“Let us resolve this after decades of independence, that we are here committed to our national language and committed to languages that would be important or critical to enhancing the quality of life and economy of this country.”

- Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim

COMMENT | The recent incident where a woman was allegedly scolded by an immigration officer for not speaking Bahasa Malaysia and the home minister’s subsequent defence of such conduct, although toxic, could be easily ameliorated if we had the political will to do so.

Keep in mind that everyday engagements between the civil service and normal citizens are fairly mundane and the reason why these incidents crop up is because the unprofessional behaviour of certain officials from the civil service (at any level) is condoned by their political overseers because they fear losing the support of the civil service, which is an influential voting bloc.

If certain low-ranking factotums from the civil service engage in such behaviour, it is because they...