The Civil Rights Committee (CRC) is a subsidiary committee of the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (www.scah.org.my) specially task with the advocacy of civil rights
The prime minister was quoted earlier to have said that the Barisan Nasional has fulfilled its election promises with the unveiling of the 9th Malaysia Plan. Here is a list comparing the BN 2004 Election Manifesto and what has transpired since then.
I urge the prime minister to re-read his own manifesto before making grandiose but fraudulent proclamations.
On corruption and abuse of power, the manifesto said:
· BN will continue the all-out campaign against corruption, without fear or favour.
The reality -
· "Umno does not intend to report the cases to the ACA. We have our own mechanism." - Radzi Ahmad, Umno secretary-general, on money politics in Umno.
On economy, the manifesto said:
· Your opinions and views continue to matter as Barisan Nasional endeavours to implement people centred policies.
The reality -
· "I hope the public will not question the money saved………." - Prime Minister Badawi, March 17, 2006, on the RM4.4 billion saved from fuel subsidies.
On education, the manifesto said:
· Barisan Nasional has worked hard to provide universal access to education. We will……….foster student interaction to enhance national unity.
The reality -
· "I will never allow non-bumis to enter UiTM. I will ensure that the percentage of malay students given places at public universities will always be higher than the percentage under the previous quota system." - then Higher Education Minister Dr Shafie, Umno General Assembly 2004.
On human rights and freedom, the manifesto said:
· Barisan Nasional safeguards the interests of all citizens. We listen to and act on the hopes and aspirations of all groups regardless of age, ethnic, gender, and religion.
The reality -
· "We will not think twice about using this law against anyone who incites - that is why we still need the Sedition Act and ISA (Internal Security Act)." - Nazri Aziz, March 20, 2006.
On parliament and democracy, the manifesto said:
· Barisan Nasional is strongly committed to parliamentary democracy, which gives each citizen a say in the administration of this nation.
The reality -
· "We used the whip (once) so they had to follow, now it is the same………." - Nazri Aziz, Dec 21, 2005, on the forcing of women BN senators to vote for the Islamic Family Law bill.
On religion and culture, the manifesto said:
· BN upholds the diversity of religious practice, language and culture.
The reality -
· "Members of uniformed services, including the police, must abide by the regulations on the wearing of their uniforms." - Badawi, March 27, 2006, on the compulsory wearing of the tudung by non-Muslim policewomen during official functions.
Malaysia is the only country in the world where the constitution itself (no less) says that a particular race has to belong a particular religion. No other country follows this ruling. Not even Arabia (birthplace of Islam) or Indonesia (largest Muslim population).
No matter what the government is doing about the education system and for many years it has put across a system starting with quota and then matriculation and now meritocracy, to me it meant just another dead end that has polarised the malays as outnumbering other races in the value good only in quantity than in quality. The result is unemployment amongst the malays in big numbers.
We have a situation that the government we choose is fulfilling their promises by providing the malays with the privilege regimes, but not the future.
The point is while you provide the platform for the malays to take off and fly high, there is no place for the malays to land, so we have to search for a landing ground and crash-land anywhere we can and hope for the best.
We have a situation now where our politicians are quick to use this as the bullets to shoot back at the malays for failing to make use of the advantages. Just where are the advantages the malays have if only few of us did really make the grade to become peers amongst other races who have not the privileges but have proven themselves at far greater pace?
If the professional malays are good in their command of English, the malays too may one day be employed out of Malaysia and that is a real advantage to say the least.
I have a vision that if our learning medium is English, we can have a true Malaysia legacy of education system without class or strata where the future generation of malays and other races of Malaysia no longer talk about issue of privileges, but working together to generate world class citizens by using and mastering that single language of education.
We have to sacrifice our ideals for the sake of our future Malaysia school going generations.
The malay race is not racing with other races of Malaysians to live in Malaysia. We should build a Malaysian race to race with other nations of the world to achieve the Vision 2020 of one developed nation.
We have the tallest, longest, largest, greatest, grandest, biggest, everything; and now some record breaking events, falling, collapsing, cracking, bursting, break-downing incidents in new buildings. It is only the beginning.
