M. Bakri Musa
[Presented at the Third Annual Alif Ba Ta Forum, "1Malaysia Towards Vision
2020," Rochester Institute of Technology, NY, December 5, 2009, organized
by Kelab UMNO NY-NJ. The presentation can be viewed at www.youtube.com
(search under "Bakri Musa RIT") or through this link:
http://www.youtube.com/user/alchemistar ]
Encouraging Malays Entrepreneurs and Scientists
The Malaysia of today under the leadership of Tun Razak's son is a very
different country. With the overall elevation in the level of the
education, the needs and aspirations of the citizens have also changed;
the curve has shifted to the right. We have to respond to this new
reality of higher needs and much greater aspirations.
Today our major dilemma is the lack of Malays in science and
technology, as well as in business. Actually these are old dilemmas but
because they have been incompetently handled, they are again resurfacing,
over fifty years after independence.
I was young during Tun Razak's time. Yes, the lack of Malays
in science then was palpable, with fewer than a dozen Malay science
graduates. The prevailing wisdom – and not just among non-Malays – was
that we Malays did not have what it would take to handle science and
mathematics.
Let me review how our leaders handled the issue then. In my
Form Five science class in Kuala Pilah in 1960, there were 22 Malays out
of 35, a good reflection of the community. However, because of the
severe limited slots in Form Six, only four of us managed to get in, of
whom two were Malays. All four went on to university.
Six of my Malay classmates who did not get into Sixth Form eventually also
managed to get their degrees though various circuitous routes. On
received a graduate degree from Cornell, another, an Australian PhD.
Additionally, if I were to compare my other Malay classmates in Kuala
Pilah to my fellow undergraduates in Canada, at least another half a
dozen could have easily handled university work.
Thus had there been enough Sixth Form slots then, we could
have increased the number of potential Malay science undergraduates from
2 to 14, a seven-fold increase. Transformational if not miraculous!
Instead, what happened was this. The government responded to
the community's anguish by establishing a royal commission headed by the
then new Minister of Education. After months of hearings, the Rahman
Talib Report blamed the poor performance of Malays in science to our
culture, and our students being infested with worms!
At another level, the response was equally unenlightened.
Feeling that the then University of Malaya was insensitive to the needs
of Malays, we agitated for a new "national" university, one that would
presumably appreciate our aspirations.
Thus the Universiti Kebangsaan was born, at a cost of hundreds
of millions of ringgit, real money then. At its first graduation ceremony
in 1973, there were only a few Malay science graduates.
A Sixth Form at Kuala Pilah a decade earlier would have cost a
tiny fraction and would have produced more potential Malay science
undergraduates. It would be 14 years after I left in 1960 before my old
school had its Sixth Form. The building of a university catered to the
top percentile, while having more Sixth Form slots would have met the
needs of considerably more students (a shift towards the center of the
curve).
Consider the other pressing issue: the lack of Malays in
business. We have obviously not learned anything here too, for we still
approach the problem in the same ineffective manner. We poured hundreds
of billions into government-linked companies in an effort to jumpstart
Malay participation in the private sector. The results only embarrass
us; most GLCs are perennial money losers.
Meanwhile stroll down any street and you would be hard pressed
to see signs like "Tahir Tailoring," "Salmah Saloon," or "Mahmud
Mechanic." If the pipes in your home were to burst or if you were in
need of an electrician, chances are the repairman who showed up would be
non-Malay. This is the sorry state today despite the government,
controlled by Malays, pouring billions of ringgit to help Malays enter
the private sector.
This dismal failure is predictable based on my fish story
analogy. The government focused on the top percentile instead of the
huge middle. Those huge sums of money were expended not on small and
medium enterprises, or to equip Malays with skills needed in the
marketplace, rather on creating mega billion-dollar corporations like
Pernas, Petronas and other 'Nases. Earlier you heard Ambassador Jarjis's
struggles to borrow RM50K to start his engineering consultancy business.
This was at the time when the likes of Tajuddin Ramli and Halim Saad were
given mega loans to acquire our GLCs without even having to sign any loan
papers!
All we have to show for the billions spent on those GLCs are
the many ersatz entrepreneurs and crony capitalists who survive only
through repeated bailouts. We were and still are repeating Nehru's
mistakes. At least Nehru's IIT's graduates thrive elsewhere and the
Indians get to share in the reflected glory of their achievements. Our
crony capitalists sans bailout are back in the kampong with nothing to
show for all the billions expended on them.
Yet those precious billions lost were not the most expensive
part of the failure. There are other more damaging and long-lasting
consequences. For one, it reinforces the negative stereotype that Malays
cannot handle businesses more complicated than the roadside kedai kopi
(coffee stall). Conveniently forgotten is that the failures of these
GLCs do not reflect the failure of Malays rather of those who depend on
their political connections for their success and not their
entrepreneurial skills. Similar pseudo entrepreneurs, whether in China
or India, suffer the same fate.
