Bumis are our own enemy, but the problems are fixable

Given there’ll be Bumiputera Economic Congresses forever, and given I’ve offered it a (rather inconvenient) goal, where do we go from here?

Our focus must be on making the Bumiputeras strong, resilient and self-sufficient. This necessarily means an end to quotas, subsidies and discounts (and perhaps Bumiputera Economic Congresses, too) in our future.

Here’s what we should be focusing on first – education.

Much of what passes for education today is merely training, whether on TVET subjects – making and fixing things – all the way up to the professions – designing buildings or arguing cases in courts or keeping accounts or curing sick people.

All well and good, except training is only one part of education. And unfortunately, much of that training is also politicised and mediocre, focused on producing numbers rather than quality.

I spent decades in corporate careers looking at the quality of talent that our educational system produced. I found that whilst our best is as good as any, our average is poor, and sadly deteriorating.

That’s what indicators such as PISA scores – comparisons of national educational standards averages – continually show. Whilst we can always crow about a handful of students accepted by Cambridge or Harvard, these are outliers and have little impact on the country as a whole.

The current output of our education system will never be able to support our national economic aspirations both quantity- and quality-wise. This will mean importing even more foreign labour, exacerbating what’s already a big societal problem.

Whilst training prepares you for employment, education prepares you to become a good citizen and human being. You need both obviously, but whilst we have training in spades – albeit of a rather questionable quality – we lack quality education.

Our young need to be well grounded in STEM (science, technology, engineering mathematics) to contribute to our development and economy and make a good living for themselves along the way. STEM also helps to build critical thinking.

But they must also understand history – stories of the world back then, so we can better understand the world of today. We cannot shy away from confronting inconvenient facts or else we’d risk repeating history.

Such education must also include moral and civic education, so our young would understand how a democracy works and know what their rights and obligations are. This is especially important in today’s confusing and menacing world.

The religious curriculum nowadays doesn’t teach us that. It rather teaches rote learning and memorisation, and is more of a tool to build obedience to powers on earth rather than to God.

It conditions us to be docile and unquestioning. It fails in making others look at us with respect and admiration and as shining examples to be emulated. It conveniently settles for making the “others” fear us instead.

But that’s a story for another day.

A close family member who went to a Chinese school studied the Malaysian syllabus in the morning, and the Singaporean syllabus in the afternoon. Debates about the relative quality of the two syllabi aside, this focus on hard work really builds resilience in young people early. This is sorely missing from the national curriculum.

So, focus on building more of these – STEM subjects to build literacy and numeracy, communication and problem solving skills (especially in English and other foreign languages) to enhance employability, and moral and civic responsibilities to build good citizens, wrapped up in a challenging environment that builds competitiveness and psychological stamina.

And less hours on religious studies that have been proven not capable to produce good Muslims – see where we stand on various corruption indices – but instead produce docility and subservience and herd-mentality instead.

Parents must instead understand that they must be the primary drivers of ensuring their children are properly taught on what it takes to be a good Muslim. Islam isn’t so hard and confusing that only “experts” can understand and teach it.

Next – health.

The Bumiputeras are some of the unhealthiest people in Malaysia. This is not surprising as health generally tracks economic status – the poorer you are the unhealthier you tend to be too.

An easy start is to discourage large families. Get over the fear of being overwhelmed by the “Nons”, meaning the non-bumiputeras. Check out the population trends since independence – whilst the number of bumiputeras have increased (70% now!), the number of non-bumiputeras have decreased.

Again, it’s an issue of quality versus quantity. Having a large family that you can’t provide for adequately without massive government subsidies and handouts, and then excusing yourself by saying they’re God’s blessing is utterly and absolutely irresponsible.

Bumiputeras must take responsibility for their own physical wellbeing. They must hear from respected voices that health is truly wealth. They must understand at some point that cheap government healthcare may not be so cheap anymore, and hence not take it for granted.

Obviously this is something that is also tied up to a robust and discerning education system. The smaller, more educated and more competitive a family is, the healthier and more sustainable it is too.

It must be recognised that those calling for bigger families are purely parasites preying on the only “wealth” most bumiputeras have – their votes at the ballot boxes.

It’s to these people’s advantage that there be as many bumiputeras as possible to ensure their political hegemony, and that these bumiputeras must feel needy and insecure and hence in need of “protection” from these racial and political “heroes”.

It’s a long-standing curse on the Bumiputeras, but one we must exorcise quickly and totally.

Next – focus on the family unit

Most bumiputeras don’t think enough about the challenges of raising a family in these increasingly difficult times. Again, the fact that many only get by through massive public subsidies – on education, health and public sector jobs – must be identified as a core weakness that can only hurt the bumiputeras.

Apart from smaller, healthier and better educated families, we must create opportunities for families to stay close together, rather than break them up because of the need to migrate to the urban centres.

Otherwise, this is where the earlier weaknesses, brought about by poor education and health, almost guarantee that many will suffer poverty and succumb to its attendant evils – drug addiction, crime and social disorders.

Even if they don’t, they will be easily led and manipulated by unscrupulous political, social and religious leaders, something that we have seen happen over the years.

Solutions to these require more development in the rural areas, especially in the agricultural sector, that will allow families there to have a good living. That may require large subsidies and investments, but which country in the world doesn’t do that? Ask the Japanese and Europeans, and even the Americans.

It will also help us towards other strategic goals, such as food security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Given that there are many Bumiputeras in the rural areas already in the agricultural sector, any success here would really help them.

None of these is easy, but they are not impossible either. We just need the political will to make this happen. We already have the resources to achieve them – we just need to put them front and centre as critical strategies to help the Bumiputeras.

Where it won’t be easy is that there’ll be huge pushbacks from the so-called leaders of the Bumiputeras, for whom a continually weak (but large, and growing) Bumiputera population that is insecure and frightened of the future is literally money in the bank for them.

As a famous quote says, we have met the enemy and he is us. Whilst it’s nice to point fingers everywhere, we’ll never fix our problems unless we accept our part in them.

As it stands though, expect to have more Bumiputera Economic Congress ad infinitum. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.