Is it ‘good riddance’ if our own children emigrate?

 

I was chatting with two close friends the other day about our children. We seem to agree it’s best that they remain overseas where they already are, or to go abroad if they haven’t already.

I have four adult children, two working in the corporate world here, and two completing postgraduate degrees overseas. I have a feeling most of them will end up overseas. I don’t tell them how to live their lives, but they can see what’s happening and must’ve wondered if it’s worth their while to stay or to return home.

This is a problem that has worsened lately. For decades as we sank deeper into becoming an unjust society, many made the sad or angry decision that their life and future is better lived elsewhere.

Not just Malaysians; many refugees who ended up on our shores found not much comfort or welcome, whether they are the wretched fleeing their even more wretched lands, or they are professionals with much to contribute.

The infusion of such migrants is important and can reinvigorate Malaysia with new energy and vitality. Many countries, such as Germany, pursue such a strategy, albeit a controversial one, precisely to achieve that.

The United States became great not because of waves of elites from Europe landing on its shores. In fact, the inscription on the Statue of Liberty says:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to be free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me.

It didn’t quite ask for the moneyed, the educated or the noble. On the backs of these “wretcheds” was America built.

While there are fierce debates in the US about immigration, it’s clear as the US becomes older and perhaps lazier, and as new blood is stopped or restricted from entering, its own vitality will wane.

That’s the nature of immigration. Malaysia, a nation with a substantial number of descendants of immigrants, should know it better than most. Our immigrants, from the earlier Chinese and Indians, to the more recent Indonesians, have contributed immensely to the country’s growth.

How much does emigration cost Malaysia?

I’m not against the idea of our children leaving our shores for brighter horizons. They should always go to where the stage is the biggest. If you’re a filmmaker, go to Hollywood – a semiconductor engineer to Silicon Valley, a scientist to wherever the state of your art is.

But it becomes a problem when the trickle of those leaving becomes a torrent. Has anybody done any research on the kinds of qualifications or skills that have left us for good? Do we know how much taxes they’ve paid, how many jobs they’ve created, how much of a contribution they have made to our economy?

Given that many of those leaving are young people, often sent away by their parents, can we correlate the data on them with that on their parents too? How have their parents contributed to Malaysia? Will they be around to continue doing so?

I doubt anybody is doing this. I think the economics bureaus of our political parties (if they have one) are more interested in identifying which bits of the remaining wealth in the country to grab and through what nefarious mechanisms.

I doubt anybody in the government is doing this either. The matter is either too sensitive or too difficult, or it is that nobody cares. But if this kind of analysis on something so critical to our collective future isn’t important, what is?

Feeding off the wretched

My own theory is that many of the people now running the country have always wanted this outflow of talent, to get rid of the otherwise tough and formidable competitors who will vie for the cream jobs in business, politics, public service or academia.

By having such an outflow, and by dumbing down our society, those who’ve nothing else to offer except the fear and hate of divisive tribal and religious politics, can rise and dominate with very little competition. If society had offered a level playing field, they’d never have made it even to the first rung.

They seem to believe the country has boundless wealth that they can purloin forever. They don’t realise they’re net consumers of our nation’s wealth, using their political powers to live off other people’s largesse in a horribly parasitic relationship.

This is obviously unsustainable, and thus there is now a mania to grab anything not nailed down to the floor, because at the back of their minds they know that the easy pickings won’t last.

At the bottom of the pile are the Malay masses, dumbed down by decades of a regular diet of bigotry that feeds on their insecurity. Many were poor and uneducated, and now they must remain so because this is the only way those in power who exploit them can remain up there.

How bad has our society and politics become? I don’t need to tell you. You can see and hear it daily, from the halls of Parliament to the street corners – the unbelievable garbage emanating from people who would never get to such giddy heights if our country allowed her finest and brightest to participate.

Alongside the demise of competence and intellect, also came the death of shame. That’s why the villains in our midst scream so loudly – it’s their own way of shouting down the inner voice that reminds them that what they are doing is wrong and shameful. The screams will just get louder.

Malays are the ultimate victims

What many don’t realise is the ultimate victims are the Malays themselves. Many have been scared out of their wits from fighting in competitive environments, or have been emasculated by bad education. They’re being exploited for the only things of value they have – their votes and their unquestioning feudal loyalty to their “lords”.

I accept that even in the best of circumstances, some of my children may not remain in Malaysia. The corporate-minded ones want to compete with the best wherever they are. The academic- minded ones won’t find many opportunities in our small country: postgrad qualifications in climate modelling and anthropology won’t find many takers here.

But then they would’ve left and become emigrants still holding love and longing for home, and not sad or angry at how unfair things became. They are not afraid to compete, and want to know that if they win it is because they are good, and not because somebody had changed the rules to favour them.

This is obviously part of our racial dynamics, where the bulk of those who leave have been the non-Malays: many who remained feel it’s easy to say good riddance to them, regardless of any rational argument of how harmful it is for us to lose such people.

But things are changing unfortunately. Now the fear of strong competitors, that used to be a cover to discriminate against the non-Malays, is now directed towards refugees (even those who’re Muslims) and yes, even against the Malays themselves.

My friends’ children and mine are Malays, and Malaysia has become increasingly untenable for them, just as it had become so for many others already. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.