Where have all the non-Malays gone?
This is the excerpted text of an
address given by Malaysia’s former finance minister recently to a breakfast
meeting at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center organized by Paddy
Schubert Sdn Bhd
As you are aware, our nation became
free from the fetters of colonial domination about five and a half decades ago.
Sadly and strangely, after 55 years of independence, I think we are now farther
apart than we have ever been before. On Aug. 31, 1957, our freedom from the
shackles of a colonial past was greeted with euphoria by the different races
who came together on the basis of a common vision for a shared future.
We then had a prime minister who
believed that the purpose of independence was the pursuit of happiness for the
different races in the country, and our success in that pursuit was to him the
ultimate test of our success as a nation.
Tunku Abdul Rahman’s vision for the
newly independent nation was based on the “greatest happiness principle,” a
subject of intense political discourse in 18th and 19th
Century Europe. Like the enlightened political philosophers in the western
world, our father of independence believed that governments existed to provide
for the happiness of the people, and nothing more.
Tunkuʼs policies were tied up with
the golden rule that we must have respect for one another and treat others just
as we wish others to treat us. This golden rule was an important principle in
an interdependent, multi-ethnic society such as ours.
Tunkuʼs basic concept of
happiness is best expressed in his favorite maxim, “live and let
live.”
It is a maxim that calls for
acceptance of people as they are, although they may have a different way of
life. Tunku applied the maxim in the public domain.
If Tunku had boasted that he was the
happiest prime minister in the world, it was only because the people were happy.
In Tunkuʼs words at that time, “I pray and hope that this happy state of
affairs will continue for all times.”
Unfortunately, however, Tunkuʼs
dreams were dashed to dust by the events of May 13, 1969.
This once happiest prime minister
expressed the pain he felt as Father of Merdeka (independence) as he
relived those traumatic moments:
“I have often wondered why God made
me live long enough to have witnessed my beloved Malays and Chinese citizens
killing each other.”
Such was the man that Tunku was. He was
the moving spirit of the nation. He has long gone, and today his premiership is
a distant memory. Since the time he left, inter-ethnic relations have taken a
turn for the worse on all fronts.
Today we have a regime that promotes
the concept of 1 Malaysia with all its contradictions.
We have an official document that
explains the 1Malaysia concept as a nation where every Malaysian perceives
himself as Malaysian first, and by race second.
However, we have a leader who openly
transgresses his own official policy by declaring that he is “Malay first” and
“Malaysian second”.
The statement comes as a severe blow
not just to the concept of 1 Malaysia, but also as a nullification of Jiwa
Malaysia or the National Spirit that Tunku was trying hard to inculcate.
No wonder that people can no
longer recognize the jiwa — they just don’t feel as though
they are fully Malaysian.
It is strange that after 55 years of
freedom, we have not learnt the simple art of living together as brothers and
sisters. The country’s source of strength is unity, and this source of strength
has been slowly whittled away over the years. We have become a nation of
strangers, as evidenced in the fields of politics, the economy, education and
the civil service.
The strong presence of communal political
parties in the country is chiefly to be blamed for the sad state of race
relations in the country. These political parties invariably support racial
policies and imbibe racial sentiments among the people whom they represent.
In their day-to-day administration
of the country, the powers that be often give scant regard to the
constitutional provision contained in Article 8(1) which states that “all
persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the
law”; and Article 8(2) which states that “there shall be no discrimination
against citizens on the ground only of religion, race, descent or place of
birth in any law relating to the acquisition, holding or disposition of
property or the establishing or carrying on of any trade, business, profession,
vocation or employment”.
One major sore point in the area of
race relations is the New Economic Policy, whose original intention to create
unity has been subverted to become a major source of disunity not only between
the various races but also among the Malays and Bumiputeras in general.
The New Economic Policy, which was
conceived in 1971, not long after the Tunku had retired as prime minister, was
primarily created to address poverty and to raise the level of Malay
participation in the economy.
It was intended for all Malaysians,
and not just for the Malays or Bumiputeras. As a former finance minister, let
me emphasize that it was never the intention of the NEP to create an
incubated class of Malay capitalists.
If we visit the government
departments or universities, we wonder where all the non-Malays have gone.
After 1969, suddenly there was this attempt to recruit mostly Malays into the
civil service.
It is tragic that the civil service
does not reflect the racial composition of the Malaysian population, as the
predominant presence of only one race tends to engender a sub-culture that is
antithetical to the evolution of a dynamic and efficient civil administration
in the country.
Our school system is not as it used
to be. The non-Malays prefer to send their children to vernacular schools, as
the national schools have assumed an exclusively Malay character.
Needless to say, national schools
have become even less attractive to the non-Malays as English is no longer used
in the teaching of mathematics and science. The situation will be very
different if all discriminatory practices in the education system were to be
abolished, and a common system of education for all is adopted.
National unity is the one area that
we cannot afford to ignore, and the real genesis of national unity, I submit,
is from an unlikely source: Parliament, warts and all. It is the Parliament
that has the final say in charting the direction the country is
heading to.
We must have a strong and resolute
government which recognizes the needs of all Malaysians, and
formulates the right policies for the propagation of a cohesive and integrated
society. If Parliament enacts policies that are just and fair for all
Malaysians based on meritocracy and need, more than half the battle for
national unity would be won.
In this respect, the rakyat’s [people’s]
voters must realize that in the ultimate they alone hold the key to
the future of this country.
