Hardly a day goes by without Malay leaders of all persuasions lamenting our lack of unity. If only we are united, they earnestly assure us, we could take on the world!
I respectfully disagree; their conviction is misplaced. The force that would make Malays strong is not unity rather competitiveness. If we are competitive, then our place in Tanah Melayu (Malay Land) or even Dunia Allah (God’s World) would be assured. If we are not, then we would forever have to be indulged with such silly fantasies as Ketuanan Melayu (Malay Hegemony). We would perpetually have to pin our hopes on such political amulets as Article 153 of our constitution (guaranteeing our special status).
Our leaders’ quixotic quest for “unity” is not only misplaced but also distracting. It distracts from the pressing challenge of making us competitive.
These leaders’ obsession with unity is misguided for another reason. They take unity to mean unanimity. To them we are not united unless we parrot their views. Any disagreement is an expression of “disunity.” They prefer us to be like a flock of sheep.
They would like us to believe that their leadership is of the shepherd leading the flock from one lush meadow to the next, ensuring that no one is left behind or be preyed upon. J.S. Bach’s cantata Sheep May Safely Graze (BWV 208) is a beautiful rendition of this benign biblical imagery of the pastoral ideal.
Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that far too many of our leaders today are sly foxes cloaked in shepherd’s clothing. Instead of tending to us, they would be the first to prey upon us. Instead of protecting us from the elements, these “shepherds” would ensure that they have their istana kayangan (fantasy palaces) first, and if there were the odd lumber pieces left over, only then could the flock hope to have a wall to their shed.
We have nine sultans, all fabulously wealthy luxuriating in their Shangri la palaces at taxpayers’ expense; likewise our political leaders, as obscenely exemplified by former Selangor Chief Minister Khir Toyo and Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi. I challenge anyone to name a charitable foundation funded by any of them.
These are the leaders who are forever exhorting us towards “unity.” It is a unity to serve their purpose, not ours.
Strong Pillars of Society
This quest for unity is foolish for yet a third reason. A collection of weak twigs no matter how tightly bound (“united”) will never make a strong pillar. Likewise, a community will never be strong no matter how united its members are if individually they are weak.
A strong pillar requires top quality cement and steel re-bars. If the cement is corrupted with too much dirt, the pillar will not be strong or enduring; likewise if the re-bars have been weakened by corrosion.
The sturdy pillars of a community require citizens (cement) of high quality (productive) and leaders (re-bars) of uncompromising integrity (uncorrupted). Endlessly exhorting for “unity” would be a poor substitute for either.
History is replete with examples of societies once destined to perpetual servitude today commanding great respect. We can learn from them; there is no need to reinvent the wheel.
The Koreans, long colonized and brutalized by the Japanese, are today besting their former masters. Yes, the Koreans do occasionally pay homage to their patriotic passion for unity with their brethren to the north. Likewise the Irish; occasionally they too would stir up their republican nationalism with calls for unity with their compatriots in Northern Ireland. However, after the rousing speeches, patriotic singing, and exuberant flag waving they would be back hard at work on matters that really count – being economically productive.
The elements contributing to the strength of a society are its social, human, and financial capitals, in that order. Focus on these three and forego the illusory quest for unity. Besides, unity is more likely to be achieved once we are prosperous; then we would more likely be generous not only materially but also in our views and attitudes.
We can borrow financial capital, and to some extent human capital, through liberal immigration policies a la America, but not social capital; hence the order of importance.
Developing financial capital means we must save more and forego current consumption. Additionally, we must have efficient intermediaries to connect owners of capital (savers) to its potential users (entrepreneurs and businesses). Even in a well regulated economy, these intermediaries can sometimes stray and be negligent in their fiduciary obligations. The consequent wreck they impose on the economy and on our lives can be considerable, as Americans are currently experiencing, and as we did in 1997.
As a community, Malays mistrust banks and other interest-charging institutions. The successes of Islamic banks and mutual fund-like entities as Tabung Haji indicate that this can be surmounted and that we are aware of the merits of savings.
Our cultural tendency for conspicuous consumption abetted by the gaudy examples set by our leaders (huge weddings stretching for days) results in us having the lowest savings rates, and thus a thin financial capital base. Not a strong springboard to catapult our development. Yes, we can borrow but if we are not productive then we would not be able to service the loan.
Human capital refers to the skills, knowledge and other attributes of the citizens that would enable them to produce something or a service that is of value to society. We enhance human capital through health and education.
Improving health begins with such basic essentials as providing potable water, reliable electricity, garbage pick-up, and unclogged drains as well as elementary and inexpensive public health measures like vaccinations. Then consider the vast number of Malay kampongs that lack these basic amenities.
