As a 66-year-old Malay who never benefitted from any of the so-called special rights of the Malays like getting a scholarship or buying a house at bumiputera prices or getting AP permits, I am sad to say that accusations of discrimination and perhaps racism seem to prevail over objectivity and good sense whenever subjects like getting government scholarships come into the picture.
While I also condemn rich and powerful Malays who use their influence and all the ‘cables’ at their disposal to help their (many a time less deserving) children, the non-Malays, too, should realise that in this ‘only power and money talk’ environment, many of them too, have benefitted from it.
We all know that the scholarship fund is not a bottomless barrel. Thus, while the government scholarships tend to give a bit more to the Malays, we also know that in the same manner, all the scholarships offered by Chinese conglomerates, companies, associations, guilds, estates of Chinese tycoons as well as those offered by (Chinese) foreign governments and institutions go a bit more to the Chinese.
The JPA should, perhaps, demand that it too, should administer all scholarships awarded by the private sector. We all know that this affirmative action agenda can cut both ways like in the US and Britain, where the whites are also incensed by this policy because to them meritocracy should be the ultimate barometer.
Likewise, the Malays here too can scream ‘foul’ when the police had to bend rules in order to attract the Chinese although the latter’s command of Bahasa Melayu is poor. If the move is to overcome the language problem in handling crime and public relations among the non-Malays, the police could adopt a racist policy by setting up a Chinese and Indian section but I am sure this is no good for national unity.
Whatever it is, the crux of the problem is that after 50 years, we still need court interpreters (who are mostly non-Malays) and Chinese or Tamil-speaking policemen to deal with law-breaking Malaysians who should by now be using the national language in their everyday life.
The non-Malays should know that - socio-politically - when Malay youths got ‘steady’ jobs like the police, armed forces or with the government, it also meant huge economic prospects for their rural families and perhaps the local economy which depends a lot on remittances.
On the other hand, with their generally stronger and broader economic base, this is not often the case for the Chinese. Unlike the Malays, the non-Malays can always fall back on their siblings and relatives for temporary jobs.
The non-Malays should also understand that job mobility among the Malays in the non-Malay controlled private sector, is more frequent than the non-Malays and very often, job-hopping among the Malays is horizontal compared to vertical move for the non-Malays.
Also, the non-Malays may find it hard to believe that many Malay employers actually hate to employ his /her own people because they, too, feel that the Malays are lazy, unproductive, etc, a phenomenon that is unthinkable among the non-Malays.
There are also Malays whose very rise to the top is due to being a Malay but who would rather appoint a non-Malay for senior position or as his or her successor because they want to show to the world that in this world ‘the best man or woman wins’.
We Malaysians have always talked about thinking outside the box. Poppycock. All of us have never got out of our own sectoral tempurung .
