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To the outside world, Malaysia is well known for her both urban and country’s fascinating tourism attributes and a melting pot of culture and culinary that tantalize senses.
But, beneath all these beckoning aspects lay something sinister that is disintegrating the Malaysian public politically, economically and socially.
In majority Muslim Malays Malaysia, a certain separative veil is present that divides the non Malays from Malays in the aforementioned aspects which was phased in after Malaysia got her independence from the British.
The non Malays in Malaysia, namely the Chinese and Indians were brought to Malaya in the 17th and 18th to work in labour intensive commodity fields by the British during colonial times.
The Chinese and Indians have reached the Malay archipelago to trade and brought Islam to the region centuries ago but the influx was at its peak in the 17th century when the British brought in the Chinese and Indians to build Malaya. The Malays wouldn’t do hard labour so the British turned to an outsource.
When Malaya gained her independence in 1957, the Chinese and Indians who, by then, already planted a firm foothold on the Malaysian soil, having established families, schools and worship places and also fought alongside the Malays to bring independence to Malaya were granted Malaysian citizenship on a pro quid quo basis.
The deal was that non Malays must recognize the special rights of Malays in exchange for their citizenship. Simply put, the non Malays are considered to be beholden to the Malays, the sons of the soil, having the sobriquet, ‘Bumiputera’ because the Malays were gracious enough to let foreigners populate their land and share the wealth of this land. All of it seemed so innocuous and the non Malays agreed to the terms and conditions.
In 1963, the Federation of Malaysia was born and the Borneo island of Sabah and Sarawak and Singapore became part of Malaysia.
The Singapore Chief Minister, Lee Kuan Yew urged to have a Malaysian Malaysia, openly opposing the Bumiputera special rights. Singapore was behaving like a nation within a nation and racial prejudice between the Malays and Chinese culminated in racial riots in Singapore in 1964, killing 23 civilians.
The then Malaysian Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, unable to solve this crisis, expelled Singapore from Malaysia and Singapore became a nation of its own, The Republic of Singapore. Singapore is now a First World country and Malaysia is lagging behind it.
The Social Contract, enshrined in the Malaysian constitution safeguards Malays’ special rights and privileges, also termed as Malay supremacy.
During that time, the economic chasm between the Malays, Chinese and Indians was wide. Despite being the majority, Malays only accounted for 15% of the economic share, the rest was held by the non Malays.
In order to uplift the Malays economically, New Economic Policy, NEP was gazetted. It was launched in 1971 to redistribute wealth and eradicate poverty of the Malays.
The NEP drew to an end in 1990 and it was replaced by National Development Policy which gave the Malays privileges over non Malays in businesses, contracts, public university seats and public service. Instead of focusing on meritocracy in securing seats in public universities, quota system is implemented, favouring Malays.
Fast forward to 2013, these oblique systems created great disparity in Malaysia and is the leading cause for the Malaysian brain drain as non Malays, particularly Chinese and Indians leave the soil they are born on and move to greener pastures overseas, some settling aboard. Their justification? Their full potential, capacity and capability are suppressed on the land that is their own but the world welcomes them with open arms. The sensible thing to do is to go to where their talent can be developed fully and rewarded duly.
Despite the advertisement, Malaysia Truly Asia and Malaysian unification policies and programmes, racism is still rampant, embroiled in insecurity on the Malays’ part that non Malays would infringe their Bumiputera rights and privileges.
What these Bumiputera favouring policies created is crutch mentality among the Malays especially in those living in rural areas with no access to the internet. Their information only comes from mainstream media which is controlled by the National Front, the ruling coalition which has been in power , forming the Federal Government since Malaysia’s independence.
Racial and religious issues have always been the backbone of politics in Malaysia.
Both the NEP and NDP are considered a back to back fiasco because they have failed to eradicate poverty especially in timber rich Sabah and oil rich Sarawak of west Malaysia as well as east coast states of peninsula Malaysia. They are the richest states in Malaysia and ironically the poorest, economy and development wise in Malaysia.
So whom did those NEP and NDP benefit?
It benefitted the Malay politicians in the ruling coalition and cronies as they left those poor Malays in a lurch. The Malay lords betrayed their own cause and community they claim they champion.
Standard of education is compromised as grade benchmarks are continuously lowered in order to let the Malays pass and this bred complacency and laziness along with racism among the Malays towards non Malays.
Recently, Bumiputera students in UiTM protested against the suggestion to give 10% seats to non Bumiputera students, telling that it is an infringement of Malay privileges and rights.
Malaysian kids generally don’t get a taste of racism until they apply for public university seats. The rude shock will shake them that all that is matters is your race, not your achievement.
One brave Malay student spoke up against this biased system on Facebook and many non Malays appreciated him for having the guts to spill the inconvenient truth.
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| With youngsters like these perhaps there is still hope for a Malaysian Malaysia |
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