A lot has been said about the Malay Rights whether it should be maintained or it should be abolished. A point to make on this issue: the Malay Rights had been a ‘social contract’ between the majority Malays and the non-Malays in exchange for the non-Malays to get citizenship based on jus soli principle. This was agreed when Malaya then was about to gain independence from the British.
Examples of Malay Rights are the quota system in education and in companies, financial help, priority in getting government contracts, etc.
The Malay Rights was a good idea then when the Malays, in general do not have the upper hand in economy, finance and education compared to the non-Malays, especially the Chinese. To ensure political stability in the country, it has been agreed upon that Malay Rights should be granted in order to have some ‘equilibrium’ in Malaysian society. That had been the understanding then and it was enforced again with the introduction of the New Economy Policy (NEP) for the Malays after the May 13th riots.
The idea of Malay Rights was a good one, which is to help the Malays in getting out of the poverty they were associated with, and to a certain extent to help them to be in the same playing field with the non-Malays. After that, it should be expected that the Malay Rights to be removed gradually as they start to develop themselves.
However, the Malay Rights had been ‘stated’ by political parties like UMNO, that Malay Rights is a right and cannot be questioned on the grounds that it is something that has been engraved into the Federal Constitution. It is true that the Malay Rights is inside the Federal Constitution, no doubt about that. But the Malay Rights has become a restriction for the non-Malays to progress too. Giving rights is one thing and restricting is another.
I’ll give you an example. There are two students. One is Malay and another is an Indian. Both of them go through the same education path by going for primary and secondary school, plus having Form 6 as their pre-U studies. Both did very well in their exams, let say 4 A’s (straight A’s) and have good extracurricular studies. Both of them wanted to pursue medicine, which has a very limited space in local universities. If the system could only choose one of them, they would pick the Malay student. This is called privilege. What if the Malay student have only 2 A’s? This is where the restrictive part comes in. The Malay student gets the offer instead of the Indian student even though the Indian has better results. Also contributing to it is the very restrictive nature of the quota system for non-Malays, only giving 10% of the places allocated. It should have been at least 30% of the allocated spaces. Reason for that is that the composition of non-Malays in the country is roughly about 40% of the population. Putting only a 10% of places in local universities makes a strong negative statement on our multi-cultural society.
When only 10% of non-Malays are only selected into the local universities, no wonder most of the non-Malay families are aching their backs off to send their kids to private colleges and foreign universities. Those are the lucky ones. There are even some who don’t have enough money to buy a plane ticket. It just pains me to see that so many hardworking kids did not get what they deserved just because of a restrictive policy.
That is the problem about the Malay Rights: giving to people who are not supposed to get it but gets it because of the term ’Bumiputra’ in his or her IC. That should not be the case. We should not deprive the non-Malays of opportunities just because of over-restrictive nature of Malay Rights.
But I have to admit that there is a certain degree of success of the Malay rights. More Malay people start to appreciate the value of good education. I’ve seen brilliant Malay minds. I’ve seen very hardworking ones when I was in Matrikulasi and they are as hard working as any other hardworking person.
As for the business sector, I have no comments as I have no sound knowledge in that field. But what I can say is that, seeing the amount of money invested into helping the Malays, only a few managed to be successful. Why? Have a look at the building industry. Many contracts are given to Bumiputra contractors by the government. However, only a small percentage does the constructing work themselves. Instead of doing the projects properly on their own, they sold off their tenders to another contractor (mostly non-Bumiputra contractors) for a quick buck. In the end, the intent of helping Bumiputra contractors to gain experience in the construction industry goes to dust.
After 30 years since the first implementation of the NEP, there is still no concrete evidence that the Malays had gained the success rate that Malays should achieve. If this were the case, we have to look the reason why NEP does not work. Are the strategies applied not relevant? Is it the lack of management organisation? Does the privileges given helped? Is the implementation faulty? Or just plain UMNO giving out contracts and incentives to their own cronies? These are the critical questions we have to answer. Giving special privileges must come with a degree of success.
According to an opposition MB, he stated that only the ones within the inner circle of UMNO will benefit from the NEP. It seems that NEP is helping the UMNO Malays and not the average Malay person who are in need. If it is so, we have to kick out the cronies and start giving out to deserving people who need it most.
One consequence of the over-zealous implementation of Malay Rights is the loss of brilliant Malaysian non-Malay minds to other countries. Malaysia has dedicated about 20% of its annual expenditure on education, among the highest in the world but ends up wasting their resources to other nations. Why? Most of these great minds are hindered by the bureaucracy in the government sector and quite frequently racist policies made by over-restricting the quota for non-Malays in education and in research and development. Most of these people are willing to work for less pay. But what they cannot stand is the restrictions imposed on them.
Another point is to abolish Malay rights altogether. This has been in my mind for years: pro or con? There are questions in my head that needs a definitive answer before making such a decision. What will happen if Malay Rights are to be abolished? Would this cause the Malays to lose their dear political strength to make up for their economical weaknesses? If that happens, would there be political instability in the country? What socio-economic changes will we see when that happens?
The reason why Malay Rights are here is because the Malays fear to become the aborigines, the Red Indians in their own country, being the one with no power, oppressed and having limited rights. If the Malay Rights are to be removed, what safeguards they have in order for them not to be in same position as those two? Malays are very sensitive people when it comes to this issue. They fear to become slaves in their own soil. The fear is still in their hearts, even after decades of independence.
But we could not blame 100% for them being this way. This fear is also at the hearts of other races. If Malay Rights are to be removed, the Malays will certainly say that in a sense, the non-Malays have more rights. How? The existence of Chinese schools and Tamil schools. Try removing those two schools out. You will surely see riots and demonstrations within 24 hours. I suppose that last time people do not make a big puss about Malay Rights because the Malays get to have what they want and non-bumis got what they want too, generally.
I've heard from someone that the existences of Chinese and Tamil schools are guaranteed by the Constitution. I'm not sure about that, so I'm only going to say is that if it is true, then removing Malay Rights would virtually be irremovable, if not only to be slightly restricted.
I personally think that we will never reach a conclusion unless both sides are willing to let go of their privileges. The Chinese and Tamil schools must go, only then they can start talking about removing Malay Rights.
When we try to balance one, the other would offset itself. Like Malay Rights, during its conception changes its socio-economic atmosphere, so does when it is removed.
Personally, I don’t know how this should be addressed, but I think that one day the Malay Rights should be totally removed. But not today with a complete removal of Malay Rights but instead as I mentioned earlier that the rights should be gradually removed as they progressed.
But one thing for sure, I oppose the over-restrictive and over-zealousness nature the Malay Rights had become. Privileges and restrictions are two different words. What should be something constructive has become an object of oppression to another. We have to remember that we not just uphold the welfare of the Malays, but also our fellow non-Malays. After all, we are all Malaysians.
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