Better for Malaysian Chinese and Indians to continue having separate identities otherwise the Malays could really lose power within a generation. Instead, do the reverse; send Malay kids to Chinese schools.
WongCiLik
Do the Malays want to lose power by integrating-assimilating the Chinese and Indians?
In the late 1940s and 1950s, Thailand suppressed Chinese culture and closed Chinese schools with the hazy notion that this would prevent a fifth column for Communist China. They were too successful - almost all Chinese have Thai names and speak Thai as their mother tongue. Being of similar religion is a major factor. From the 1960s after being “assimilated”, the Chinese began to accumulate political power. Nowdays, the top political posts and including the army and police are usually held by Chinese descended Thais.
Indonesia did the same from 1966, and Chinese Indonesians who are less than 5% of the population now control an estimated >90% of the economy and has begun to accumulate real political power (unlike MCA).
There cannot be integration/assimilation with discrimination. Without discrimination, due to longer history/culture/experiences* - the Chinese and Indians in whatever form of names would come out tops.
History shows that only when the original “foreign” population is less than 10-20% and with no major religious differences, will assimilation work.
I would say let it be as it is now perhaps with more effort on the Chinese and Indians to speak Malay better. Better for Malaysian Chinese and Indians to continue having separate identities otherwise the Malays could really lose power within a generation. Instead, do the reverse; send Malay kids to Chinese schools as I will elaborate in my last paragraph.
*As with Mahathir’s theory (who unfortunately seems to have only super rich Chinese and Indian friends like Vincent Tan and Ananda, hence not understanding the Chinese and Indian masses and also having a chip on his shoulder - getting a driver immediately after he can afford it), the Chinese and Indians have advantages; Malays do need handicaps temporarily — its this time period that is in dispute most of the time ... I would leave the Indian topic to better commentators.
The Chinese have about 5,000 years of history - education and health/nutrition knowledge etc. Being a more experienced race — like a more experienced tennis player or golfer, of course in general without handicap, they will prevail. For 5000 years, they were living most of the time in harsh times in China - famine, war etc and they have four seasons. They had to plan and save more as there could not be enough to eat/grow in winter etc. They have evolved to be the most successful race - if measured in scientific quantities terms. Their mathematical language has evolved early to be most efficient - compare the number Sembilan (3 syllables) with Jiu/9 - all single sound numbers in Chinese. Focusing on education/Confucianism and basic health/nutrition are 2 major determinants. In South East Asia, coconut and durians drop by themselves; one can fish and plant whole year round. Not much need for planning, saving and arithmetic.
But evolution/improvements are determined by needs/environment. When there's a need and a will, there's a way. Given the right environment-education and health/nutrition focus and a need to do so, human beings will be the same. Malays are not inferior to any races when born, it’s the environment and maybe culture and indoctrination that may cause some to be believe so. Currently, due to constant indoctrination of the need for assistance, the Malays lack confidence. Without confidence, there cannot be ability. Without Malay confidence, the “problems” of Malaysia cannot be solved.
So perhaps the solution is to come to a general agreement on the right solutions to this, the Chinese and Indians must be involved and help for their own sakes. Have a big NGOs and political parties get-together.
In my opinion and from my personal experiences growing up and living around/with non-rich Malay folks (who are usually much nicer, kinder and polite than the rich ones/Chinese/Indians - a sweeping statement perhaps but as stated is my personal opinion — we have equal share when collecting Kupangs, fruits, working in construction sites etc even though I don’t contribute much in our sojourns - belated thanks to Ali Kadir, Yusoff,Azmi etc of Khalidi Muar!)
A little of what I think can be improved:
- Malay nutrition - all the thick curries, fried stuff does not help. A poor Chinese usually still get enough nutrition for the kids by cooking chicken leg/necks/bones soup etc. Formula baby milk is expensive and the Malays mother normally needs to work to supplement the family income. I don’t think most Malay kids growing up has enough nutrition.
- Environment — it is not healthy at all for most Malays in urban centres (majority of the Malay population are in Urban areas now) to be housed in small 1-2 bedrooms apartments. They may be poorer in the kampung but they have the space and the whole village to depend upon. We need more libraries built around these areas instead of look/feel good halls, religious buildings etc.