We improve the skills of our people through quality education. Quality is measured not by years of formal schooling or resources allocated rather by how effective our schools and teachers are. The OECD’s Program for International Students Assessments has shown that economic productivity is causally linked to quality education.
Put differently, Malaysia’s aspiration of quadrupling the per capita income within a decade would forever remain a dream unless we improve our schools and universities. Poland has demonstrated that a commitment to reforming education could produce results as early as a few years, and with that, commensurate improvement in economic performance.
Malay educational achievement lags behind the other communities. Closing this should be our top priority, not meaningless pursuit of empty unity. Subsidize education and healthcare if need be. In truth they are not subsidies but prudent and profitable investments in human capital. It is also the right thing to do.
Social capital refers to the relationships we have with each other; the shared norms, values and understanding which facilitate us working together. Any relationship, economic or otherwise, must begin with trust, a crucial component of social capital. Banks would be chronically crippled by “bank runs” if depositors lacked trust in them. The current crisis in the West is in part a manifestation of “bank runs” on “shadow banking” institutions by major (corporate) depositors. Likewise, even the most meticulous contract crafted by finicky lawyers cannot substitute for trust. Only peace treaties imposed by the victor upon the vanquished do not involve element of trust.
Perversely our preoccupation with unity with its attendant intolerance of divergent views erodes our social capital and poisons our relationships, in economics and other areas. It makes an UMNO government deny contracts to competent Malays simply because they sympathize with the opposition. We already see this poison spread to other spheres, as with some mosques reserved only for UMNO Malays.
By focusing less on our misguided quest for “unity” and more on learning to tolerate the differences amongst us, we enhance our social capital. I would go beyond simply tolerating to embracing and welcoming these differences. Only through robust debates and subjecting our views to the rigorous scrutiny of the marketplace of ideas could we ensure that we would not be pursuing a false path.
So if unity is equated with unanimity, then the less “united” Malays are the better. What we desperately need is a diversity of fresh views and perspectives to replace our current fossilized mindsets. Interestingly, once Malays can tolerate if not embrace the differences amongst us, then we are more likely to tolerate and embrace differences with our fellow Malaysians. That can only be good for plural Malaysia.
The biggest joke about unity is how they keep coming out from the mouth that break them the most – largely by stealing. Its why Perkasa is such a joke. If they truly were about Malay Agenda, they would insist on reforming the police, judiciary, MACC and ISA but not only do they not say a word, they even insist using the corruption against their opponents.
That is why Perkasa will fail, not so much because they are racist but they are corrupted and they fight the wrong enemy.
If UNITY is an impossible target it is an exercise in FUTILITY and we are wasting much energy in trying to achieve it.
We should work harder at understanding and better cooperation of SHARED values rather than achieving unity.
After all, even in the Arab world where one religion dominates, unity is a non-existent.
We should go back to basics and revisit the Rukun Negara – what was wrong with that?
This thing with Perkasa is just a sandiwara. When you are not sure of your base of support, and when an old fox like Mamakthir continues to support this fringe group, how can you really distance yourself from this group ? UMNO needs Perkasa, as much as Perkasa needs UMNO. On its own, Perkasa won’t even get back their deposits in any GE. Ibrahim Katak may be brash and loud, but he is not stupid. He knows the weakness in UMNO, and he is out to exploit it.
M Bakri Musa, you got it! Only when the Economic Pie is fairly distributed, Unity is second nature.
Then again, from their actions we can clearly tell that UMNO’s call for Unity is without sincerity. In their minds and hearts ”Unity” means Malay unity to win elections so that they can continue to plunder the rakyat’s money. Look at all the scandals; even a 200-page excercise book is not enough to list them. Threats, murders, racial slurs, unjustified imprisonments have become a norm. And where are the police? Do we not have a institution to deal with corruption?
Malaysians have been short-changed, the Malays have been betrayed and fooled by their own Malay ”pahlawans” for far too long. Time to wake-up and distance themselves from UMNO and people like Abraham Ah Lee of Perkasa. They are on the same ship carrying the spoils of their plunder.
Najib is PM in name. Mahathir is their chieftain.
Harping on unity is just a desperate act and clutching at straws. Decades of encouraging mediocrity has eroded all sense of competitiveness. Whenever challenged( just as in the case of the latest slide in university rankings), our ministers will trot out the standard answer of “we do it our way” to hide own failings and ustify our inability to compete.
