Incrementally Ridding Malaysia of Bumiputra Privileges
Former Deputy Prime Minister Musa Hitam has been at the forefront of a recent movement to get the government to exempt foreign businesses in the Iskandar Development Region of certain requirements enshrined in the government's pro-Bumiputra (and thus pro-Malay) policies.
Musa's argument is that the IDR will not be able to compete with other investment destinations unless these restrictions are lifted. The economic logic behind this is pretty simple and clearcut, and I don't think anyone requires an explanation for why we should lift quotas on Bumiputra ownership of local enterprises, or why their blatant subsidies should be cut.
It remains to be seen how far the government will actually adopt Musa's proposals, but Johor Chief Minister Abdul Ghani Othman (who has been temporarily resurrected for the purposes of this article) is reportedly backing them.
Thus far, the government has been extremely resistant to any proposals whatsoever that would cut back on Bumiputra rights. Even a suggestion that the sacred 30% target of Bumiputra equity has already been reached can result in you losing your job — literally, as happened to Dr. Lim Teck Ghee when he published a paper making such claims. He was forced to resign from the institute which published the paper, and promptly retracted it for unspecified problems with the study's methodology.
It's a welcome sign, though, that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has stated that the normal rules related to Bumiputra privileges when it comes to foreign investors will be waived for the IDR. This does not seem to have been met with much fanfare by the mainstream media, with the exception of the Sun (the only national English daily, I believe, which is not owned by the government or one of its parties).
The reasons for this are quite obvious, but for the blind, it's clear that Abdullah and the Barisan Nasional regime cannot be seen to be backing down from their incessant trumpeting of their status as defenders of Bumiputra/Malay privileges and the ridiculous ideology of "ketuanan Melayu" (lit. Malay lordship; normally translated as Malay supremacy).
As a result, they dare not highlight this, and indeed, they announced the move in tandem with other incentives for investment such as tax breaks, probably as a smokescreen. Ceding their high ground as champions of the Malay race would not look good at all, considering it was just about six months ago that they were waving daggers and threatening to spill the blood of non-Malays who impinged on their rights. (Apparently they've decided that non-Malaysians don't qualify as non-Malays, in a Nazi-esque move — the Nazis proclaimed their Japanese allies as "honorary Aryans".)
Whatever the case may be, the government is on the right track. After I proclaimed the impending death of Malaysia unless drastic steps were taken, I explained that incremental change is key. To take big steps, we must take small steps that, in the long run, will add up to something larger.
One nice thing about such incremental steps is that as long as you know what you want to accomplish in the long run, each short run step you take will tend to reinforce that goal. It's a slippery slope.
What do I mean? I'm talking about simple darwinism — the survival of the fittest ideas and policies. The government is presently exempting foreign businesses from the restrictive policies meant to uplift the Bumiputra. (Although many, myself included, think these policies merely mollycoddle them.)
The greater competition this engenders will benefit the country, and the government will then consider perhaps experimenting with lifting these requirements for local firms in certain areas. If this is successful (as I believe it will be, since I believe the Bumiputras can and will buck up if their livelihood depends on it), the government will naturally expand the scope of this policy.
Even if all they have in mind is the advancement of the Malay race (a pigheaded and shortsighted goal), they will naturally gravitate to a more level playing field once they realise the benefits competition brings by rewarding those Bumiputras who can innovate and work hard.
I remain skeptical as to whether this will actually happen, since the exemptions apply only to foreign companies. There will thus be little, if any, effect on Bumiputra competitiveness, although perhaps Malaysian industry (and thus indirectly Bumiputra businesses) will become more efficient as a result of the greater foreign competition.
What will be the true sign of snowballing change is if the government implements a pilot policy lifting the Bumiputra privileges for certain designated economic zones. Once this happens, and if the policy works, there will be no turning back. Incremental change will sweep through the whole country, and before we know it, we will have organically and naturally rid ourselves of these anachronistic handouts-based racial policies, and God willing, the even more antiquated ideology of racial supremacy.
(Infernal Ramblings is a Malaysian website focusing on current events and sociopolitical issues. Its articles run the gamut from economics to society to education.
