— Adelene Teo
The Malaysian Insider
Jul 13, 2012
JULY 13 — Since Independence in 1957 from the British, Malaysia has generally been a peaceful country except for the Communist insurgency between 1948 and 1960, and the racial conflict in 1969.
It may have indirectly supported several wars but it has never gotten directly involved in any, and except for Konfrontasi that Indonesia started, has always existed harmoniously with its neighbouring countries.
Occasionally, gruesome crimes are reported but these were often, though not always, resolved by the relevant authorities. The national Street Crime Index showed a decline by 40.6 per cent since 2009, and the government also reported a reduction in society’s fear of becoming a victim to crime.
Thus, it came as no surprise that Malaysia was ranked 20th by the Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP) in the 2012 Global Peace Index (GPI). As urged by Prime Minister Najib Razak, Malaysians should take pride in this success.
Why then are Malaysians still casting doubts over GPI’s 2012 report?
High profile cases of individuals being thrown off building, burnt to ashes and exploded to pieces have yet to be satisfactorily resolved. At the lower end of the hierarchy, news of violent street crimes in public and in housing areas appears to be on the rise.
Despite the additional 500 CCTVs installed by the government , Malaysians are now watching their backs even more closely, holding on more tightly to their handbags and are paradoxically double or triple-locking their doors.
What is the cause of this paranoia that contradicts the published figures by both the IEP and the Malaysian government?
First, there is a possibility of a gap between experts theorising about peace and the reality of the citizens. The weightage of the index variables and the perception of criminality as determined by the GPI experts may not reflect the reality on the ground as perceived by individuals on the street.
Besides, safety and security is not the only composition of the index — the other two broad themes are “the extent of domestic and international conflict” and “the degree of militarisation”.
Given that Malaysia is a neutral country with minimum allocation on militarisation, Malaysia’s ranking in these two broad themes could easily overshadow any poor performance in the ‘safety and security’ sub-category. This could be one explanation why the GPI ranked Malaysia ahead of Singapore and Australia, countries that Malaysians themselves often say are safer.
Second, the Positive Peace Index (PPI), newly introduced in the GPI was ignored by Malaysian media, thus painting an incomplete picture on the country’s state of peace. The PPI ranks a country’s sets of attitudes as well as its institutional and structural capacity in creating and maintaining a peaceful society sustainably.
Instead of measuring the number of crimes and the state of safety, the PPI draws on the institutional capacity of a country to improve its level of peace. Unfortunately, Malaysia did not perform well in this index, but little did the public know.
Whilst excelling in the GPI, Malaysia’s performance is mediocre in the PPI. Ranked 47 out of 108 countries and scoring only 2.595 (in the range of 1 to 5, with 1 being most peaceful), Malaysia trails Singapore(ranked 19th globally), South Korea (26th) and Islamic countries such as Qatar (32nd) and United Arab Emirates (37th) in the PPI.
In fact, Malaysia is the only upper-middle-income country in the top 10 positive peace deficit countries alongside sub-Saharan African countries, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Experts warn that countries with unfavourable PPI face the consequences of seeing an increase in violence and remain vulnerable to external shocks.
The question then becomes, “Is Malaysia heading in that direction?”
The PPI measures the following variables based on publically available sources from inter-governmental organisations, research institutes and civil society organizations i.e. World Bank and Transparency International:
• Well-functioning government i.e. quality and quantity of the public services and the government’s credibility in committing to its policies
• Sound business environment
• Equitable distribution of resources
• Acceptance of rights of others
• Good relations with neighbours
• Free flow of information
• High level of education
• Level of corruption
On closer observation, one recognises that these variables are also part of the institutional and structural reforms that the Najib administration had promised to improve through its Government Transformation Plan (GTP), New Economic Model (NEM) and the Economic Transformation Plan (ETP).
How, then, does Malaysia perform poorly in the PPI and yet have strings of “A” in the GTP and ETP’s report cards?
Could it be that one of these measures is incorrect? Could it possibly be that these plans’ key performance indicators (KPI) or the New Key Result Areas (NKRA) are incorrect in reflecting the actual impact of the country’s transformation plan as experienced by Malaysians?
Second, how will the Najib administration react to this poor result in the PPI? More importantly, how will the Najib administration address these difficult institutional and structural challenges knowing that any shortfall in achieving improved performance in these areas will see public support eroding further for the ruling coalition at the 13th general election?
Lastly, what could possibly be the ripple effects of this result on investor confidence in Malaysia? How will this result impact on the country’s economic, social and political situation? The Najib administration is desperately trying to attract foreign direct investments to boost the Malaysian economy. Will these results dampen his efforts?
