Alive In A New Malaysia
Now that the initial euphoria has passed, life is back to normal.
Yet, it’s extraordinary because we have used the power of our vote. The myth of an invincible Barisan Nasional has been pulverized. Despite their hold on the media and the might of their money, they have been defeated.
Over the last week, the new governments in Penang and Perak took time to get used to each other. While the rakyat (people) had to adjust to them. Some leaders made some boo-boos but pales in comparison to the lies and denials of Barisan Nasional leaders. I believe leaders in the Barisan Rakyat have the best interests of the rakyat at heart.
The Barisan Nasional had 50 years to get it right. But they got it all wrong. In his zeal to modernise the country and the Malays, former and longest-serving premier Mahathir Mohamed has changed too many laws, emasculated our media and discredited our judiciary.
The greatest wrong the much revered politician has done to the country was by framing the country’s problems in terms of race in his book, The Malay Dilemma. Instead of uniting the country, he divided society by inflaming inter-racial distrust. He chose the immigrants, or the Chinese, as the convenient scapegoat for the marginalised in the country.
In “correcting” the injustices to this group of people, was he fair to the other groups? Groups of people are artificial segregations that allow for easier identification and a sense of belonging. If you choose to see yourself differently from others, then you will. This is not to say that diferences don’t exist, of course they do. It’s just that harping on differences get us nowhere. If we continue on this mindless policy of racial equality, we may be fighting till kingdom come. For such inequalities will probably exist all the time.
But Mahathir is hailed as the saviour of Malays. Is he really? To a certain extent, he has made education more accessible to this group. Yet, our universities and schools are no longer the internationally recognised institutions of education that they once were. More Malays are now professionals, according to official statistics. But are they those who are with the civil service, government-linked companies or in companies dependent on government contracts?
My personal view is that Mahathir has caused even more inequality because society has become even more feudal under him. Instead of getting into universities, jobs and promotions because we deserve it, we have to have the “right connections”. Even if you get a certain contract, people will just say it’s because of your “connections”. This applies to all Malaysians. For it’s well-known that the easiest way to make lots of money for a non-bumiputera is to partner with a bumiputera. While this is great for unity and friendship, the system is completely detrimental to the competitiveness, civil maturity and harmony of the country.
The next 50 years will be a time where we will need to undo all that Mahathir has done. From rooting out entrenched corruption to the sense of entitlement that some has. Perhaps in the next 10 or so, we will see less segregation. Perhaps even the abolishment of such legal segregation.
I am a third generation ethnic Chinese. My uneducated grandfather came to Malaysia from China on a boat when he was 18 in the 1930s. He built a business that gave jobs to many other Malaysians. But when Mahathir came into power, his company lost all its government contracts unless my grandfather hired a bumiputera director. My grandfather refused because he said that would mean he would have to reduce materials, the quality of the work and hence, the brand name. In the end, the company stopped expanding. The previous office building is now an empty building. To date, my grandfather is still not a citizen.
Is this fair? But this is not a unique story. Many small companies suffered the same fate under Mahathir’s NEP. The Chinese did not come to Malaysia to take over the country or to discriminate others. They came to earn an honest living for a better life. And together with Malaysians, we built the country. It’s time we are fully recognised as citizens for our efforts and we discard the politics of race.
yeah,
even if u r a malay and did not come with a “backer” from their camp,u wont get the project too..nowadays its no longer about race,more like who got connection wif who..anyways wats wif the protected entries..hehe
hi yea. and this “connection” concept really boomed under mahathir. p
protected entries ‘cos about religion. so a bit sensitive.
if u want a password just email me. 
Hi Jed > Same boat third gen here too > Yup read in the Guang Ming daily , the Perak MB emotions got the better of him and he cried when he visited the “Blast victims families in Perak …. Lim Guan Eng not staying in “The Residence” but his dad home in Island Park … AAB where arrr … the sign of a leader ….
it’s very true. in a way, we choose what way we wanna look at ourselves. you have the choice to put all statistics favorable and live in the shelter forever but in this globalisation era, we are fighting wif the world out there. there’s nothing much we can do if our dear friends dun buck up and rise. enough is enough. let’s forget the color and bring up the country in whichever way we can.