Malays today are nomadic people that originated from the China as well.
The Chinese made their money before the NEP anyway. Before there was no any affirmative action. All the people like Robert Kuok and the rest of them made their money before 1957 when there was no affirmative law.
Probably it is time to take away the cane from the rich malays and give it solely to the poor ones. I am sure the petani and nelayan would appreciate the aid better.
The very reason why Malaysia has not yet to achieve a similar status like Singapore is due to the very reason that we are disputing or arguing on the malay special rights. There is just no unity among races. We manage until now is due to tolerance. And this would not get us very far.
What has become of this nation of our? Is it going to the dogs? To be fair, I don't blame it on the Pak Lah government, this all started some twenty-five years ago during Mahathir era and it has been left to rot. Twenty-two years is a long long time he ruled the country, but did he care to rectify the situation?
Umno were responsible for our Malaysia Malay, Indian and Chinese identities in their divide-and-rule policies. Religious and racial bigotry is the result of a long history of discrimination, lack of political and cultural space, and abuse of power for the non-malay Malaysians.
This tyranny and nonsense has gone on for too long. Malaysians want a transparent, just, corruption-free and clean government that ensures equal rights to all Malaysians, without the current institutionalised racism and blatant discrimination.
The New Economic Policy has degenerated into a subsidy programme and policy, benefiting a handful of Umno members at the expense of the many bumis.
But they came across as smug, hypocritical, conceited humbugs when they lectured the people about the need to be weaned from the subsidy mentality - when they are not prepared to set an example of eradicating such a subsidy mindset in the first place.
Without transparency and accountability, the record of the use of the Petronas hundreds of billions of ringgit to bail out mega-financial scandals like the repeated Bank Bumi rescues, Renong and Malaysian International Shipping Corporation, and to fund mega-projects like Twin Towers, Proton and Formula 1 Circuit - the most spectacular examples of a subsidy mentality and culture - is it any wonder that the people are not convinced by the government case for the hefty hike in fuel prices?
They were elected through the grand subsidy of the politics of money, running into hundreds of millions and even billions of ringgit, totally against the principles of free, fair and clean elections.
Malaysian students are sadly very ignorant of what is happening around them now. When I look at some of my friends in the universities now, the most they care is how can they pass in the exams and even if they are reading the newspaper, most probably they will be reading the sports or entertainment section rather than national or international news. The things that are really affecting them are ignored.
We must educate our young on the true freedom of choice and the responsibility of electing a government that truly upholds and protects the freedom of all Malaysia people through the rule of law and the constitution of Malaysia.
Any government who fails to protect the Malaysia people and the constitution could be removed from government seat.
In Japan people commit hara-kiri if they have erred. Here Malaysia we have half past six ministers pointing fingers at each other. See the big difference? Our ministers here their skin is thicker than Kobe beef.
Chinese schools are open to all students irrespective of their ethnic and religious background - on one condition - the student must be able to cope with the workload.
Compare grade-to-grade, Chinese school students are much more competitive and mature than national school students. They score better in various fields such as IQ, math and science.
Most important, Chinese school students irrespective of their ethnic background are multi-lingual. Apart from their ability to read speak and write major languages such as Chinese, English and Malay - many of them also managed to master a couple Chinese dialects (e.g. Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew, etc) they pickup from their schoolmates. Isn't that wonderful?
In reality, Chinese school leavers are more adapt easily and mentally prepared to globalization.
When I was a student in the US - it is well known that Malaysians and Singaporeans are the most competitive lots among foreign students. Why?
Sharing the same cultural background, we can speak Cantonese to Hong Kongers, speak Hokkien to Taiwanese, speak Mandarin to Chinese Mainlanders, speak English to the Mat Sallehs and other foreigners - and best of all, we speak malay among ourselves so the rest of the foreigners will not understand of our conversation.
While I do not doubt merits of arguments from both sides, one thing is sure, Chinese schools generally produce higher performance students than national schools.
The students from day one are coached and coached to excel in their exams with never ending homework school days and school holidays while the national schools generally are more relaxed.
