Special rights: nothing to be proud of

 

The reasons why efforts to uplift the economic power of the Bumiputeras didn’t achieve their goals are many, but the main one is because they’re chasing after the wrong goal, whether by design or mistake.

The fundamental goal of any race-based affirmative action programme must be this – to get to where that race no longer needs affirmative action “crutches”.

Success is throwing away the crutches. Then, crutches can become needs-based, going to those who need them the most, regardless of race.

Consider this: if you’re injured and have trouble walking, it’s fair to use crutches to help you walk. They’ll help you up to a point at which they’d no longer be needed.

If we end up needing crutches forever, we’d have what insurance policies call a “permanent disability”. It’s as bad as it sounds, and nobody should want to be that.

Crutches in the form of the various affirmative actions, such as quotas, subsidies and special privileges, are addictive “drugs” and easily make us “khayal” (or high), just like any other addictive substance.

Crutches are also an acknowledgement of our weakness. If you accept quotas, you’re also accepting you cannot make it without them. If you accept a 7% discount on a house price, it means you accept that you’re 7% less able than those paying full price. A scholarship you don’t deserve means others must be handicapped for you to be competitive with them.

Obviously because of history, the Bumiputeras needed these “advantages” to get them up to speed economically. Otherwise, an economy that remains lopsided is asking for trouble and a repeat of the tragedies of 1969.

The point of the affirmative action programme, however, is to create a level playing field, so that the Bumiputeras don’t have to start behind the starting line. We want to, as an old Malay saying goes, Berdiri sama tinggi, duduk sama rendah, meaning we’d be at the same level as anybody else whether sitting or standing.

This is the equality we should be aiming for with affirmative action – not to be lower than others because of our history, nor higher than anybody else just because we have crutches propping us up.

Affirmative actions are not meant to speed us past everybody else through our special “rights”. Whilst that may satisfy the fragile, insecure egos of many, in reality we haven’t achieved anything useful, and likely have even gone backwards – the eldest son living well off, and happily squandering, the family wealth.

This reminds me of another Malay term, of much more recent vintage – Berdikari, a contraction of the words Berdiri di atas Kaki Sendiri, or standing on your own two feet.

This term was popular when I was growing up – just as Malaysia Madani is popular today, albeit without the baggage and controversy.

I grew up poor, though there were plenty of people like me back then. But I was lucky to have parents who, even if they were semi-literate at best, were fiercely proud and independent.

They were not too proud to accept help, but they were always grateful and humble when receiving such help, and never lost sight that the ultimate goal was to stop needing to be helped, and in return to help others instead. That’s what Berdikari means.

About the Bumiputeras’ special rights enshrined in the Federal Constitution, we know these special rights were part of the deal for the creation of Malaysia, in return for the Malays agreeing to allow the migrant population then to become citizens.

There is a term much in use lately – terra nullius. It means essentially “nobody’s land”, and refers to a common justification by the earlier colonising powers of the west, and in the latest context Israel (and the same old colonising power from the west it seems), to justify taking the lands of others as their own.

Such was the justification used to colonise Australia and New Zealand, and North and South America amongst others, by ignoring the Native Americans, the Australian Aborigines,  New Zealand’s Maoris, not to mention the Aztecs, and the Mayas, and the Incas, amongst others.

Those lands were never “nobody’s lands”, even if the natives of such lands weren’t considered “anybody’ by the colonising settlers.

It’s even more true with the original lands of what is now Malaysia. They’d been settled for centuries, well before the colonial powers came and brought in the migrant population.

These constitutional “special rights” are, by and large, not controversial provisions, and are accepted by most pragmatic Malaysians as something we can live with.

But remember, had the Bumiputeras been a confident, secure people back then, we wouldn’t have needed such special provisions. We would’ve just one constitution that applies equally to all.

So having such special rights isn’t something to be proud of. If we, Malays, are more secure and confident, we’d be able to say that with or without special provisions we’d still be OK.

Having Islam as the official religion doesn’t make it “special”. Islam doesn’t need some words on paper – English words some more – to make it “special”. Neither does that automatically make Malaysian Muslims better than other people.

A true Muslim wouldn’t even be bothered by any such provisions. They make good politics, but if that is what it takes for us to be good Muslims, then it also means we cannot be good Muslims in any other nation where there are no such constitutional provisions.

These realisations should be the starting point of our journey. But instead, as I’ve heard from a foreigner friend, we’re the only country on earth where the majority gives itself the rights and privileges of the minority – the quotas and privileges that elsewhere apply to the untouchables or the dispossessed.

Politics obviously framed the picture we have today, but politics won’t help us get to where we need to go, and likely will just dig a deeper hole for ourselves.

A Malay intellectual said recently we shouldn’t be apologising for all these affirmative actions – the quotas and the subsidies and the special privileges that we have been enjoying. And many others seem to feel because we are 70% of the population, we should get 70% of everything.

Well, unfortunately unless we take a hard look at ourselves and accept the hard truth that after 50 plus years of spending the nation’s money without achieving what our fathers back then thought we should’ve achieved by 1990, we’ll never be able to fix our problems.

Another Malay leader, a politician this time, said that whilst we don’t have many rich businessmen, we have many rich politicians. That is unfortunately true, and it shows where exactly the wealth that had been spent in the name of helping the Bumiputeras had gone to, and hence why we are still not resilient or self-sufficient.

Unless we accept this, no number of Bumiputera Economic Congresses will ever get us out of this hole. The addiction to subsidies and quotas and privileges will just become worse, and the only pride we could ever feel is in watching the incredible wealth of our politicians.

It’s been said if you don’t know where you’re heading, no wind is the right wind. So, unless we’re very clear about what the goal of the affirmative actions must be, we’d just be running around buffeted by strong winds and scared out of our minds about where we could be heading. - FMT

TO BE CONTINUED…

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