Excellent summation in a nutshell, Jed, describing the state of the awful alienation of two generations for the nons ala, “Kalau tak suka, balik…..” imposition of fundamental umno ARROGANCE! Something which wouldn’t have had such an impact but for that Mamak and his book. I believe the expatriates then owed most of the wealth and therefore his book was not even factually correct in its demagoguery.
am all for a malaysia for all malaysians.
one passport, one IC, one everything lorr…..at the same time thriving on our differences- different religion, culture, language. Let our unique differences be our source of strengths maa……not a reason to piss or hurt each other.
early in my career, when i was interviewed by MNC and whenever the interviewer said, they were going to offer me jobs because they need to make quota and i seems like a decent kinda lad - i said, “Oh like that ah. I dont want lah your job!” hehehehe
serious, no kidding! I only wanted a job if i was selected on merit.
Really dont want la if simply to fill quota. hehehehe
idham
yeah. that’s kinda terrible. the NEP. helped who? mostly the rich, connected ones, across the “races”.
Blaming it solely on Tun is not fair. I’m not very good with my historical facts but I think the NEP was birthed or it’s a continuation of a policy after May 13, 1969.
Yes, I agree with you but hopefully, we won’t take 50 years to undo Tun’s 22-year of Mahathirism.
Hi. It was under Mahathir that it got very2 unfair. Let’s put it this way, the bumi director they wanted my granddad to hire, he was not some underprivileged, marginalised bumi….Granddad also hired whoever could work including some Malays. From my limited experience, sometimes it’s the Malay employees that didn’t really want too much responsibility…
i think affirmitive action such as DEB to help the underprivilaged malays is essentially a nobel aim and right and nothing morally wrong in itself. The great wrong that has happened is that it has been abused and enriched individuals through corrupt means and neglecting the underprivilaged non-malays..
what should happen now is that the same affimitive action should be created for the underprivilaged chinese, indians and other non malays.
we have big enough cake to share among all of us fairly. the problem with implementaion of DEP is that some portion of the cake is gobled up by cronies .
The Malays in this country have fallen victim to their own arrogance. Under the patronizing Malay leaders they elected to rule this country, they never felt the need to learn how to fish. Hence, they balk at suggestions to compete with others on equal terms. In this regard, it can be said that they have lost much of their self-respect.
On the statement saying
‘He chose the immigrants, or the Chinese, as the convenient scapegoat for the marginalised in the country.’
He didnt choose, he was stating a fact.
in Penang, Dell secretly plays race preferences in their management. i am saying this based on true story from a friend of mine who are a ‘high flyer’ being marginalized in Dell just because he is bumiputera. a junior colleague of his get promoted to the same level above him in a year upon joining Dell with only little contribution while he was stagnant at the same level for 4 years. He is one of the think tank that creates Dell major products and doing all the projects days and night but in the end his junior colleague got the promotion instead of himself. and yes his colleague is chinese. my friend then got fed up and switch to other MNC and he was promoted to be the head department within a year because of his quality.
you can ask anybody who are not chinese in Dell how the management work. even some chinese felt that the non chinese are being marginalised.
i am not playing a race card here, only to state a fact. before we want to condemn somebody about racism, do a self check to ourself.
FYI i am a malaysian with a mix of malay grandfather and chinese grandmother and has families consist of chinese, indian, indonesian and even italian. ’nuff said
Life is simple, its just not easy. ~Author Unknown
Let me ponder.
Mahathir exemplifies the icon of one who truly does not understand what’s fairness but clamor the loudest about fairness.
Governments are like clothes…if you wear the same clothes for a long time they start to smell bad, really bad.
True.
What u think of Anwar and his behind-the-scenes negotiations to get ppl to jump over the BR?