I think one have misunderstood DJZ. They do recognize the importance of English, but insist that there are better ways to go about it, such as adding an extra class in English or lengthening the existing English lessons or using the English language for the humanities.
During the 1970s, I gave free tuition in English to my high school students (all of whom had a Chinese primary school background), and when they accompanied me to the states, they'd no problems following their courses.
Several were even offered scholarships up to PhD level, although most started work after their basic engineering degree. Like the Koreans and the Taiwanese, their lack of an English background didn't hinder them from becoming successful businessmen or professionals.
One more point: I think the malay schools are also complaining about the problem of using English for math and science. Considering the level of teaching proficiency in those subjects, it would be appear to be more sensible to add more English classes or lengthen the English periods than to use the current system.
They DJZ fear Chinese will be wiped out. If these students are to be proficient in English, they would be top achievers around, knowing Bahasa, Chinese and English unlike the malays who are only proficient in Bahasa with a little English.
As an employer I would opt for the trilingual Chinese to the monolingual malays anytime. I may have to send him to China - the fastest growing giant of today and may be the bread and butter of many Malaysian Chinese.
Note Chinese businessmen from China are now expanding globally and generating communities globally. Don't miss this opportunity.
In a very difficult environment, all Malaysian Chinese must learn to adept and not cocooned with old tradition and pride.
Discrimination in the private sector is everywhere. Even the Chinese businessman who is just starting gets discriminated against more established ones, unless he has a mentor to back him up.
As for career interviews, it is best to get a recommendation first. If I am using my own money, it is my right to choose whom I want - even to the extent of discrimination. Why would I want to hire someone that I cannot have lunch with, work with or converse with?
The BN government on the other hand is discriminating against the non-malays not with the malay money, but with probably the Chinese money as the latter pay the bulk of income tax collected in the country. That we are against.
What is wrong with this country is quite obvious but what most people don't get is what is right with this country.
Malaysia is an incredible fortunate country with abundant natural resources and systems that prevents it from committing worst mistakes than it already has.
From palm-oil, oil and gas, to the British-influenced systems left behind to basically the tolerant nature of all its people and even the fact that Singapore, our cousin down south, is a constant reminder of our place in the world.
Malaysia is fortunate to have these checks to ensure continuous growth throughout these many years.
It is because of these fortunate that shields us from some harsh realities that the country finds it unnecessary accept global and universal realities.
These fortunate still exists and so long as it still exists, there is no impetus to face realities. These fortunate also hold us back to realize our full potential and have cost us incredible opportunities in the past.
Certainly we would have been a developed country by now if not for the NEP.
For the idealist, you have to face it that these fortunate still exists. For example, our government is actually trying to control the deficit despite the political cost. This is most fortunate compared to the bankrupt ways of some other developing countries.
Of course international financial realities is forcing us to control the deficit but those international realities is a result of our past legacy and our circumstance rather than our very own philosophy or believe. In that sense we are fortunate.
So long as we have these fortunate, so long we will postpone the kinds of justice and ideal we talk about in these. We are a nation led by waste and mediocrity. It is a given.
For excellence, it has to be somewhere else for we do not have the strength to make it ours.
While it is normal for an individual to protect their pride even when they know deep down that it is wrong, it is a totally unaccepted behaviour for academics to be in such depth of denial.
I have been thinking for a while as to the reasons for their constant state of denial and came up with three ugly conclusions:
(1) The "tidak apa" behaviour which is a wide spread culture in Malaysia public. While at times it is nice to be living in an easygoing society, such practice has done more damage than good to the society especially in the service, skilled and knowledge-based sectors.
In general, there is a lack of perfectionist behaviour which has led to a less-than-constructive society. No doubt, this has very much hampered the reliability and improvement of the local workforce.
(2) The academics are just incompetent to produce quality research work. They were chosen as academics simply because of their political link, or the fact that local public universities just favour bumis.
As pointed, government-linked companies are usually managed by people with political connections and not based on their expertise and competencies.
