 |
Malaysia at 50, a nation
divided
Malaysia celebrated 50 years of
independence on Aug 31. Despite being one of the Third World’s
most successful development stories, the landmark event has
attracted critical commentaries in the world media.
Economic growth rate has slowed considerably since the 1980s and
a further slowdown to around 6% annually is forecast for the
next five years, about 0.5% above the rate in recent years.
There are signs of prosperity everywhere, from the Petronas Twin
Towers that was briefly the world’s tallest building to
sprawling urban shopping complexes and expressways that
crisscross the nation.
But underneath the edifice is a sense of political fervent.
Much progress was made in the first dozen years of independence
towards a Malaysian identity moulding together the three major
racial groups – the Malays and other indigenous people, the
Chinese and Indians.
This progress was abruptly challenged in the aftermath of the
1969 national elections when the country’s worse ever racial
riots erupted.
The spark lay with the prospect that a Chinese political leader
would, for the first time, take over as chief minister in the
key state of Selangor in which Kuala Lumpur, the national
capital, is located.
Emergency rule was imposed for the first time since the ending
of the communist insurgency from 1948-60.
Rather than facing the reality of a political crisis with racial
overtones, the ruling United Malay National Organisation or Umno
interpret the May 1969 riots as a Malay uprising fuelled purely
by the economic backwardness of that community.
There was some truth in the latter view because the vast
majority of Malays were still rural dwellers and farmers, while
the Chinese majority in cities such as Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh
were mainly involved in commerce and industry.
In the aftermath of the race riots, the government formulated
its “New Economic Policy” with the grandiose aim of eradicating
poverty regardless of race.
One of the aims was to increase Malay ownership in the corporate
sector from an estimated 2.4% in 1970 to 30% within the next two
decades.
This ambition, which mainly benefits a tiny cohort of Malay
politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen, was seen to have
fallen short of its target, providing the rationale for the NEP
remaining in force.
However, some economists argue that government figures greatly
understates the true level of Malay ownership of the corporate
sector which they believe is now more than 50% of the corporate
sector.
These policies, including reserved places for Malays at
universities and institutions of higher education and in public
sector jobs, have left poorer members of other ethnic groups
greatly disenchanted with their situation.
For years many Malaysians of Chinese and Indian heritage have
been forced to seek education overseas in Britain, Australia and
the United States.
The huge outflow of funds, and big current account deficits,
eventually forced the government to reconsider this strategy and
to allow foreign-owned institutions to open up twinning and
other courses within Malaysia but these still come at a
relatively high cost.
There is also a serious religious divide since all Malays, as
defined by the Constitution, also subscribe to Islam.
Although the Constitution does allow other religions to be
practised freely, the country’s large Christian, Buddhist and
Hindu communities have been constantly under pressure, finding
it difficult, if not impossible, for many religions to set up
new places of worship.
“The Islamisation race that began in earnest from the early
1980s with former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his
former deputy Anwar Ibrahim merely added yet another layer of
identity politics to an already complicated formula that was
being strained at the seams,” Prof Farish A Noor, a Malaysian
historian and political scientist based at the Zentrum Moderner
Orient in Berlin noted.
“Fifty years after our independence,” he wrote in a recent
article, “we still entertain the myth of a ‘Tanah Melayu’ (land
of the Malays) that is a privileged homeland for some and not
others.
“And as long as the Umno party maintains this divisive approach
to politics and sees the Malay-Muslims as its primary
constituency, the situation is not likely to change for the
better.
“We are nowhere closer to realising the dream of a Malaysian
Malaysia where citizenship is the common gift bestowed upon all
her citizens.
“Instead, the gift of a multicultural and multi-religious nation
has been stolen from us, before our very eyes, by the very same
ruling elite who claim to be the ‘leaders of all Malaysians’,
while in their deeds they have shown that their commitment to
plural democracy is only skin deep.
“What a shameful end to what could have been a beautiful story.”
It is a theme that was picked up the world press on Malaysia’s
50th anniversary of independence.
An editorial in the latest issue of Britain’s highly regarded
Economist magazine, which has been republished in the Australian
Financial Review (“Malaysia at 50: Tall buildings, narrow
minds”) and elsewhere, bears this out.
It said: “Malaysia’s 50th birthday comes at a time of rising
resentment by ethnic Chinese and Indians, together over
one-third of the population, at the continuing systematic
discrimination they suffer in favour of the majority bumiputra,
or sons of the soil, as Malays and other indigenous groups are
called.
“There are also worries about creeping Islamisation among the
Malay Muslim majority of what has been a largely secular
country, and about the increasingly separate lives that Malays,
Chinese and Indian Malaysians are leading.
“More so than at independence, it is lamented, the different
races learn
in separate schools, eat
separately, work separately and socialise separately.”
The Economist went on: “Malays, as a whole, like other races,
have got richer but the gap between the Malay haves and
have-nots has widened. The corruption and waste these policies
engender seem to have got worse in recent years.”
 
|