I will like to reply on Abdul, errm sorry for ur fren experience (but do u take into account was all malays in DELL acting the same like ur pal or differently!!!) but what was the main factor of MARGINALIZATION behavior that creeps into DELL management (a multi-billion dollar company u know). The answer still roots back to Mahathir’s NEP right!!
NEP gave the FOREIGN INVESTORs a perception that malays are weak and are not competitive enough against the other races (not just only chinese but indian as well). Why are they having these issues then? It’s because it was the AMERICAN lazzaire-fair business culture that pushes the ante (they like competitiveness cause only with constant competitiveness spirit u can only start improving urself, this is their policy). But what they dunno is the Japanese had taken over their CREATIVITY and invented new gear, tech, toys, and watsoever gadjets that the AMERICAN claimed patented.
I’m not saying the business culture is bad, but too bad many MNC like their staff to stay competitive with their business agenda not those agenda adhering to ISO9000 hahaha which is a CRAP for me personally hahaha (do u wanna waste millions on retraining ur staff or u wan them to stay productive for ur company business purpose). Sorry to say this too, thanks to our local Uni’s education standard the students are nothing but bookworms only (ironically I’m 1 of them hahaha).. Ok return to our points, all this racial issues are stemmed from the NEP roots and the policy should had been abolished long time ago (errm 1990 till now, 18 years and still got extensions hahaha same like some detained by ISA for 6 years still got extensions.. GOD! EXTENSIONS not PAROLE get this straight, no wonder our government does not make any statements against the JUNTA protest crackdown nor to Aung San Kuyi detentions hahaha KETTLE CANNOT LAUGH AT WOK BLACK haha they are the SAME).
So my summary is majority malays, chineses, indians and other races are MARGINALISED as well by the NEP not by the action taken by the MNCs but by NEP itself, only those UMNOputras and BN cronies gets the credit (Datuks, Datins, YB, YAB, Datuk Seris). So I dun think that Jed had spoken anything wrong bout it (comeon la majority of CHINESE and INDIAN plus other races too get marginalised le compare to BUMIs, if u all dun like ur current post, u can quit and start applying for LOANs [on the condition u will pledge ur loyalty to BN] to start ur own business, how bout the other races what they do, can we easily got our applications done and if failed we use wat to feed our children then?)
UMNO is now unhappy with the new S`gor MB selling off that `Feudal` heritage:
Kenyataan Menteri Besar Selangor, Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim untuk menjual kompleks rumah EXCO dan Pegawai Kanan Kerajaan mengingatkan kita kepada sikap segelintir orang Melayu suatu ketika dahulu.
http://www.selangordaily.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1979
ironic_law
i dont support the application of NEP nor marginalization of MNC.
i am just stating instead if blaming to one person, blame the parties that agreed to the implementation of NEP.
the dell thingy is a generalization towards NEP(only for malays or umnoputera’s ass licker) and the vengeance was taken upon to other people which are not part of it (which one of it was my fren). unfortunately there is nothing being done to lay rest the ghost of racism in that company.
i had my fair share of being marginalized due to this perception but i took it as a challenge as i believe that is much better than life.
hello abdul..
Sorry Jed, I does not intend to use ur blog as FLAME WARs. Returning back to abdul, good to hear that your are not BN facist that supports NEP. But can we (all of us, u, me and many other Malaysians) curb MNC marginalization then?? The answer is no as I mentioned, it’s a lazzaires-fair of business now and even CHINA was listed into WTO so it make no difference what ideology/religion ur country is, business == GLOBALIZATION. And in order to cope with the other countries, we need to address to those MNC standards (our country desperately need those FOREIGN INVESTORs), in which ONLY THE BEST SURVIVES.