(3) Many of the academics are also lacking in professionalism. Very few of them, if any, could take criticism in a constructive manner.
This resulted in an over-protective behaviour shown - for example in the way they handled public criticism in their drastic drop in university rankings.
Like I have in the past couple of years tried to point out these issues to the general public, which unfortunately was not taken very seriously.
Many times they just fall onto deaf ears. Even when there are people who agree with it, they usually lack the courage to come out of their comfort zone and make a strong stance on such critical issues.
Racism is an excellent political tool. We have had one of the best examples set by Hitler. He blamed on the fall of Germany economy and everything on the Jewish people, and that ended up with the lost of so many innocent lives.
In order to survive politically, you have to allow them to use the race card. Yes, Umno did it.
I think Mahathir has been one of the key players. Converting the English medium into malay medium and then found that it did not work well, and finally decided to convert it back into English medium.
When Mahathir sat at the top as the leader of the country, he realized that it was not the right way to govern the country in that way. Now Abdullah must be feeling the same.
How much was there suffer of our education system? The politicians in Malaysia never take responsibility and they don't even apologize to the people for the mess created.
As you can see, within malay communities, only a small fraction of the people gained wealth while majority were the same as before who made very little progress.
Lately, I have travelled to Australia and Canada where I met quite a number of former Malaysians. In the course of conversation the topic of migration inevitably cropped up. Hence the question, why migrate?
Practically everyone gave almost the same answer - fair treatment by the government of their adopted country. No discrimination in education intake. No special colleges for any race. All their children sit for the same exam. No such thing as one race monopolizing the government jobs. The list goes on and on.
Look at our civil servants, how many are non-malays? All the comments that there are not many non-malay applicants are nonsense. A number of my non-malay classmates applied but none was successful.
Just look at the government offices and schools. They are virtually staffed by only one race. This is not healthy.
Special rights? Look at the level of service we get at public sector and that is special service for you. The best of the best gets slighted and what do we have left?
To improve the malays lot, more have to be made to work in private companies where competition is real and what counts is your ability. If special rights only help malays to become government servants, then all the more reason not to invoke special rights.
10 comments:
The prime minister was quoted earlier to have said that the Barisan Nasional has fulfilled its election promises with the unveiling of the 9th Malaysia Plan. Here is a list comparing the BN 2004 Election Manifesto and what has transpired since then.
I urge the prime minister to re-read his own manifesto before making grandiose but fraudulent proclamations.
On corruption and abuse of power, the manifesto said:
· BN will continue the all-out campaign against corruption, without fear or favour.
The reality -
· "Umno does not intend to report the cases to the ACA. We have our own mechanism." - Radzi Ahmad, Umno secretary-general, on money politics in Umno.
On economy, the manifesto said:
· Your opinions and views continue to matter as Barisan Nasional endeavours to implement people centred policies.
The reality -
· "I hope the public will not question the money saved………." - Prime Minister Badawi, March 17, 2006, on the RM4.4 billion saved from fuel subsidies.
On education, the manifesto said:
· Barisan Nasional has worked hard to provide universal access to education. We will……….foster student interaction to enhance national unity.
The reality -
· "I will never allow non-bumis to enter UiTM. I will ensure that the percentage of malay students given places at public universities will always be higher than the percentage under the previous quota system." - then Higher Education Minister Dr Shafie, Umno General Assembly 2004.
On human rights and freedom, the manifesto said:
· Barisan Nasional safeguards the interests of all citizens. We listen to and act on the hopes and aspirations of all groups regardless of age, ethnic, gender, and religion.
The reality -
· "We will not think twice about using this law against anyone who incites - that is why we still need the Sedition Act and ISA (Internal Security Act)." - Nazri Aziz, March 20, 2006.
On parliament and democracy, the manifesto said:
· Barisan Nasional is strongly committed to parliamentary democracy, which gives each citizen a say in the administration of this nation.
The reality -
· "We used the whip (once) so they had to follow, now it is the same………." - Nazri Aziz, Dec 21, 2005, on the forcing of women BN senators to vote for the Islamic Family Law bill.
