What have we created?

While the New Economic Policy (NEP) and other policies were developed to help the underprivileged bumiputra specifically, the implementation has failed to produce a race that is competitive and independent.

Instead, during the economic boom, we saw the emergence of bumiputra businessmen who were successful. Today, most of them have disappeared from the corporate world.

And there are still the poor from all communities with us. Apart from that we see there is an overdependence on government assistance especially amongst the Malays that have created a brand of Malays who who refuse to work hard. After all, should the Tuan work?

While the more educated Malays would say that if you are a boss, you have to work harder, there are unfortunately many young people who would rather waste their lives away as Mat Rempits and remain unemployed.

It has been proven in other societies that social welfare benefits can destroy an entire generation. Years ago, I remember in Australia, the young people preferred to live on unemployment benefits which they called the ‘dole’; after all, why work when you can be collecting more money from the government’s coffers by simply being unemployed?

A young 16-year-old whom I had chatted with over citizen band radio in those days told me that he had just bought an old jalopy for a couple of thousand Aussie dollars using his dole money. When I asked him out for a drink, he admitted to me: “I don’t have a licence yet!”

It is no wonder that although the 1Malaysia slogan has been dropped since the last general election, Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) is still popular.

Unemployment rate

The unemployment rate among fresh Malay graduates is understandably high. It is not because the private sector is unwilling to hire them, but their lack of command in English is the biggest stumbling block.

I remember when I was hiring staff, for want of a balanced team, a hardworking Malay employee with a good command of English was always a gem to us.

Someone like Rafizi Ramli would be hard to come by. Intelligent and eloquent in both Bahasa Malaysia and English, he would be a great asset to the organisation which hires him.

This is what most of us as fellow Malaysian citizens in this country want to see in our Malay brothers and sisters. We want them to feel competent enough to take on the world. While we go away for long holidays during the Chinese New Year, for example, we want to be able to say, “Thaera, the whole department is in your good care!”

We want to be assured that when an enquiry comes in from someone who only speaks English, Thaera is able to handle the enquiry well in English. When we return, we only hear a report, “There was an enquiry from Mr Thatcher from UK. I have answered all his questions.”

Sadly, this is not always the case with fresh graduates, whose 15 years of education has only been using one medium of instruction. Some applicants could hardly even write a proper letter of introduction in English.

The voices of the nationalists

I remember in the seventies and eighties, we were being bombarded with the voices of the nationalists who tried to boost the usage of Bahasa Malaysia as the national language.

In many ways, the push for a national language was good, but it should never supersede any other languages, including the mother tongues of other communities.

I am in fact quite surprised to read a recent urging by none other than the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) board of governors chairperson Prof Dr Md Salleh Yaapar, who urged the government “to find the best mechanism to improve English language proficiency among school and university students, without compromising the status of Malay as the national language.”

I fully agree with Prof Md Salleh’s views. This is the only way to move forward if Malaysia wants to remain competitive in an increasingly globalised economy.

In fact, we need more than two languages. For this reason, I encourage my children to learn all three languages including their mother tongue. With Mandarin, they will be able to enjoy better trade relations with China, which is becoming a world superpower.

My recommendations to Malays

For Malaysia to become an advanced nation, we need every citizen to be competitive. This is not so much about competing and ‘killing’ one another, but working hand-in-hand to capture a bigger economic pie out there.

Instead of feeling inferior or superior to other races, it is time for the Malays to adopt what I have always believed in - that we are created equal in the eyes of God.

With that perspective, I was able to interact with the whites Down Under without feeling ‘inferior’ as an Asian, and at the same time, interact with my fellow Malaysians without feeling superior. Even till today, I interact freely with people of different social standing without feeling inferior or superior to them.

During that period, I could tell a Kiwi from Australia that, if he were a football, I would kick him back to Australia, yet we did not display animosity to each other. When he returned to Malaysia, I was the first one he came to visit because, in his own words, I was the only one he respected in the entire organisation!

Give up the idea of ketuanan Melayu, because this is the spirit of arrogance that refuses to put the hands to the plough or listen to the people who may be better off than ourselves. If you believe that Islam exalts humility, then Malay supremacy (or Chinese supremacy) simply does not exist.

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STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008. -Mkini