Winston Churchill once said: “We shape our houses. And then they shape us.”
What he meant was, essentially, that our thoughts define us. We are what we habitually think. Change our thoughts and we have the capacity to change ourselves.
Nations also invent institutions to define, protect and uphold their cherished ideas. Once born, those institutions develop a life of their own.
They fight to defend themselves. Their original ideas may get distorted by the actions of some charismatic or domineering individual and from then on, they promote a new, distorted message, repetitively, almost unthinkingly.
Thus Socrates thundered 2,500 years ago: “The unexamined life is not worth living!”
We need to re-examine our assumptions and check our moral compass regularly as we travel to our destination.
Thus, I found Datuk A. Kadir Jasin’s assertions intriguing.
Kadir was musing in his blog, about the prospects of the Malays should Barisan Nasional lose in a future election.
But after listing a variety of things, including a puzzling reference to Togo, he merely concludes that the Malays will be “neither worse off nor better off” under an opposition party in Putrajaya and “those who are able to lobby the new government will benefit”.
One wonders whether Kadir realises that his answer resembles that of a badly-prepared student, who equivocates, not being sure of the correct answer. Half-right is preferred to being wrong.
Surely, readers deserve better.
Let us try to answer the question. But first, let us agree that the question in the title is wrong.
A better question (and one that would interest all Malaysians) is: “Will Malaysians be better off without BN?”
To see why this is better, let us look at a few of the facts, from different perspectives:
1. Demographics
From the Statistics Department, we note that:
(Note: To simplify, a fraction 0.8% of “other Malaysians” is ignored)
The fact is that Malays today are just 50.2% of the Malaysian population. That proportion has not changed much since independence. What has changed is the growing number of 8.7% foreigners.
They repatriate much of their low salaries back home, burden our medical, education and social services, possibly lead to increased crime and help to block our move towards high-income nation status.
2. Unscrupulous political practices
2.1 The respected Wall Street Journal reported on June 19 that 1MDB (a wholly owned entity of the Ministry of Finance) had indirectly bankrolled BN’s 2013 elections by buying power assets from Genting Group for five times their worth.
Genting donated part of its earnings to a foundation – Yayasan Rakyat 1Malaysia – which soon got involved in spending that appeared designed to help BN retain power in the 2013 elections.
2.2 The Elections Commission chief is appointed by and reports to the PM. There is maldistribution among constituencies, for example, one constituency has about four times the voters of another. Also there is gerrymandering. A past EC Chairman declared his role of helping BN retain power.
2.3 Although the Federal Constitution declares that the YDPA shall ensure that a reasonable proportion of jobs in the Federal Government shall be reserved for the Malays and Sabah and Sarawak natives, in fact, as at 2005, the percentage of Malays and (Chinese and Indians combined) in the TMG (top management group), MGP (management and professional group) and SP (support group) of the civil service are:
Source: CPPS (Centre for Public Policy Studies)
Focusing on just these two factors, a new government based, for the first time, on non-communal politics, will be able to address issues without BN’s race-tinted spectacles.
They will have an immense task, not least the legacy of a racially indoctrinated civil service and similarly biased large sections of the population at large.
There will be subversive action and even sabotage to try to derail the first steps the new government takes. But with clear plans and the means to address the nation over radio, TV and social networks, the young dedicated leaders can begin to show results.
In these two areas (demographics and unscrupulous practices), the task will be to:
3.1 develop a leaner, efficient civil service where the top ranks are compensated at levels commensurate with the private sector.
Next, recruit a more balanced proportion of different Malaysian ethnic groups to achieve in 20 years, by natural attrition through resignations, death and retirements, a civil service that is more representative of the population.
3.2 introduce new codes for political contributions with stiff penalties for violations and possibly a ringgit-for-ringgit system where the government itself subsidises campaign contributions, reducing the impact of powerful lobbyists.