That this weak competitive nature is pervasive across the entire social spectrum can be seen also in sports. Where we were once a footballing power in Asian soccer, today we are reduced to be compared with minnows such as Cambodia, Laos and the Philippines. Teams like the Koreans and the Japanese, who once feared us, now do not even bother to send their teams to play against us.
Hockey is another sports that has gone down the drain. In 1975, we were 4th in the world. I do not even bother to find out where we are today. I remembered watching our team beat the Koreans handily at the Kilat grounds in the ’70s. Today, I have not heard of the Koreans sending their teams here for practice matches.
It will take a paradigm shift in thinking and another decade at least to reverse this trend. Maybe more because other nations are not standing still waiting for us to catch up. And with human capital and talent leaving at such a high rate, it may be a never ending dream.
Hisham. Rais has said everything in just those few words: Dr M and UMNO have shrunk the Malay mind!
That way UMNO hopes to enslave the Malays forever.
That way, with the rubbish they call education, Malays will always be looking to UMNO for crumby handouts whilst UMNO-looters run away with the bag of gold.
ya, bila KITA kompetitif, KITA mampu takluk ekonomi dunia, KITA boleh jadi menteri kewangan di sana sini, KITA boleh layak (bukan secara tuan rumah) ke piala dunia, KITA boleh menang emas hoki sukan olimpik, KITA boleh menang piala thomas. bukan buang air liur macam berahim ali…
How to unite lah! If they can do it, then they would be united by NOW! Just look up on top of PWTC and you will see the word UMNO – United Malays National Organization, an organization claiming to unite the Malays and established in 1946. After so many decades and so many presidents, each and everyone of them has been SCREAMING – “MALAYS GET UNITED” in the papers! This is such a DISGRACE!!!!!!
/// These leaders’ obsession with unity is misguided for another reason. They take unity to mean unanimity. To them we are not united unless we parrot their views. Any disagreement is an expression of “disunity.” They prefer us to be like a flock of sheep. ///
More than unanimity. To them, it has to be UMNO’s way or Ketuanan Melayu way. To question the NEP or the actual shareholding of Malay wealth is disunity or disloyalty. To ask for good Chinese schools is disunity. To ask for scholarships for deserving students is disunity. To address the huge imbalance in the civil service employment is disunity.
The Italians also can’t compete. So they should ask advice from Ibrahem Ali.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/world/europe/13prato.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
///I respectfully disagree; their conviction is misplaced. The force that would make Malays strong is not unity rather competitiveness.///– Bakri Musa
If the purpose of making Malays strong so that they would not be burnt with jealousy against other who work hard and achieve success, that purpose serves the interest of the nation. For that competitiveness has certainly a place and meritocracy should be the guide. Unfortunately ever since the affirmative actions started, the government decided that competitiveness or democracy was a dirty word that should be avoided. Mamakthir called meritocracy racism as though Malays are devoid of the prerequisite for competition; yet he liked to be called Malay racist.
UMNO wants Malays to be strong at the vote booths so that with voting strength they convert everything to commodities. That includes papers stating qualifications and honorific titles. Thus UMNO wants Malay unity in voting them to power. At the family level Malays are threatened that if the do not vote for UMNO they will not be able to continue living their lives. They are made to believe that their hardship remain despite UMNO efforts rather than because of UMNO excess.
UMNO cannot argue that Malays’ strength like other races lies in competition. It would mean dispensing hard work to Malays. Which champion can remain recognized as one telling their followers to work hard when for decades they told their followers that they needed to work once in four years, to vote UMNO in the general election. They were paid bonus voting during UMNO party elections.
Lazy hands make a man poor,
but diligent hands bring wealth. (Proverbs 10:4)
Whenever I lapse in my competitiveness or workaday routines, this serves me as a stern reminder.
The world does not owe us, but we owe the world our expressions of our God-given talents to serve mankind.
Unity comes naturally when everything is equally roll in and roll out. competitiveness is a kind of road leading to unity,however if it becomes too stiff for some,then it hinders unity. The best solution I think for unity is moderation. Can moderation be practised by any party ? I think Malaysia being a multi racial society would find it pretty hard to implement moderation especially by any party in power such as Umno/Bn. And
since Umno is a communal party and being the big brother of BN,its memebers dictate the rules of the games to their favour. And the rest of the small members only would surrender to them to gain favour in return.Hence moderation is quite impossible as Umno practises racism complete with the manipulation of the official religion Islam to its advantage.
Hardly a day goes by without Malay leaders of all persuasions lamenting our lack of unity. If only we are united, they earnestly assure us, we could take on the world!
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Take on the world???