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| Related comments from forum thread "Comparing South Africa and Malaysia": | |
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johnleemk
Infernally Rambling Thoughtless Mind Head Administrator Posts: 949 IP Logged | Posted at 10:10:44 am Nov 8, 2005
In many ways, South Africa and Malaysia are different. South Africa has only two major races; Malaysia has three. South Africa is in, well, Africa, and Malaysia is, well, truly Asia. South Africa has a violent history of bloodshed. Malaysia, aside from a few crazy communists and some hotheaded Malays, has had a relatively peaceful past. And if we look closer, there are even more subtle differences and yet similarities. For instance, both countries have implemented forms of apartheid; South Africa's was targeted at the Black majority, and imposed by an oligarchy of the minority, while Malaysia's was targeted at the non-Bumiputra (including non-Malay aboriginal groups) minority, and imposed by a tyranny of the majority. South Africa's apartheid is in its past; Malaysia's apartheid looks to be just beginning and growing. South Africa faced international pressure to tear down its apartheid; Malaysia has seen its apartheid largely overlooked. While South Africa isolated Blacks and overtly treated them as dirt, Malaysia just told the non-Bumiputras one thing and did another - with the government begging foreign graduates to "come home" and yet appointing politicians who yell "you tak suka, you keluar dari Malaysia". Of course, there are some similarities. South Africa and Malaysia have both implemented policies designed to segregate their people; while in South Africa it was confining Blacks to particular areas, in Malaysia, the education system ensured a whole generation would grow up making friends from only one culture and race. And for the big whopper... South Africa has now implemented policies designed to aid the majority Blacks, largely by encouraging the development of Black millionaires. Incidentally, so has Malaysia - 35 years ago. South Africa's policy is called BEE - Black Economic Empowerment. Malaysia's is called, variously, the New Economic Policy, National Development Policy or, the brand new name - New National (my ass) Agenda. South Africa's policy has been criticised as only benefiting the rich Blacks, who just happen to be close to the ruling party. So has Malaysia's. (As Lee Kuan Yew poignantly said, "Of course there are Chinese millionaires in big cars and big houses. Is it the answer to make a few Malay millionaires with big cars and big houses?" However, there the similarities end. While Malaysia has ignored such cries to create a more egalitarian society, South Africa has recently embarked on brokering deals that benefit more Blacks - the largest change ever in the ownership of the famous DeBeers diamond company involved handing over 13% of the shares to, among others, the disabled, disadvantaged women, De Beers employees and pensioners and communities living around the DeBeers mines. South Africa's apartheid eventually broke down due to the lifelong efforts of one outstanding man, Nelson Mandela. Will Malaysia's apartheid collapse? That is a pointless question. All political and economic systems throughout history based on dividing the people of a nation and oppressing them have fallen. The only question is when and how the system will collapse. Is it 50 years down the road? A hundred? Will it fall violently or peacefully? What will replace it? That is an open-ended question, and as Malaysians and citizens of the world, it is our task to ensure that the answer to when is soon, the answer to how is through peaceful means, and the answer to what will be its replacement is an egalitarian system providing equal rights for all. |
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johnleemk
Infernally Rambling Thoughtless Mind Head Administrator Posts: 949 IP Logged | Posted at 11:47:47 am Nov 19, 2005
There is only two ways as I see it. Many Chinese will not accept being forced to learn Malay when they know Malays are not the only Bumiputra and Dayak, Portugese and Kadazandusun are also Bumiputras.Exactly. Coercion is not the key. Arbitrarily assigning Chinese to Penang is coercively forcing them to identify themselves with Penang, regardless of their true feelings. OTOH, English is a universal languages acceptable to all races, Dayaks, Kadazandusun, Chinese, Tamils, Malays, and Punjabis and the Chinese can accept it. This is because English is a creol and even Singapore and India make English the official lingua franca.Which is why I personally advocate making English our second official language or at least, you know, actually forcing our secondary school graduates to pass the SPM English paper (not that our exams actually test anything effectively). I don't really see what is wrong with communalism. Division creates diversity that is what the founders of America have said. I prefer a heterogeneous nation over a homogeneous one.Ah, there is your failure. You view culture as a zero-sum thing, but it is most certainly not. Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn (born in Brazil, studied in France, worked in America, now leads a traditionally insulative Japanese company) has a motto: Culture is additive, not negative. When two or more cultures come together, what naturally ensues is not a clash to see which will subsume the other or the erecting of a wall to avoid any of them subsuming the other(s), but a mixing until the resulting culture is a culture (not cultures) but nevertheless, not exactly any of the cultures that produced it. It is an amalgam that is far more valuable than the sum of its constituents. Communalism is predicated on the concept that culture is zero-sum. So is the belief of the British National Party that Britain belongs to the Whites, and that White culture should assume the place of honour in Britain. Communalism divides people into arbitrary groups decided by the basis of birth. It may preserve each individual culture, but in the long run, it holds back the development of a unifying culture worth more than the sum of the cultures that made it. Furthermore, communalism generates friction between the groups it