February 2008
By former Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad on Malays remaining behind
others despite privileges.
The Malays are among the few people whose race is legally defined. Thus,
the Malaysian Constitution states that a Malay is one who habitually
speaks Malay, professes the religion of Islam and practises Malay
customs. There is nothing said about the definitive culture of the
Malays. It follows that changes in culture do not make a Malay person a
non-Malay.
Culture is made up largely of the value systems accepted, even if not
actually practiced by a people or a race. Observations have shown that
the culture of a people determines whether they are successful or they
fail...
Europeans, Asians, Africans and American Indians can all be successful and
can all fail. It is, therefore, not the race or ethnicity which determines
success. It is the culture.
When I wrote The Malay Dilemma in the late 60s, I had assumed that all the
Malays lacked the opportunities to develop and become successful. They
lacked opportunities for educating themselves, opportunities to earn
enough to go into business, opportunities to train in the required
vocation, opportunities to obtain the necessary funding, licences and
premises. If these opportunities could be made available to them, then
they would succeed...
But today, the attitude has changed. Getting scholarships and places in
the universities at home and abroad is considered a matter of right and
is not valued any more. Indeed, those who get these educational
opportunities for some unknown reason seem to dislike the very people who
created these opportunities. Worse still, they don't seem to appreciate
the opportunities that they get.
They become more interested in other things, politics in particular, to
the detriment of their studies. In business, the vast majority regarded
the opportunities given them as something to be exploited for the
quickest return...
They learn nothing about business and become even less capable at doing
business and earning an income from their activities. They become mere
sleeping partners and at times not even that. Having sold, they no longer
have anything to do with the business. They would go to the government for
more licences, permits, shares, etc...
Why has this thing happened? The answer lies in the culture of the
Malays. They are laid-back and prone to take the easy way out. And the
easy way out is to sell off whatever they get and ask for more. This is
their culture.
Working hard, taking risks and being patient is not a part of their
culture. It should be remembered that in the past the
Malays were not prepared to take up the jobs created by the colonial
powers in their effort to exploit the country. Because the Malays were
not prepared to work in rubber estates and the mines, the Indians and
Chinese were brought in. At one time, the migrants outnumbered the
Malays. Had they continued to outnumber the Malays, independent Malaya
would be like independent Singapore.
But the Malays have apparently learnt nothing from the near loss of their
country in the past. Today, they are still unwilling to work and foreign
workers are again flooding the country. And because they are not
equipping themselves with the necessary education and skills, they have
continued to depend on others.
Their political dominance will protect them for a time. But that dominance
is fading very fast as they quarrel among themselves and breaks up into
small ineffective groups. Their numerical superiority means less today
than at the time of independence. ..
The Malays, together with the other Bumiputeras, make up 60 per cent of
the country's population. But in terms of their political clout, it is
now much less than 60 per cent. They are now more dependent on non-Malay
support, both the government party and the opposition.
Economically, of course, they have less than half the 30-per-cent share
that has been allocated to them. If we discount the non-Malay
contribution to the nation's economy, Malaysia would be not much better
than some of the African developing countries.
To succeed, the Malays must change their culture. They must look towards
work as a reward in itself. They must regard what they achieve through
work as the true reward. There should be some financial reward but this
must not outweigh the satisfaction obtained from the result of their
work...
Changing culture is far more difficult than changing the policies of
government. It is easy enough to propose affirmative action but it is not
easy to implement it. The recipients must have the right attitude if the
results are going to be obtained...
Unfortunately, their view is that their crutches are symbols of their
superior status in the country. The sad thing is that they are not even
using the crutches properly. As a result, they gain nothing or very
little from the availability of these aids...
So what is the new Malay dilemma? Their old dilemma was whether they
should distort the picture a little in order to help themselves.
The new dilemma is whether they should or should not do away with the
crutches that they have got used to, which in fact they have become proud
of.
There is a minority of Malays who are confident enough to think of doing
away with the crutches, albeit gradually. But they are a very small
minority. Their numbers are not going to increase any time soon. They are
generally regarded as traitors to the Malay race...
There will be a host of protests over this generalisation about Malay
attitudes. We read almost every day about blind Malay people and other
handicapped Malays graduating with university degrees or driving cars or
doing all kinds of work.
This does not prove that the generalisation that I make is wrong. These
are exceptions. They only prove that if the right attitude or culture is
adopted, even the handicapped can succeed.
The dilemma faced by those few who want to build a strong, resilient and
independent Malay race without crutches is that they are most likely to
end up becoming unpopular and losing the ability to influence the changes
in the culture and the value system which are necessary.
It seems that they should not try and yet they know that without the
cultural changes, the Malays are going to fail.
----------------------------------------------------------------
This e-mail has been sent via JARING webmail at http://www.jaring.my
No comments:
Post a Comment