It should be the mamak who’re taking over our country!
There’s no unity even between Najib’s brain and mouth, let alone trying to unite the Malays as a race and 1Malaysia as a nation!
Unity is strength. But strangely the more we talk about unity, in all reality the more issues we bring up that lead to disunity. We did take on the world. Mount Everest. The English channel. Squash. Badminton. 2 million dollar man on a ride to space. 1 man yatch voyage round the world. 1 woman professor who touched North and South pole. Mission to Gaza. Our army’s peace missions. Dr. Zeti’s top rank in the banker’s magazine. And the list goes on. But it still does not solve the problem of why Malaysia is still crawling at turtle’s speed.
cemerlang: But it still does not solve the problem of why Malaysia is still crawling at turtle’s speed.
You know why?
It is always the Law of the Majority which prefers it, feels safe/protected behind it, and deems it a birth right to be it!
Slow, Slow, Slow. And Perish!
Apa dah jadi?
The Straits Times, 13.9.10, page A3:
“M’sia took d different line. Malaysians saw it as a Malay country; all others r lodgers – orang tumpangan. D bumiputras, sons of the soil, run the show. So the Sultans, the Chief Justice and judges, generals, police commissioner, d whole hierarchy is Malay. All d big contracts for Malays.
“Malay is d language of d schools although it does not get them modern knowledge. So d Chinese find their own independent schools to teach Chinese, the Tamils create their own Tamil schools, which do not get them jobs. It’s a most unhappy situation.”
Said MM Lee KY
Betul kah?
The Straits Times, 13.9.10, page A3:
‘I think if TAR had kept us together, what we did in Singapore – had Malaysia accepted a multiracial base for their society – much of what we’ve achieved in Singapore would have been achieved in Malaysia,’ he said referring to Malaysia’s first PM TAR.
‘But not as much, because it’s a much broader base,’ he was quick to add. But he went on to explain:
‘We would have improved inter-racial relations and an improved holistic situation. Now we have a very polarised Malaysia – Malays, Chinese and Indians in separate schools, living separate lives and not really getting on with one another. That’s bad for us as close neighbours.’
‘Our Malays are English-educated; they’re no longer like the Malays in Malaysia. You can see there are some still wearing headscarves but very modern looking.’
He warned that ‘this society would be finished’ if racial politics came into play.
‘The easiest way to get majority vote is: ‘Vote for me, we’re Chinese, they’re Indians, they’re Malays’. Our society will be ripped apart. If you do not have a cohesive society, you cannot make progress,’
http://www.pmo.gov.sg/News/Transcripts/Minister+Mentor/View+among+young+that+Spore+can+be+put+on+autopilot+still+concerns+MM.htm
The term ‘malay’ itself is about unity…
in those days,when there isn’t Malaysia nor Indonesia
People in south east asia were fight among themselves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srivijaya
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majapahit
only when the europeans (portugese and dutch) came …
the people band themselves by a common culture, heritage and language to form as a single race call Malay
to fight against invaders
There were constant fighting against the Europeans in South East Asia
Meanwhile the Chinese have thier own wars among themselves in whatever changing dynasty….
(Only communism that unites the Chinese people)
Then came the British, the malays Kings made a deal…. and so forth….
During this time, more Malays became muslim and then
only those who are muslim would be considered Malay
(segregation among the malays again) (British divide and conquer rule)
………
During British Colonization….
Then Malaya and Indonesia is born……
Chinese came….. Indian came…..
cut the story short….
Now, the chinese are trying to divide the Malay for having the sense of unity among themselves?
Bear in mind that Chinese are known to use propaganda as a tool due to the success of communism in China..
Khairy Jamaluddin said that he had been a reporter in Afghanistan and that he knew Afghanistan was a failed state but Malaysia had not reached that state to become a failed state. Khairy would say a person has to score zero to fail even if the passing mark is 10. That is the Youth Chief of UMNO, the future great leader of UMNO.
LKY has said what most Malaysian non-Malays would have spoken, but not as eloquently. Malaysia could have been the example of how human beings needed not be divided by characteristics associated with birth, but Razak with the help of Mamakthir destroyed it.
Wow how comforting to know that we are no where near the failed state of afghanistan huh, Loh?
The hairy monkey has it in his head that failure means when you hv got a score of 0. Yeah how true. How sad. How twisted. How oh boy, stupeeed! A real disgrace to oxford indeed.
Whilst the term “Malay” may mean unity, but choosing to call themselves “Me-layu” would have “weakened” them. What’s more they are now shouting “KETUANAN me-layu” which literally means “withering SUPREMACY”!