FYI, marginalization does not applies only to MALAYs, they do applies to other races as well. Time after time, one of those honchos FOREIGNER (I name them INTERNAL SPIES) will stop by at my company and start doing some ACCOUNTs checking and private investigation going around where my Account exec will reminds us (lowly staffs) to keep our mouth mum about what is going on in the company (pretending to be happy EMPLOYEES le). And those HONCHOES (not all) are racist, they were abit ISLAMOPHOBIA, and Hypocrite as well (seems nice in front of u but pro in BACK-STABBING). They also like to pretend to have profound understanding in our culture too but actually is just EMPTY-TIN-CANs (but at least they dun shouted out loud racist remarks like our stupid BN leaders, see even FOREIGNERs are well mannered compare to our leader).
Sorry bout ur fren and ur experience, maybe u both are exceptional malays who fall victim (I’m not a racist, I can work well with MALAY colleagues. In fact I like MALAY colleagues companion more compare to CHINESE colleague of mine).
Maybe. But in my experience, the ang mohs are the best ppl to work with. If you gel with their values. They are most meritocratic and non-racial. All offices have backstabbing, etc. Of cos the expat will have a job to check the internal accounts to make sure all is all right-lah. I worked in UK for 2 years in London. And they were really good bosses and colleagues.
Don’t want to be racist too but I prefer Malay colleagues and clients. With Malays (not Mamak, but Malay) clients (for photography), they are very simple and tidak apa. But a Chinese one usually tries to squeeze u for every cent they are paying and ask for damn a lot of free stuff. So that’s why I mainly have Malay clients. 
Not really racist but more of a business strategy…Chinese very dangerous one, even as colleagues or friends, may be jealous and then sabo u etc…..But can’t generalise-lah. Just my experience. 
Malay clients also pay more quickly.
Thanks Jed for sharing ur experience, I did said NOT ALL foreigners are racist. Some are quite nice as u spoken of. Ok returning to my point, MNC bosses (no matter foreigners or not) tends to generalized on races that is why they sometime marginalized their employees as whole (or maybe the CHINESE tends to psycho them into believing it so, I dunno why, they tends to select us CHINESE as middlemen to deal with other races hehe maybe we look like those Japanese or Korean gua hehe, so maybe some CHINESE took these OPPORTUNITY to reestablish their post, sometimes I felt ashamed on why some CHINESE do so just like MCA leaders, making pact with UMNOputras hoping to reap some leftover crumbs of corruption cake that was left but let me tell them this, the more u gobble the gloatier u becomes the easily u suffers diarhroea hehe sometimes it’s wise not to risk it but too bad many are indulged with their DATUKSHIPS that they don’t mind being labelled as UMNO dogs).
I like Malay colleague cause as Jed says, they are quite simple and when u provoke them, they goes throwing tantrums (merajuk le), their expressions are very funny (man I was once labelled as gay when I mix with a malay colleague of mine too often sigh! that was the past, oh man! I still misses that guy am I gay hahaha). They even treat me nicer as compare to my CHINESE colleague which is as Jed said, some are TAICHI MASTERs hehehe so better beware when u met 1 haha (psst my ex-boss is 1 of them)
You got it about the Tai Chi masters. Wow. Some are masters of the invisible flying daggers….Ouch! Better lie low….
I still believe in an MNC or a Western corporation, if you work hard, do a good job, you will be rewarded.
Re the Chinese buttering up to the UMNOputeras. I guess, some look at their family who are starving and ask what next? But in the end, those who work with UMNO in Ali Baba arrangements are guilty of encouraging the NEP abuse.
To me, the ppl who benefited most from the NEP were those UMNO politicians who worked with Chinese taukehs. In the end, the Chinese lost many industries…..in the name of Malay nationalism.
I hope we can move on from all this mutual resentment among races. And build an inclusive Malaysia.
Rubbing salt to the wound, Federation of Malaysian Manufacturing (FMM) northern branch vice-chairman Datuk Muhammad Ismail said the problem had existed for a long time and had been highlighted to the council in several meetings.
We should leave no stones unturned. MORE!
http://www.jeffooi.com/2008/03/when_the_dcm_arrives_ahead_of.php