bamboo so they could rest more frequently: "If they happen to break, so much the better, for the fatiguing labor of rowing must necessarily be suspended till they are mended again." Syed Hussein criticized such beliefs in the book as ranging "from vulgar fantasy and untruth to refined scholarship", very much an ideological justification of colonial domination. He also asserted that "[t]he image of the indolent, dull, backward and treacherous native has changed into that of a dependent one requiring assistance to climb the ladder of progress"[7], especially with publications like the 1971 Revolusi Mental (Mental Revolution) by UMNO that succumbed to the language of colonial capitalism.