It’s not about laziness – Tay Tian Yan

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad says the Malays have three main problems: lazy, not ashamed of failure, lack of honesty. And he couldn't even change the Malays during his 22-year tenure as the prime minister.

That sounds serious. How can anyone in any country openly call a particular race lazy, unashamed and dishonest?

Some might say the government should charge Dr Mahathir with sedition.

Of course, Dr Mahathir will be the least perturbed by this. Moreover, the Malay society has not been enraged by his remark and risen up against him.

Not even Datuk Seri Najib Razak, or Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim or Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang or anyone else could muster this kind of courage.

But that does not mean the former PM has said it right. The thing is he has oversimplified the characters of the Malay race.

Calling a people lazy, unashamed and dishonest is most definitely unfair, as there are really diligent Malays.

We have seen Malay fishermen working hard in the rough seas, toiling in the rice fields or selling nasi lemak on the roadside from sunrise to sunset.

They are a whole lot more hardworking than the majority of Chinese. And more honest to boot.

In a similar manner, calling Chinese or Indians greedy, cunning and ignorant is also a kind of stereotyped prejudice. There are many Chinese and Indians who are kind-hearted and helpful.

While we can understand why Dr Mahathir has lashed out so hard on his own people, which has been founded on his personal social development viewpoint and highlighted in his book The Malay Dilemma, I am more concerned about what he has said that he failed to change the Malays in his 22 years as PM.

Western countries are generally more developed than Asian ones not because they are more hardworking than us but because of their more superior education, capitalist and democratic systems.

We all agree that the Chinese are diligent, but in the communist years, "diligent" didn't seem to apply to China.

Similarly, traditionally the Chinese people hold dearly the merits of integrity but in a capitalist-dominated Chinese society lacking in proper control, the word "integrity" doesn't look appropriate either.

This shows that "ethnic characteristics" are something generalised, not precise and varying from time to time. Neither could they dictate the destiny of a people.

Instead, what could really determine a people's or a nation's future is the cultural and social system.

The United States was a backward feudal agrarian society more than two centuries ago, an uncivilised outpost of the Western world.

Nevertheless, the Americans inherited the education system and rule of law from Britain, democracy and liberty from France and scientific technologies from Germany to lead the world in modernisation.

Early Russia was also a barbaric serfdom until Peter the Great decided to transform the country in the early 18th century. So he introduced comprehensive Westernisation programme, bringing in state-of-the-art technologies and systems to propel its own industrial and commercial developments to become a rising power in Europe.

We need a brand new culture to transform a people and nation with modernised systems and management. It has nothing to do with a people's intrinsic characteristics.

While Dr Mahathir has seen some of the weaknesses of his people, he lacks the foresight and resolution and has not made the effort to overhaul the cultural and existing systems.

During his tenure as the prime minister, the government provided the Malays all sorts of facilities and protection measures via the New Economic Policy, further entrenching the "crutch" mentality and eroding the competitiveness of the Malays.

Putting the blame squarely on "laziness, lack of shame and honesty" is not only biased but also meaningless. – mysinchew.com