One day, my children will stumble onto this

The following article was extracted from romerz.blogspot.com. As my work kept me busy most of the day, whatever left in the evening after family precious time and the abundance of news to be read in the websites and blogs, was enough to fill my time. In due time, I will start posting my own writings and views to share with all.

With all that is happening right now, I want my children to grow up one day to be able to look at all the articles and sentiments our country had gone thru. This blog will be one of the contribution to their future and to learn from history and to reflect back and understand on all decisions my wife and myself made for them.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

The root of all evils

A few days ago over a cup of coffee with an old bumiputera friend of mine from school, he lamented that these days there seem to be less mixing of the different races amongst the youth of today. He compared it to the time when we were teenagers in school and our group of friends were represented by every race and religion. He wondered what had happened from then to now?

I offered this theory that a lot of it had to do with the National Economic Policy (NEP) which was started in 1971. This ambitious program to re-engineer the socio-economic status of Malaysian society based on race had over time been used to reduce the non-Malays to the status of second class citizens through successive government's invoking of it as part of the Malay Agenda, which is in turn part of the Malaysian social contract granting Malays special rights in return for citizenship for non-Malays.

He then pointed out that the NEP had started in 1971 and we too would not have mixed that freely if my theory is correct. Why were we as teenagers not race conscious when subsequent generations are race conscious today?

I think it has to do with the level of prosperity of the country. In the 70s, Malaysia was not that prosperous yet and whatever policies of NEP seem so far away from us teenagers. I mean 30% shareholdings for companies meant little to us teenagers still in school.

In fact most of us then thought the NEP was a good thing to close the disparity between the races in Malaysia. We were so naive to dream that NEP could bring all Malaysians on par both socially and economically.

Oil was not discovered until 1974 and Petronas was only formed then to manage the country's petroleum resources.My point is during the 70s, even though the NEP was already in place, it seemed so far away from us teenagers but it became very apparent to the teenagers of the 80s and subsequent years when after Mahatir became prime minister in 1981 and embarked on Malaysia incorporated that our country became more prosperous.

I think Malaysian teenagers became race conscious when it came to getting scholarships and places in local universities for tertiary education.

In the 70s, my group of friends didn't have to face that as there were very few scholarships anyway and places at local universities were so scarce that realistically speaking, we were not hopeful for them anyway since we were not straight A students.

I think the exposure on a large scale to differences in race came in the 80s and beyond, when Malaysia became more prosperous with industrialization and the new oil wealth and suddenly the teenagers could see race politics being played out right before their very eyes when the now larger numbers of scholarships and university places were dished out.

With new found wealth and more scholarships and university places, Malaysian teenagers had every right to hope to be counted amongst the recipients, regardless of race.

Imagine realizing at such a tender age that not all Malaysians are made equal and there are some more equal than others. In a way, I'm glad that my group of friends were spared this realization until much later when we entered the working world. At least we had the additional few years to cement our friendship but even then, if I have to be brutally honest, our relationship is no longer as robust as it was during our teenaged days.

It is no wonder race relations in Malaysians are at its worst today since independence when our teenagers are subjected to discrimination so early on in life. It is not helped by continued mouthing of ketuanan this and that by politicians who are amongst the ruling elite.

I won't even go into the failures of the NEP since it has done nothing but enriched a few 'connected' bumiputeras and at the same time created generations of Malays who are dependent on the government and are unable to compete in a rapidly shrinking world.

According to Malaysian Insider, 71% of Malaysians surveyed in a recent poll agree with the statement that Barisan Nasional's "race-based affirmative action policy is obsolete and must be replaced with a merit-based policy".

Surprisingly, the poll, conducted by the independent Merdeka Centre between June 18 and July 29, up to 65% of Malays who were asked the question agreed that race-based affirmative action should be done away, compared with 83% of Chinese and 89% of Indian respondents.

The overall consensus against race-based affirmative action was also apparent in that 61% of rural and 75% of urban respondents agreed that it should be replaced with a merit-based Policy.

If only the ruling elite would be so brave as to seriously do away with the NEP and replace it with something like what Anwar Ibrahim has advocated like the National Economic Agenda which is based on need and merit rather than on race.

But then again, we will only be dreaming if we think UMNO will initiate this since it will impoverish its own warlords and cronies on which its political system of patronage is based on.

Unless a 'Gorbechov-like' politician emerges and truly reforms UMNO, they may have to be brought down from power so that someone can attempt to remove this root of all evils which is tearing away at a truly united Malaysian social fabric.

UMNO politicians talk about unity to face global challenges but they have it within themselves to bring about this unity simply be removing the NEP. Even if the NEP was removed today, we have already lost at least 2 generations, if not more, of our youth already exposed to race differences.

We can't afford to waste any more time if we are to survive in this shrinking globe!