3.3 totally revamp the EC. Appoint a publicly credible chairman who commands public confidence. Appoint a bipartisan committee to liaise with the EC on a nationwide redelineation of constituencies to truly reduce maldistribution and gerrymandering.
3.4 Based on Tan Sri Prof Kamal Salih’s “Malaysia Human Development Report 2013” as commissioned by the United Nations, ask the Economic Planning Unit to design a new uniform development plan based on addressing economic disparity – between rural/urban segments and between states.
This will be the first time that economic planning is not based on race and is actually used as a policy tool that will diminish distrust and resentment between races, (which have been both exacerbated – often through proxies – and capitalised upon by BN).
Clearly, with the dynamic, motivated young and older politicians we see in PKR, DAP and Parti Socialis Rakyat Malaysia, there will be a significant impact on all Malaysians, especially the disadvantaged.
4. How Malays specifically will benefit
As Kadir noted, the Malays constitute 50.2 % and the other Bumiputeras 11.8%, for a total of 62% while the Chinese and Indians form a total of 28.5%, a proportion of approx. 2 Malays to every 1 (Chinese + Indian).
This means an evenly divided constituency will be similarly divided 2:1 in favour of Malays.
4.1 Politically, the Malay representation will overall follow that ratio and the position of Malays is safeguarded, even without BN, as has happened in Penang and Selangor and was noted by Kadir himself.
The more equitable manner of choosing candidates for Parliament and state assemblies, that PKR and DAP have been using, means that Malays will have better chances of seeking political office than today’s money politics allows in Umno and BN.
4.2 As the country’s resources are no longer gobbled up by BN cronies or in sweetheart deals or unfair contracts that short change the government, more money will become available for official development purposes.
Eventually, a smaller, leaner government that “gets more bang for the buck” will benefit all Malaysians by allowing income taxes to be reduced. So the Malays, like the others, will have more take-home pay.
4.3 The constant dinning into Malay minds that “you are weak!”, “you need help!”, “you are backward and inferior!” will die down and halt. This message has had a subconscious effect on the Malay masses, as BN intended, to delude them that only Umno could safeguard their interests. For, if they thought themselves to be strong, fearless people, where would Umno be?
Yet, the 2014 Thompson Reuters inclusion of three Malay professors in Science, Maths and Engineering in the world’s 3,200 most highly cited researchers put the lie on the label that Malays were incapable.
The presence today of hundreds of thousands of Malay lawyers, doctors, engineers, academics, surgeons, architects and many others, also dismisses the myth spun by Umno for decades.
The new government will never repeat such lies and this means the Malays benefit by not being fed such insidious, soul-destroying and humiliating disinformation.
4.4 The new uniform development plan will ensure that money and projects are channelled into deserving areas as identified by independent academics like Salih. The poor Malays in the rural, urban and semi-urban areas of the peninsula will be able to receive benefits based on their identified need as assessed by rational methods that will be explained simply to them.
They will not be political “treats” like BR1M (1Malaysia People’s Aid) and sacks of rice and free chicks dispensed only near elections by overweight MP’s living off the fat of the land.
Instead of a semi-feudalistic system of political patronage, financial and other aid will be dispensed by technocrats and NGOs working closely with the common people like farmers and fishermen.
Conclusion
The above does not represent a comprehensive evaluation, as it looks at only two factors.
But it is enough to demonstrate that there are real advantages accruing to ordinary Malays, as a subset of Malaysians, from a change of government at Putrajaya. The present government is old, tired and waist-deep in corruption.
It is time for them to go, but they cling on desperately and do not want to go.
The distant goal is for a Malaysia where we do not see ourselves as a particular race but as Malaysians first and last.
As we get closer to each other, the Otherness dissipates and we shall get closer to that vision. Many other things will become possible that are quite inconceivable now.
But all that is a promise that beautiful Malaysia holds to all who hold her dear.
She is waiting for us there, just a little out of reach today. –TMI
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