On religion and culture, the manifesto said:
· BN upholds the diversity of religious practice, language and culture.
The reality -
· "Members of uniformed services, including the police, must abide by the regulations on the wearing of their uniforms." - Badawi, March 27, 2006, on the compulsory wearing of the tudung by non-Muslim policewomen during official functions.
Malaysia is the only country in the world where the constitution itself (no less) says that a particular race has to belong a particular religion. No other country follows this ruling. Not even Arabia (birthplace of Islam) or Indonesia (largest Muslim population).
Truth hurts.
No matter what the government is doing about the education system and for many years it has put across a system starting with quota and then matriculation and now meritocracy, to me it meant just another dead end that has polarised the malays as outnumbering other races in the value good only in quantity than in quality. The result is unemployment amongst the malays in big numbers.
We have a situation that the government we choose is fulfilling their promises by providing the malays with the privilege regimes, but not the future.
The point is while you provide the platform for the malays to take off and fly high, there is no place for the malays to land, so we have to search for a landing ground and crash-land anywhere we can and hope for the best.
We have a situation now where our politicians are quick to use this as the bullets to shoot back at the malays for failing to make use of the advantages. Just where are the advantages the malays have if only few of us did really make the grade to become peers amongst other races who have not the privileges but have proven themselves at far greater pace?
If the professional malays are good in their command of English, the malays too may one day be employed out of Malaysia and that is a real advantage to say the least.
I have a vision that if our learning medium is English, we can have a true Malaysia legacy of education system without class or strata where the future generation of malays and other races of Malaysia no longer talk about issue of privileges, but working together to generate world class citizens by using and mastering that single language of education.
We have to sacrifice our ideals for the sake of our future Malaysia school going generations.
The malay race is not racing with other races of Malaysians to live in Malaysia. We should build a Malaysian race to race with other nations of the world to achieve the Vision 2020 of one developed nation.
We have the tallest, longest, largest, greatest, grandest, biggest, everything; and now some record breaking events, falling, collapsing, cracking, bursting, break-downing incidents in new buildings. It is only the beginning.
Malays today are nomadic people that originated from the China as well.
The Chinese made their money before the NEP anyway. Before there was no any affirmative action. All the people like Robert Kuok and the rest of them made their money before 1957 when there was no affirmative law.
Probably it is time to take away the cane from the rich malays and give it solely to the poor ones. I am sure the petani and nelayan would appreciate the aid better.
The very reason why Malaysia has not yet to achieve a similar status like Singapore is due to the very reason that we are disputing or arguing on the malay special rights. There is just no unity among races. We manage until now is due to tolerance. And this would not get us very far.
What has become of this nation of our? Is it going to the dogs? To be fair, I don't blame it on the Pak Lah government, this all started some twenty-five years ago during Mahathir era and it has been left to rot. Twenty-two years is a long long time he ruled the country, but did he care to rectify the situation?
Umno were responsible for our Malaysia Malay, Indian and Chinese identities in their divide-and-rule policies. Religious and racial bigotry is the result of a long history of discrimination, lack of political and cultural space, and abuse of power for the non-malay Malaysians.
This tyranny and nonsense has gone on for too long. Malaysians want a transparent, just, corruption-free and clean government that ensures equal rights to all Malaysians, without the current institutionalised racism and blatant discrimination.
The New Economic Policy has degenerated into a subsidy programme and policy, benefiting a handful of Umno members at the expense of the many bumis.
But they came across as smug, hypocritical, conceited humbugs when they lectured the people about the need to be weaned from the subsidy mentality - when they are not prepared to set an example of eradicating such a subsidy mindset in the first place.
Without transparency and accountability, the record of the use of the Petronas hundreds of billions of ringgit to bail out mega-financial scandals like the repeated Bank Bumi rescues, Renong and Malaysian International Shipping Corporation, and to fund mega-projects like Twin Towers, Proton and Formula 1 Circuit - the most spectacular examples of a subsidy mentality and culture - is it any wonder that the people are not convinced by the government case for the hefty hike in fuel prices?