According to the 2011 Global Competitiveness Report, Malaysia’s ranking on crime and safety is still far from satisfactory. Despite forging ahead of South Korea to be the 21st most competitive nation in the world, Malaysia only ranked 63 in the “Business Costs of Crime and Violence”, 53 in “Organised Crime” and 39 in “Reliability of Police Services sub-category”.
Can the Malaysian government afford to ignore these results?
Fragile political institutions coupled with poor economic fundamentals are catalysts to instability and are often associated with internal violence. Looking at Malaysia, will its institutional and structural weaknesses be an impediment to peace and security as well as its economic performance?
And most importantly, can communities in Malaysia continue to be at peace with itself, if the economy goes further south?
* Adelene Teo is an Endeavour Award scholar pursuing a Master in International and Development Economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University.
Yes, it is really pissful in Malaysia. Any piss enjoyed by normal citizen is due to the good job done by the authorities in keeping the piss.
22 years under the incumbent one has turned this land into a pissful country. May they rest in piss. Piss be with you this GE13. I will enjoy my piss now and true peace after that.
We were much poorer under Tunku’s UMNO and don’t see anyone protects by the hundreds of thousands.
Granted the population was 1/3 compared to know.
Nevertheless, under Tunku Malaysians Malaysians do feel proud to be Malaysians.
When Mahathir took over with his UMNO b….CORRUPTIONS rampant and encouraged.
Corruptions were always there but not so daringly done and the amount is peanuts compared to what they take now.
This was the starting of “there is a limit to everything” and the 12th GE was the message given.
All we want are the big fishes be caught and go for trials with so many evidences given.
No they keep, on catching small fishes.
It is only now…Ling Liong Sik testified that Mahathir knew everything about PKFZ and said..”those who d not agree with his decisions can resign”…..told by LLS.
That itself should give the Police a reason to arrest Mahathir…….if not a warrant issued to appear in court of the case.
There will be no peace until this corrupted government vacate PutraJaya.
In short….the only way we can get peace is to vote BN out.
Just look at the amount of brand new Merz and BMW owners.
I dare say…..85% are owned by UMNO b cronies.
That has gone on and on for 30 years.
Where did all these Muslims get the money?
Look at so many detached houses{bangalows} owned by civil servants.with Merz or BMW parked at the porch.
I repeat civil servants…like high ranking police officers.
It’s not jealousy or what.
It’s totally illogical …..unless all are corrupted buggers.
Anyway…an UMNO b high ranking member ….Tunku Ritthauuddin { name may not be spelt….correctly. I apologize} said few months ago……..’UMNO b is corrupted to the core”……and not one UMNO b Ministers dare to dispute that.
How can the police force excel when it has a misplaced priority of protecting the ruling regime instead of the rakyat?
World of difference between a peaceful country and a safe country. South Africa, especially Jo’burg is peaceful, but is it safe?
With mata2 (without name tags n serial numbers) whacking Bersih 3.0 rakyat, rakyat ar pissoff, how not 2 b pissful?
NR said, no problem 1, very pissful 1.
Now Rela kaki 2 patrol parking lots of shopping malls n very soon army kaki will also patrol parking lots of shopping malls
Oredi almost every housing estate in KL n PJ like war zone, barricades here n there
Fastest growing business here is private security guard business, soon will b private body guard or bouncer business
///The former IGP said politicians are not immune from the law whether they are from the ruling party or the opposition “Her allegation is not right Police monitor everything including politicians ” he said “If the politician does something that threatens national security then we the police must act.///–MalaysianInsider
Police investigated over 700,000 Malaysians last year. That is in the name of ensuring national security. But police has not outlined what are the actions which caused police to check on them, and how many of them have actually threatened national security, and how their actions could be said to be injurious to the nation?.
Does the police consider snatch thieving as threatening national security. If it does, would it be better for the police to nab those who are involved in the crimes? The snatch thieves effectively affect the security of the citizens whom the police is duty bound to protect. The priority if the police had limited resources would be working against immediate threats rather than investigating on persons whom police consider might have the inclinations to threaten national security; but has the police confused political party’s security of tenure with the security of the nation?. Does the police sincerely believe that Malaysians would use force to effect a change of the elected government?
As the police has investigated 700,000 Malaysians a year, it must have involved 7,000,000 police man-days doing it. Thus 21,000 policemen were involved in investigating political threats on an average day, rather than ensuring that criminals are arrested so that potential criminals would consider finding an alternative means to living. A quarter of workforce in the police are spent to serve the political party in power rather than doing their jobs to protect the people.
People’s security are of immediate concern of the citizens and not the so-called national security. It is most unlikely that the country faces external threat. As for internal uprising, that would not happen as Malaysians would rather see corrupted people have their days in court. As for possible communal hostility, the government should silence the person who incites hatred against the minority communities so that his son might make it to political prominence.
There is hardly any need for the police to act against persons in the name of national security.