arbitrarily creates, making it an untenable philosophy. Communalism operates on the presumption that each culture has very different interests, hence the creation of different racial-based parties such as UMNO, MCA and MIC. This is patently false. All people innately share similar needs and wants - we will all perish if we do not eat. As a result, there is room for people of different cultures to work together. Communalism prevents the development of a spectrum of wide beliefs - I can agree with some Malays that vernacular schools harm the country, but I can never join UMNO, where I have a better chance of expressing my views (in this instance) and having them put into action. This can often lead to clearly inappropriate results. For instance, let's say 49% of all Chinese, Malays and Indians agree with A and 51% don't. The three elected leaders of MCA, UMNO and MIC will therefore disagree with A. Therefore, the opinions of 49% of the population go unheard. It is presumed race and political ideology correspond exactly in a 1-to-1 manner. However, they clearly don't, as anyone with an ounce of common sense can tell you. Iraq is split into a Kurdish north and an Arab south. Yes, it is a divided nation but does that matter?Iraq itself is an artifical construction, arbitrarily drawn up by Britain. It should never have been created. No one American can agree on a racial or a religious issue yet they have managed to build a great nation.But note the lack of publicly-funded communal vernacular schools. Note the irrelevance (and in some territories, illegality) of race-based parties. Note that the people of America call themselves Americans first, not Whites or Blacks or Californians or New Yorkers or Christians or Atheists. You ask any American his ultimate defining characteristic, and the huge odds are is that it will be his American-ness. We Malaysians, because of communalism, have no such pride in calling ourselves Malaysian. We call ourselves Malay, Chinese and Indian. (Or, as in the case of some, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist or Hindu.) We are not united as a nation. That is what communalism does to a country. It's a blatant misrepresentation to cite America as an example of communalism. Either you and I have different definitions of the word, or you have misunderstood what the United States is founded on. It is built on power to the individual and his community, not the individual and his race. You are welcome anywhere in the United States - not just in certain designated "Asian quarters" - whatever your race is. And that is why America has become a superpower - its acceptance (not mere tolerance) of people, and its assimilation of them into its culture. These assimilated people don't lose their culture - instead, they contribute it to American culture. Assimilation does not alter your culture - it alters the culture you are assimilated into. User61: Your views sound oddly similar to one "budakcina" from Malaysia Today. I hope you aren't the same person. I think vernacular schools are detrimental to our country because they encourage insulation and communalism, not because of the language or whatever. The problem is that our national schools are essentially Malay vernacular schools, not national schools. |
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User61
Member Posts: 17 IP Logged | Posted at 4:07:47 am Nov 20, 2005
I've never went to the Malaysia-Today site until a few minutes ago. |
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tanstaafl
Member Posts: 9 IP Logged | Posted at 2:16:50 pm Mar 16, 2007
In your comparison of developing countries, I note that you mentioned "history" as a possible big contributor to the current state of a country. I believe its equally important to consider the extent to which the former colonialist or superpowers or both continued to influence the politics and leadership of those countries. Whilst evidence is spotty, it would seem clear that outside intervention in South American and African countries since their independence has had huge detrimental effects on countries there. Asia has perhaps been more fortunate due to its distance and the significant cultural dissimilarity with the former colonialists powers. |
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johnleemk
Infernally Rambling Thoughtless Mind Head Administrator Posts: 949 IP Logged | Posted at 11:48:32 pm Mar 16, 2007
It's true outside intervention probably plays a role, but if you want to go by a foreign presence post-independence, it wasn't so long ago that the Brits and Aussies had troops stationed in Malaysia and Singapore.  I think the strongest factor is history - those colonised by benevolent people interested in maintaining a civil society (e.g. the British) have almost invariably been better off than those colonised by people only interested in exploiting the country's resources. |
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whodhellknew
Member Posts: 17 IP Logged | Posted at 11:22:07 pm Apr 14, 2007
With relation to language, why not go with the American Way - no official language, but a language of government. In any case there are similarities between Malaysia and SA, but if you look close enough, you'll always find similarties between any two countries in the world. Magazine columnists would have much less to write about otherwise. The proportions based on ethnicity in SA is much more skewed than Malaysia: over 80% are blacks. Of course we could go on deeper and dissect the black population into separate groups as well. Due to history, not many blacks are fond of the Zulus, so there would be friction there. But years of collective oppression has agglutinated the community into one nearly coherent group. The biggest difference between our two countries are however, our general commercial culture. SA had a Western influenced capitalist culture that has helped it raise high tech industries and rather highly competitive ones such as the arms industry. Malaysia has no such thing. But there is one striking similarity, between the two: the resilience of rural culture and life, ranging from the continued prevalence of shamanic beliefs (paralleled here by bomohs) and the general wealth gap between the two worlds. cheers |