They were elected through the grand subsidy of the politics of money, running into hundreds of millions and even billions of ringgit, totally against the principles of free, fair and clean elections.
Malaysian students are sadly very ignorant of what is happening around them now. When I look at some of my friends in the universities now, the most they care is how can they pass in the exams and even if they are reading the newspaper, most probably they will be reading the sports or entertainment section rather than national or international news. The things that are really affecting them are ignored.
We must educate our young on the true freedom of choice and the responsibility of electing a government that truly upholds and protects the freedom of all Malaysia people through the rule of law and the constitution of Malaysia.
Any government who fails to protect the Malaysia people and the constitution could be removed from government seat.
In Japan people commit hara-kiri if they have erred. Here Malaysia we have half past six ministers pointing fingers at each other. See the big difference? Our ministers here their skin is thicker than Kobe beef.
Chinese schools are open to all students irrespective of their ethnic and religious background - on one condition - the student must be able to cope with the workload.
Compare grade-to-grade, Chinese school students are much more competitive and mature than national school students. They score better in various fields such as IQ, math and science.
Most important, Chinese school students irrespective of their ethnic background are multi-lingual. Apart from their ability to read speak and write major languages such as Chinese, English and Malay - many of them also managed to master a couple Chinese dialects (e.g. Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew, etc) they pickup from their schoolmates. Isn't that wonderful?
In reality, Chinese school leavers are more adapt easily and mentally prepared to globalization.
When I was a student in the US - it is well known that Malaysians and Singaporeans are the most competitive lots among foreign students. Why?
Sharing the same cultural background, we can speak Cantonese to Hong Kongers, speak Hokkien to Taiwanese, speak Mandarin to Chinese Mainlanders, speak English to the Mat Sallehs and other foreigners - and best of all, we speak malay among ourselves so the rest of the foreigners will not understand of our conversation.
While I do not doubt merits of arguments from both sides, one thing is sure, Chinese schools generally produce higher performance students than national schools.
The students from day one are coached and coached to excel in their exams with never ending homework school days and school holidays while the national schools generally are more relaxed.
I think one have misunderstood DJZ. They do recognize the importance of English, but insist that there are better ways to go about it, such as adding an extra class in English or lengthening the existing English lessons or using the English language for the humanities.
During the 1970s, I gave free tuition in English to my high school students (all of whom had a Chinese primary school background), and when they accompanied me to the states, they'd no problems following their courses.
Several were even offered scholarships up to PhD level, although most started work after their basic engineering degree. Like the Koreans and the Taiwanese, their lack of an English background didn't hinder them from becoming successful businessmen or professionals.
One more point: I think the malay schools are also complaining about the problem of using English for math and science. Considering the level of teaching proficiency in those subjects, it would be appear to be more sensible to add more English classes or lengthen the English periods than to use the current system.
They DJZ fear Chinese will be wiped out. If these students are to be proficient in English, they would be top achievers around, knowing Bahasa, Chinese and English unlike the malays who are only proficient in Bahasa with a little English.
As an employer I would opt for the trilingual Chinese to the monolingual malays anytime. I may have to send him to China - the fastest growing giant of today and may be the bread and butter of many Malaysian Chinese.
Note Chinese businessmen from China are now expanding globally and generating communities globally. Don't miss this opportunity.
In a very difficult environment, all Malaysian Chinese must learn to adept and not cocooned with old tradition and pride.
Discrimination in the private sector is everywhere. Even the Chinese businessman who is just starting gets discriminated against more established ones, unless he has a mentor to back him up.
As for career interviews, it is best to get a recommendation first. If I am using my own money, it is my right to choose whom I want - even to the extent of discrimination. Why would I want to hire someone that I cannot have lunch with, work with or converse with?
The BN government on the other hand is discriminating against the non-malays not with the malay money, but with probably the Chinese money as the latter pay the bulk of income tax collected in the country. That we are against.
What is wrong with this country is quite obvious but what most people don't get is what is right with this country.
Malaysia is an incredible fortunate country with abundant natural resources and systems that prevents it from committing worst mistakes than it already has.
