Why would talent return to Malaysia?

 

"These 'fighters' were nowhere to be seen when the Islamo-fascists took over the country. They did nothing to stop the Arabisation programme which stifled democracy, where even the most basic personal freedoms are taken away."

– Former law minister Zaid Ibrahim

Former Member of Parliament Ong Kian Ming wrote a good solid piece about empowering TalentCorp and not shutting it down - but the problem with it, its only problem actually - is that it is a piece about a reformed Malaysia, or at least about an imagined Malaysia led by a government committed to reforms.

Not this rickety ship piloted by desperadoes fighting among themselves with theocrats nipping at their heels.

The reason why I chose to open this piece with the out-of-favour Zaid Ibrahim is because seven years ago he wrote a piece which neatly encapsulates why not only young Malays should leave this country but demonstrated articulately what crude majoritarianism was doing to the dominant polity.

There is a great passage in the piece - “There are many things the Malays can learn by migrating. They need to realise that being in the majority and being able to impose their will, as they like, do not always bring tangible benefits. As migrants, they then realise what it is like to be a minority. They have to, by necessity, become part of a larger community. They need to know the meaning of consensus and try to live like other minorities” - which neatly captures why talent leaves this county.

See, I do not for one minute think people leave this country because of the corruption. People leave this country – mind you I am not only talking about the non-Malays – because they fear the rise of theocracy. Let me just refine that a bit.

Talent (and I am talking about the cogs in the system, which means everyone from doctors to welders) leave because they understand that the pushback to these religious extremists over the decades has become more muted, although social media makes it seem very vocal.

People are missing the bigger point about what Permatang Pauh MP Muhammad Fawwaz Mohamad Jan did over the weekend when he stomped into a mall demanding that “Muslim sensitivities” be observed by a private enterprise.

Permatang Pauh MP Muhammad Fawwaz Mohamad Jan at the mall

What really agitates people, what makes them want to leave this country, is that they see how the management of the mall responded to this provocation. In other words, continued appeasement leads to a kind of hopelessness.

Instead of reminding this PAS political operative that the mall is for all Malaysians with diverse tastes (pardon the pun) and while they understood his position, they would not concede to his demands because it interfered with not only their constitutional rights but more importantly, their economic rights.

And this is the key. As the years roll on, sticking up for your rights is becoming more onerous. What the youth vote demonstrates is that young people who vote, especially Muslims, have no desire for any kind of consensus building.

This is the point that Zaid was making when he said that the most important lesson migrating Malays would get from living as a minority was consensus building.

Racial and religious bigotry

Furthermore, this is exactly what makes talent leave this country. Over the decades, the consensus has become appeasement and nobody wants to live in a country where the appeasement of racists and religious extremists not only endangers your rights as a citizen, but also makes you complicit in a system in which you really have no say.

I mentioned cogs earlier in the piece. I know more Malaysian Indian marine welders working in Singapore and Vietnam than I do working in the local dockyards.

They didn’t leave this country because they hated this country. They left this country because they understood that they could not fight the system of racial and religious bigotry which was impeding their ability to exercise their economic rights.

Despite leaving this country they love this country. They want to come back here and retire like their parents, but they understand that their children need to be protected from what is coming.

If you want people to stay and fight for their rights, you must be able to demonstrate that staying and fighting is something that is worthwhile. We are not yet at the stage where you can point to incremental changes and say that this is progress.

We are a developed country with narratives that are evidence that religious and racial plurality is something we had, but lost like many Islamic state narratives in countries all over the Middle East.

Do not for one minute think that just because you are living in an urban bubble your safe spaces are immune from the transgression of Islamic extremists. What you consider safe spaces is, in reality, a boxing-in strategy of extremists interested in playing the long game.

The problem is that this goal of saving Malaysia from a kleptocracy does not deal with the real issue of Islamic extremism and ketuanan politics.

People do not leave their homelands because they have corrupt politicians. People leave their homelands because of religious and racial extremism.

Malaysia has not reached that stage where our lives are at risk. However, this does not mean that we should be foolish enough to believe that this will not happen.

Now, of course, I know what some people would argue. They would say we have to understand the issues at play here and not “provoke” and just bend heads down, and move on, until the next time when religious political operatives demand that coffee shops, bars and other public spaces be free of alcohol because Muslim sensitivities would be affected.

Malaysia is a wonderful place to live in. We are lucky enough to have a confluence of cultures situated on a piece of land that is fertile and an ecosystem which has always been nurturing.

There is a reason why some folks called this the “Blessed Land”. But the system is pissing it all away, contorting the cultures in a toxic brew of racism and religiosity. And it is only getting worse.

Why would anyone return to this? - Mkini

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.