Open letter to Tengku Razaleigh – Wenger Khairy

Dear YTM Tengku,

Congratulations on being given the due honour and recognition by being invited to deliver the keynote address during the recently concluded  Perkasa annual general assembly.

Unfortunately, even though we had tried to search through the available online resources, we were unable to obtain a full text of your speech. Thus our response would be based on the sound bites that were reported through the various media agencies, which we admit may not have fully captured your intended meaning.

Perhaps, a good starting point is to offer our opinion on the suitability of using Perkasa as a platform for a wider audience. Some blogs have pointed out that this approach was met with some degree of resistance by some quarters.  Some opine that the image of Perkasa is so divisive that to engage this vocal NGO would be taken by some quarters as giving due credence and recognition to some of their more bellicose ways.

We would disagree. We believe it was the right move because one cannot simply ignore a movement which represents 500,000 members. Engaging with Perkasa is the right decision, albeit a tricky and dangerous one.

On one hand, Perkasa, either rightfully or wrongfully, has been tarred as an extremist organisation. On the other hand, the supporters of Perkasa represent the largest single demographic and makes up the bedrock fabric of Malaysian society. In navigating this tricky balance, we believe that in the end, it is your personal conviction, experience and judgement that will allow you to strike the right balance.

In your speech, you did a courageous thing of trying to put forth an unpopular argument of performing self-reflection and self-introspection to find out the reason behind the relative differences in economic performance between the races.

In fact, many have said much on this.

Some say it is because of lack of control of the supply chain. Others have said it is because of the inability to engage in the vice businesses which form the bulk of the cash economy. Yet others have pointed out that shareholdings, once given, are easily sold off. And lastly, some complain that other races have now taken leadership positions in what were once solidly Bumiputera organisations.

Of course, we will not be outdone and will offer our own reason as well.

But before that, we want to offer a completely different perspective. This is not some theoretical result, obtained from a laboratory experiment, but based on real life observations and first hand experiences from a decade and a half of being involved in the business world. It concerns a small start-up technology firm that has its partner, a Malay guy called Apandi and Chinese gentleman called Cheng. (Names changed for now).

I had worked many years with both of these gentlemen and would use them as case in point examples of people who do not fit the racial stereotype that is so common in Malaysia.

Apandi is perhaps one of the best project managers I have ever known and was instrumental in ensuring that two multimillion dollar deal closed, even though there were significant hurdles. Apandi did not achieve because he had any special connections, but rather because of his persistence, his leadership, his knack of keeping his feet on the ground and rallying troops to get the job done.

Cheng on the other hand was a man driven by his passion in creating a better software product. At that time, both of them, and myself as well, were working in the same company – a small company with little or no brand name recognition in the market place.

A couple of years of later and all of three of us had left the firm. As for me, I work in the financial capital of Southeast Asia, having been written off completely in Malaysia. But Apandi and Cheng had the courage to stick it out on their own and formed their own small firm.

The partnership was ideal, because it combined one of the best developers in Malaysia with one of the most best young business leaders in the country. It combined Malay and Chinese. It combined emotional intelligence with design and technical skills. The last I heard, their company has turned cash flow positive, has a pipeline of recurring revenue and has even managed to win jobs supporting overseas customers.

Now this is not a fairy tale. It is a real story, without any of the common negative stereotypes associated with the races in Malaysia. There was no Government deal in the offering. No "tongkat". No "cronyism". And no corruption – just sheer hard work and a shared mutual respect between both partners to build a better business.

From a probabilistic point of view, we doubt that this is the only example in the country. Time and time again, Malays have partnered with Chinese to build a better future for themselves and their families. In fact, this has been the case of the history of the Malay states, starting as far back as the 1800s. However, in the past, the role was divided into where one party provides the capital and labour, and the other provides the land, which for long was assumed as the key constituents of economic growth. However, today economists believe, there is yet a fourth and fifth ingredient in economic growth and that is entrepreneurship and knowledge.

This then leads us to add yet another point to the reason   behind the relative differences in economic performance between the races.  The first reason is that it takes years to build an entrepreneur. Apandi had at least 15 years of honing his skills, both in a multinational and later on in a small private company. Failure and success are part of the same equation, and without tasting failure first, it is impossible to build on success. However, when there are enormous incentives to forgo the process of hardening and to instantly become a millionaire, then the process of hardening is stunted and the economic goal is one of seeking "easy money."

Personally, we believe that "easy money" is of course better than "hard money". After all, a good friend of mine who is the brand consultant to the world's premier luxury brand conglomerate, said the same thing. But the context is somewhat different. My friend was talking about a competitive market and applying a superior marketing strategy. In his version of "easy money", the business grows, more people get employed and the French owner's equity increases.

Over here, "easy money" is taken to mean rent seeking and profiteering. The promoter does increase in personal wealth, but the business does not grow, resources are diverted towards making one person wealthy at the expense of the community, and the people who actually do the job pass snide remarks about the capability and work ethic of the one who got the contract.

The second point is "knowledge" and "skill". Now knowledge and skill comes with persistence. It involves training the brain to understand some extremely subtle stuff and to apply those skills in practise. Over here, in the financial capital of South East Asia, a person knowledgeable, skill full and with perhaps 5 years of experience in quantitative analysis in a capital market setting would be able to gross more than half a million ringgit a year. But the path towards that involved not getting distracted in silly and stupid arguments, because in order to work at such a level requires one to understand deep and complex mathematical models and be able to communicate the analysis to a very sophisticated audience.

But instead, what we have in Malaysia are people trying to outdo one another with stupid, lame and idiotic arguments. We have a lecturer in a Government University accused of plagiarism, and yet it is the article which he has penned (or did he plagiarise it?), and not even your speech, which is featured on Perkasa's website. We have UMNO bloggers, themselves paid hundreds of thousands of ringgit a year dishing out a daily diatribe of filth, vulgarity and half-baked arguments.

Such people we have described are cancerous to society. They deceive people into disregarding proper work ethics and restrict people from achieving greater heights in their own lives.

However, it is easier however for Perkasa to train their sights on the perceived misbehaviour of certain segments of Malaysia and justify their actions.  It is easy, does not require much thought, and will in the end achieve no results.

The question is simple: Will you be able to do something about it? – rembautimes.blogspot.com