From palm-oil, oil and gas, to the British-influenced systems left behind to basically the tolerant nature of all its people and even the fact that Singapore, our cousin down south, is a constant reminder of our place in the world.
Malaysia is fortunate to have these checks to ensure continuous growth throughout these many years.
It is because of these fortunate that shields us from some harsh realities that the country finds it unnecessary accept global and universal realities.
These fortunate still exists and so long as it still exists, there is no impetus to face realities. These fortunate also hold us back to realize our full potential and have cost us incredible opportunities in the past.
Certainly we would have been a developed country by now if not for the NEP.
For the idealist, you have to face it that these fortunate still exists. For example, our government is actually trying to control the deficit despite the political cost. This is most fortunate compared to the bankrupt ways of some other developing countries.
Of course international financial realities is forcing us to control the deficit but those international realities is a result of our past legacy and our circumstance rather than our very own philosophy or believe. In that sense we are fortunate.
So long as we have these fortunate, so long we will postpone the kinds of justice and ideal we talk about in these. We are a nation led by waste and mediocrity. It is a given.
For excellence, it has to be somewhere else for we do not have the strength to make it ours.
While it is normal for an individual to protect their pride even when they know deep down that it is wrong, it is a totally unaccepted behaviour for academics to be in such depth of denial.
I have been thinking for a while as to the reasons for their constant state of denial and came up with three ugly conclusions:
(1) The "tidak apa" behaviour which is a wide spread culture in Malaysia public. While at times it is nice to be living in an easygoing society, such practice has done more damage than good to the society especially in the service, skilled and knowledge-based sectors.
In general, there is a lack of perfectionist behaviour which has led to a less-than-constructive society. No doubt, this has very much hampered the reliability and improvement of the local workforce.
(2) The academics are just incompetent to produce quality research work. They were chosen as academics simply because of their political link, or the fact that local public universities just favour bumis.
As pointed, government-linked companies are usually managed by people with political connections and not based on their expertise and competencies.
(3) Many of the academics are also lacking in professionalism. Very few of them, if any, could take criticism in a constructive manner.
This resulted in an over-protective behaviour shown - for example in the way they handled public criticism in their drastic drop in university rankings.
Like I have in the past couple of years tried to point out these issues to the general public, which unfortunately was not taken very seriously.
Many times they just fall onto deaf ears. Even when there are people who agree with it, they usually lack the courage to come out of their comfort zone and make a strong stance on such critical issues.
Racism is an excellent political tool. We have had one of the best examples set by Hitler. He blamed on the fall of Germany economy and everything on the Jewish people, and that ended up with the lost of so many innocent lives.
In order to survive politically, you have to allow them to use the race card. Yes, Umno did it.
I think Mahathir has been one of the key players. Converting the English medium into malay medium and then found that it did not work well, and finally decided to convert it back into English medium.
When Mahathir sat at the top as the leader of the country, he realized that it was not the right way to govern the country in that way. Now Abdullah must be feeling the same.
How much was there suffer of our education system? The politicians in Malaysia never take responsibility and they don't even apologize to the people for the mess created.
As you can see, within malay communities, only a small fraction of the people gained wealth while majority were the same as before who made very little progress.
Sad day indeed……….
Lately, I have travelled to Australia and Canada where I met quite a number of former Malaysians. In the course of conversation the topic of migration inevitably cropped up. Hence the question, why migrate?
Practically everyone gave almost the same answer - fair treatment by the government of their adopted country. No discrimination in education intake. No special colleges for any race. All their children sit for the same exam. No such thing as one race monopolizing the government jobs. The list goes on and on.
Look at our civil servants, how many are non-malays? All the comments that there are not many non-malay applicants are nonsense. A number of my non-malay classmates applied but none was successful.
Just look at the government offices and schools. They are virtually staffed by only one race. This is not healthy.
Special rights? Look at the level of service we get at public sector and that is special service for you. The best of the best gets slighted and what do we have left?
To improve the malays lot, more have to be made to work in private companies where competition is real and what counts is your ability. If special rights only help malays to become government servants, then all the more reason not to invoke special rights.
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