Riot in...Malaysia?

AlJazeera report on Minorities in Malaysia struggling with inequalities

A riot just broke out in Malaysia today. I read it on BBC. A part of me was saddened yet another part leaped inside. Finally! I thought. I love this beautiful country I was born in. Yet, I hate it. Mostly, because of the way it is governed.

AlJazeera report on Malaysia's New Economic Policy on Mar 29, 2010

I've never been fond of privilege based on color over merit but that was what I, including many of my other Chinese and Indian friends endured all throughout school in Malaysia. This was the result of the enactment of the National Economic Policy in 1972. Instead of uniting the three main races - Malays, Chinese and Indians raising the financial status of Malays to their counterparts, it's been abused and used as a crutch to bring slow and eventual corruption and inequality to every facet of the society. Even for admission into local Universities, there's a 3 to 1 mandate of Malays for every Chinese or Indian student admitted which meant that a Malay student with grades three times lower than their Chinese or Indian counterpart would have a greater chance of entry. It's utter (pardon my language) bullshit. 


I think Malaysia is the only country where affirmative discrimination...more endearingly called affirmative action which is meant to extinguish the social, political and financial gap between the races, actually widens the gap thereby causing more rift, strife, jealousy and worst of all, inequality among the very people it's intended to help. 


The need for equality is essential for a country's economic progress because it means assessment of qualification based on merit. In a country where the qualifying factor is the color of a person in the name of religion (Muslims in this case) as opposed to merit, the country has no where to go but down as it implodes on itself. In the case of Malaysia, many of the able and qualified citizens left (and continue to leave) the country for greener pastures. In this case, Australia, Singapore, America and Europe. The resulting tragedy is the massive brain drain over time, taking the best of their own people away and contributing their knowledge, resources and ideas to countries where it is not only valued but benefitted by those countries.


Malaysia is actually classified as a 'Democratic' country. Doesn't this mean that the people are free and independent to have a voice, separate of the governing bodies of the state, judiciary and legislature? Then we can conclude that the people have outlets to vent these thoughts and frustrations? Do the people have a voice? Not really. The invoking of the Internal Security Act (ISA - an act revived from the old British colonial days) allows the government to imprison and place any individual under detention without trial. The first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman announced on the day Malaysia gained independence from the British in 1956 that, "the ISA would never be used to stifle legitimate opposition and silence lawful dissent". Well, it looks more like Malaysia has regressed rather than progressed since then. It's a joke when I look at websites where local Malaysians banter back and forth on the injustices of the political system. Far from being sophisticated and complex, it's more like childish babies crying personal attacks void of facts, "Bodoh!"(Stupid or Idiot), "Tamak!" (Greedy pig) and "You are ultra kiasu!"(You're a loser).


When I was in college in Michigan back in the late 1990s, I remember Malaysian friends saying the Prime Minister then, Dr. Mahathir was travelling to the colleges in the United States with a high ratio of Malaysian students, petitioning for them to return to Malaysia after graduation, guaranteeing enormous tax breaks on houses, cars and business opportunities. In other words, he was well aware of the brain drain from the country with the best minds from the country accepting scholarships into foreign countries and emigrating, never to return to Malaysia again or contribute to a second world country  desperately needing local talents to help propel the country into a first world country status. The result? He was snubbed. Hardly any positive outcome came out of it. The graduates were not convinced they would receive true equality or an improved lifestyle. Instead, they felt that the whole premise of it justified even more privileges based on preferential treatment of one class of graduates over another (in this case, foreign educated graduates over local Malaysian graduates). 


The next thing we knew, those of us overseas started hearing rumors of how Dr. Mahathir was now perpetuating cronyism in his travels overseas. He was now making diplomatic trips to select countries to promote Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). In order to attract FDI, he promoted the country by bringing with him a personal possy or what we called cronies of local businessmen with whom he showered favoritism in distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks etc. to close deals with any interested foreign parties. Naturally, this resulted in an elite class of corrupted businessmen who received preferential treatment over others, blurring the lines of transparency of government decision making, further eroding the very necessary need for progress based on merit. The result, an economic boom which benefitted the select few over the masses. I remember one public annoyance created in the early 2000s when I was visiting back home. The government had awarded major local construction projects for transportation systems in the capitol of Kuala Lumpur (KL) They were first touted to relieve the increasing traffic jams, install a superior subway system which allowed busy commuters access to every corner of the city like the neighboring super efficient country of Singapore. In reality, since the contracts were awarded to companies based on favoritism over experience or know-how, the masses had to suffer massive delay in completion of road projects, causing more traffic jams, and subways lines which never intersected logically facilitating convenience and only went through select places where most of the rich cronies lived rather than through places with high traffic where public transportation was desperately needed. The privatization of the transportation system, benefitting again the select few who were rich enough to buy over the government bodies passed on the cost of building of roadways to the commuters who now pay excessive 'toll money' to travel round the city on the highways. There are many more examples that makes my blood boil.


On that note, it's also a widely known fact that 90%o  the taxes paid in the country are paid by non-Muslims. Malays are allowed tax rebates, oftentimes evading tax completely by making a offering to the needy called zakat under Muslim law . That basically translates to the Chinese and Indians supporting the Muslims' lifestyle. To add insult to injury, Muslims are allowed a 10%-30% rebate on the prices of property such as houses or cars. Where is the justice in all this? It's mind boggling. I cannot imagine the revolt that would happen in any other democratic country if this was the status quo.

The Bersih movement united Malaysians worldwide on July 9th 2011

This new Bersih movement shows the Malaysians on the motherland are no longer sitting back and complaining but are willing to now publicly rally for the equality and fairness for the people for better inclusion, more governance, transparency and push back the entrenched incumbents holding on to power. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end for the pseudo democracy Malaysia touts and perhaps the government will start putting its money where its mouth is. It's been long coming and I hope this means Malaysia will finally find its way to standing with the rest of the other democratic nations as an equal.