The folly of the majority

I am all for helping the Malays but we must help them properly. By all means, give them scholarships, business loans and other incentives, but why can’t such assistance be part of a holistic economic policy that doesn’t identify beneficiaries according to their race?  

Zaid Ibrahim 

The Umno President has once again announced a massive government initiative dedicated to helping only the Malays and the Bumiputera under the New Economic Model. This “disadvantaged group,” comprising more than 70% of the population, will be getting more of the usual special treatment from the Government in the form of contracts, grants, unit trusts and loans worth more than RM30 billion. Why they are not able to help this group by having good and fair policies for all Malaysians was never explained.

Now preferential policies for the Malays are deemed as a right. It has become a huge political gimmick where the Malays are regularly told that if they want these special rights and privileges to continue, they have to vote for Umno. In fact, some Umno leaders scoff at the so-called “unfairness” of these policies and scold their colleagues for being apologetic about it.

T

hat I find most distasteful and hard to stomach are the pretensions that go with the policy announcement. There is this condescending assurance that the rights of “others” will not be affected, and that since the economy will continue to grow, no one will lose. If that were true then the non-Malays will continue to have more than the Malays, and this is certainly untenable for the special people.

It took 40 years for Malay corporate wealth to move from 2% to 23%. Do not ask me why. But surely that means that to move from the present rate to, say, 50% will take another 50 years at least if not more. By then the non-Malays will represent only 20-23 % of the population and so the question then for Utusan Malaysia will be, why allow the Chinese to have wealth on parity or greater than those from the majority race? Equity, the new buzzword, or equitable treatment therefore requires the non-Malays to “forego or give up” what they have to allow for equitable treatment to the Malays. So why pretend that we care about fairness or act concerned about making sure others will not be “unfairly treated”? Fairness is irrelevant. The idea of special preference itself is a negation of fairness.

It’s ironic that these leaders shouted Hidup Melayu to celebrate this pernicious policy, because it is actually a death knell for the Malays. The original policy of 40 years ago has become something else: it’s now a repository of all that is crude, unsophisticated and unthinking. What can be simpler than the idea of grabbing as much as you can whilst you have power? The deleterious and negative effects of this can be seen in the behaviour and values of these Umno Malays.

Today, after many years of being “special”, the Malays who are successful are never accepted for their ability; they must have received “special treatment” from Umno. This is particularly true if they do not support Umno’s policies. The dispensation of special treatment  enables Umno to pick and choose the winners and after 40 years we can see clearly how some Malays are more equal than others. The greed emanating from this group  of the “NEW RICH” is shocking. The lower income groups remain untouched by new injection of financial and economic assistance; its always the  Malay Contractors; members of the Malay Chambers, and of course the elite who get the bulk of the special treatment. When will the Malays realized the special treatment formula is nothing special except for some?

Short sightedness is another product of the special treatment.  Malay businessmen are not encouraged to collaborate with the non Malays when such collaboration will open new supply chain  and new opportunities. It’s the same with education.

The Chancellor of Universiti Teknologi MARA proudly announced that the university is no place for non-Malays. He assumes that non-Malays want to go there in the first place. He also ignores the possible benefits that can come from having a more diverse student body — he is probably oblivious to the fact that we can learn valuable traits, attitudes and values from those who are different from us. It sadly does not occur to him that the presence of non-Malays might actually be useful for the Malays, the people he wants to champion.

I am all for helping the Malays but we must help them properly. By all means, give them scholarships, business loans and other incentives, but why can’t such assistance be part of a holistic economic policy that doesn’t identify beneficiaries according to their race? People say it’s ok for me to want no special preferences because I have “made it". My personal achievements are nothing special and other Malay professionals have done well too. But you do not need special treatment to succeed, only fair and reasonable opportunities. Anyway with limited resources only a fair policy can benefit the most number of people; whereas  a special treatment policy will inevitably benefit those lucky ones only.

Our leaders who take the easy way out to propagate these preferential policies forget that once they have become accustomed to discriminating against non-Malays, very soon they will also discriminate against their own kind. In fact, it’s already happening. Discrimination is already happening in the distribution of economic opportunities. Ask the Malays who do not support Umno; and they will tell you they are treated like the non-Malays too. It’s not possible for Umno to “operate on the basis of meritocracy amongst the Malays” as suggested by the PM because they do not know how to. Over the years, government projects and opportunities like BR1M were all handed out to Umno members, divisional leaders or to prospective supporters. Even federal BN leaders openly said that only the BN states would get federal funds. The other Malays are not part of the deal. This culture of only helping those who have helped the party is certainly not meritocracy.

Umno has not done anything based on meritocracy before, and probably never will. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce was, of course, being as smart and wily as always when they announced through their representatives their support for the new policy. They said the PM is a fair person, which meant there would be enough in the country for non-Malays. The Chamber was very relaxed about this policy, which is understandable. What they did not say was that the Chinese will end up implementing most of the projects that were announced anyway, which means they actually lose very little. Only their cost of doing business may become higher.

They are so used to these grand economic schemes and have no fear of them, because the past has shown that their wealth can keep on multiplying whenever new economic policies are announced.

One last thing: we are told that the Malays are better off by a few thousand per cent compared to what they had in 1970. I believe that — but I will also say I am sure that if we had continued with good and fair  policies for all Malaysians, the Malays would also have improved their lot by a few thousand per cent. But the difference is this: the Malays would have also been able to retain their good characteristics and noble values. They will not be as greedy as some have become because of the special treatment. They will be kinder to other poor Malaysians who deserve special treatment too.