- Ensure >50% of students in current vernacular Chinese primary school are Malays — they will get to learn one more language and better mathematics skills (important in future China growth century etc), the Chinese will get to learn/use better Malay; all should understand each other better. National schools can be converted into such Chinese primary school if needed or such Chinese schools named as National School in name — this is a bold move and may not be politically palatable. But a leader is supposed to lead, not follow. Singapore leaders were bold in using English as a main medium, a neutral language; Malaysian leaders should go one up on them by using the Chinese language at least in primary schools. There is already a substantial number of Malay students in Chinese Primary Schools. Being 50% and more will also give the parents confidence that their kids won't be badly influenced by the “kaffir” Chinese.
- Recognise that Malay history began more than 1,500 years ago from the Great Sri Vijaya empire rather than the Melaka Sultanate with arguably only a half hero - Hang Tuah vs Hang Jebat. More historical role models will help confidence and ability in the end.
Yours sincerely,
WongCiLik
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The Chinaman's REAL dilemma
RPK has published a letter in his Malaysia-Today titled The Chinaman's burden, which came up with lovely neat motherhood statements on what DAP as a political party should do in the light of virtually continuous anti-Chinese diatribes coming from UMNO sources, even down to childish nonsense that romanization of Bahasa Melayu was done as a favour for the 'ungrateful' Chinese but an accusation which failed to mention the much earlier death of Jawi-script Malay newspapers.
Be that as it has been from a former judge who has lost his moral direction, we know that there'll be further 'incoming' for the Chinese - 'incoming' being an American military word for enemy artillery barrage which for the Chinese Malaysians would be UMNO sources and their politicized anti-Chinese rants.
Let me tell you what has been and is the real Chinaman's dilemma. But to do so, I need to step back a few decades in time, at least briefly.
Because Chinese like Jews all over the world have had pogroms against them from time to time, they (the Chinese, not the Jews) prefer to lie low amidst the political landscape of wherever they sought domicile.
This political evasiveness or if you prefer, political abstention manifested in the notorious all-day-all-night long mahjung games on Malaysian election days wakakaka, is quite the opposite of what Indians do.
My Unc who studied in UK for many years told me at one time, around the 70's, there was strong anti Indian feelings among Britons just as there was recently in Melbourne, Australia, but relatively nothing much against the Chinese, both in Britain during the 70's and Melbourne, Australia at the time of the anti-Indian outbreaks.
Maybe it's because Indians have been and are very politically conscious and active (could this be linked to the domination of Indians in the field of law?) that they brought themselves to public prominence which gained for them the full attention and force of local bigotry?
Incidentally, pogrom is a word of Yiddish-Russian origin, testifying to the regular and frequent persecution of the Jews in Europe (particularly in Russia, Poland, Germany, etc) that such a word worked itself into the English vocabulary.
Similarly, the overseas Chinese, also a race frequently bashed around by the majority ethnic groups in various countries, have such a tragic word to describe the regular anti-Chinese pogroms. That word is p’ai-hua meaning ‘The Driven Out’.
Oh, now that we have mentioned p'ai hua, someone who was once in UMNO, wakakaka, was very vocal in telling his Heartland crowd that the Chinese should balik Tiong Sun (China).
Okay ... back on track, Chinese Malaysians had been lying (politically) low for decades because of two factors: firstly, as mentioned they didn't want to bring the attention of the mainly Malay local authorities to themselves, and secondly, I believe there could be an atavistic belief among at least the older Chinese Malaysians that Malaya-Malaysia was/is not their land, a subconscious impression enforced through regular drilling into their barb-wire haired head by UMNO that they were/are pendatangs (despite sacrifices of Chinese soldiers and policemen), so why would/should they bother to participate in local politics. Aha, the allure of mahjung becomes more pronounced, wakakaka.
Politically, they quietly worked out a voting strategy of sending federal opposition parties like the Socialist Front and (from 1969 onwards) DAP and its late 60's to early 70's allies (PPP, Gerakan) to federal parliament to 'make mucho noise' for Chinese interests while voting Perikatan-BN into the state Assemblies to ensure continued federal-founded developments for their state.
The strategy had been employed for years except in the 1969 general elections but ceased since 2008.