The most destructive damage they wreck upon our community can
best be illustrated by my resorting to a kampong metaphor. The constant
scourge facing kampong farmers is that their fields would be inundated by
the tenacious weed lallang. They suck out the nutrients from the soil,
leaving it barren for generations. Once a field is inundated with
lallang, that land is gone; no other useful crop could be grown again.
Our strategy with these expensive money-loosing GLCs is akin
to what my late father used to say, membajakan (fertilizing) lallang.
These lallang would be destructive without our help; when we nurture them
by adding fertilizer we would ironically be hastening the death of the
land and its useful plants. The pernicious influence of the likes of the
Tajuddin Ramlis and Halim Saads is analogous to membajakan lallang. It
sets back the cause of genuine Malay entrepreneurs for generations.
There are many other ready examples of such flawed strategies.
The government through Petronas pays extravagantly to attract foreign
musicians for the KL Philharmonic Orchestra. Again, we are focusing on
the top percentile. Had that money been spent on music education in our
schools, it would not be long before we would have our own Itzhak Perlman
or Sergio Ozawa. It may be slower but a more sure, genuine and enduring
strategy.
A Strategy for Developing Malay Scientists and Entrepreneurs
If I were to allocate our scant resources towards developing Malay
scientists and entrepreneurs, this is what I would do. I would allocate
10 percent towards the low end of the population, 20 percent to the top
decile, with the bulk (the remaining 70 percent) spent on the large
middle group.
Is this fair? Fairness, like beauty, is in the eyes of the
beholder. In per capita terms, the bottom decile gets the fairest deal;
ten percent of the resources spent on about ten percent of the
population. The middle would get less than its fair share (70 percent
spent on 80 percent of the people), but then they get the biggest chunk.
The super achievers would get the most favorable treatment on
a per capita basis, getting twice as much (20 percent of resources spent
on 10 percent of the population), but not the bulk of the allocation.
That is the way it should be. They are our best, our talent seeds; when
they excel they bring glory to the group and inspire others. They will
set the trend and establish the standards for our society.
Let me apply these considerations to our old twin dilemmas:
the lack of Malay scientists and entrepreneurs.
To encourage Malays to pursue science, I would spend the bulk
(70 percent) of the funds on science teachers and laboratories,
especially in rural areas. I would even air-condition the labs so
students would linger after class. I would have them perform their own
experiments and not be satisfied with merely watching the demonstrations.
Science is like sex, the fun part is in doing it yourself, not in having
it demonstrated!
Today, many of the experiments that used to be done by the
students during my days are now merely demonstrated because "we cannot
afford those students breaking the test tubes!"
In the universities I would ensure that the science-related
faculties would get the biggest allocations and their professors the best
paid. Similarly, the students would get the most generous scholarships
and other support.
I would support the top decile differently. Any Malay student
(undergraduate or graduate) who gets admitted to any of the top-ranked
universities would automatically get a scholarship. I would go further
and grant them the freedom to pursue their own path. I would not demand
of them to serve in any particular government entity or even to return
home. If we provide them with fulfilling opportunities at home, they
will return, with little need for onerous contractual obligations.
To reward those science professors and other scientists, I
would appoint them to the boards of the GLCs. That would be the best way
to supplement their income. The companies too would benefit from their
technical knowledge and generally higher intelligence. A scientist would
contribute more as a director for Petronas than a retired civil servant or
worse, a discredited politician.
Imagine the impact! Every Malay student would work very hard
to secure admission to top universities and a chance to go abroad without
the fear of being indentured to the government. Malay scientists would
now have a great incentive to remain productive so they could be
appointed to the boards of our GLCs.
Likewise in developing Malay entrepreneurs; I would spend the
bulk of the funds training Malays to be chefs, carpenters, electricians,
and skilled tradesmen. When they have acquired those skills, I would
grant them credit facilities to start their own businesses. Then I would
make sure that school canteen contracts be awarded to these chefs, and
Petronas grants its gas station franchises only to these certified
mechanics and not to incompetent UMNO chiefs.
I would demand of our GLCs to groom their suppliers and
subcontractors from among these Malays. These GLCs could emulate Fed Ex,
for example, in having its drivers own the trucks and then contract to the
company for delivery and transport. That made those drivers not employees
but self-employed businessmen and women. Many of them would later venture
out on their own, starting their own trucking companies. How many
employees of our GLCs have ventured out on their own? Then just to
remind these GLCs of their mission, they would be banned from competing
against Malay entrepreneurs.
We have failed in developing Malay scientists and
entrepreneurs because we subscribe to Nehru's strategy instead of our own
Tunku's.
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