Prior to 2008, when push comes to shove, they preferred a BN-UMNO government, hence 1999 and 2004 saw Chinese tsunamis for (not against) BN-UMNO.
I have to say that someone saved by these Chinamen in 1999 has been terribly ungrateful, while having the brazen thick-skinned face to condemn the Chinese today. It's the same volte-face treachery practised against the Malay rulers, who were slapped in their royal face in 1991 but Godzilla-ishly ampu today by the same group of treacherous traitors.
Anyway, I believe two principal reasons convince the Chinese Malaysians today to cease the strategy of 'making noise in the East while behaving with decorum in the West'.
The first came about during AAB's term as PM, when ironically due to his quite relaxed attitude towards the online media, the Chinese public saw on TV and read on both hardcopy and online media the vile vicious vitriolic ultra racisms exhibited during the UMNO Party General Assembly as several wannnabe leaders showed off their credentials as defenders of bangsa, agama dan raja,and bloody f**k negara. They frightened the Chinese.
Yes, most Chinese were shocked at the unbelievable words and antics of those wannabe ethnic heroes. It was no longer the UMNO they had been comfortable with, an UMNO which though was the dominant political force and favoured UMNO Malays excessively but was also an UMNO which was reasonable, rational and reachable (accessible).
The second factor was the generational change among the Chinese, where the younger Chinese, born as 3rd, 4th or even 5th and 6th generation Malaysians have different values to their elders. They believe in and would vocally assert their Malaysian rights, and sometimes in their western cultured democratic practices appear as biadap to conservative and elderly Malays who haven't been exposed to the more robust style of democracy seen in Western countries like UK, Australia and New Zealand.
Thus the dilemma, the real dilemma of the older Chinamen was whether to join the younger Chinese in being more vocal in their opposition to BN and its nefarious practices, or to lie low as before while continuing with their 'making noise in the East while behaving with decorum in the West'.
What tilted them over had been their belief that the UMNO (and thus MCA, Gerakan etc) today is not the UMNO they had been comfortable with in the past. They fear that by remaining politically equivocal or worse, silent, they will suffer far more from increasing racist marginalization than by being vocal and bringing themselves to UMNO's nasty attention.
And then of course the very epitome of all this new UMNO viciousness was tragically encapsulated in the untimely unwarranted (and arrogantly) unexplained death of Teoh Beng Hock, a man who was killed on the eve of his wedding day.
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Malaysia is a prosperous, modern Islamic nation in which three main ethnic groups -Malay, Chinese and Indian - coexist peacefully, while maintaining their unique cultural identities. Yet this stable society is founded upon a form of affirmative action that has led to condemnation of Malaysia as an inherently racist society, and to criticisms of the architect of that policy, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who outlined his ideas in his book, The Malay Dilemma, in 1970.
The winners from Mahathir's New Economic Policy have been the indigenous Malays who receive preferential treatment in education and business; the losers are the Chinese who feel they are the victims of inherently undemocratic restrictions. The author argues that whatever the cost, the benefits of the policy are indisputable. He not only queries many of Mahathir's ideas, he also challenges the simplistic views of the leader's Chinese and Western critics. Besides making a major contribution to Malaysian political and social thought, this book raises broader questions about Chinese cultural identity and the role and expectations of the overseas Chinese - a people who have left their mark in almost every corner of the world.
This book is well written and recommended to all Malaysian and those who are interested in the challenge and dilemma of `immigrant minority' in a multiracial country ("salad bowl" instead of "melting pot").
The author is a second generation English educated Malaysian Chinese who has first hand experience from colonial period (the British), WWII (the Japanese occupation), communism threat, Malaysia Independence to the subsequent years of NEP (20 years of Malaysian New Economic Policy) NDP where `affirmative action' was/is in full force.
Some may regard this `affirmative action' as a state sponsored discrimination on the minority groups of citizens (Chinese & Indian whose parents, grandparents or great grand parents were immigrants) but the author may beg to differ slightly by offering his own personal opinion / perspective.
The author attempts to point out the similarities and differences of Malaysia as compared to other countries with varied racial mix (ie. Indonesia, Fiji, America, Thailand, etc.)
The author attempts to point out the similarities and differences of Malaysia as compared to other countries with varied racial mix (ie. Indonesia, Fiji, America, Thailand, etc.)
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