The Malay Dilemma Revisited

Back in 1986 a Filipino friend of mine remarked while at a meeting in Jakarta that the population of the Philippines and Indonesia were bursting at its borders and very soon "their people will just walk over". Returning home to Kuala Lumpur always from these visits to our neighbours I always felt that KL always looked "deserted" compared to the teeming millions that characterise their capital cities and islands. It was soon to change. In the late eighties and in the early nineties, the filipinos and the indonesians "literally walked over" into Malaysia not as an invasion force, but to serve the Malaysians as maids, to work in the construction industries,the factories, the small and medium industries, the service industries ...they were everywhere.

The first million or two indonesians came over illegally, across the Straits of Malacca and by whatever other means available; a half million filipinos also crossed into Sabah as illegal aliens; until the situation got so bad that the Government decided to register all of them and issue them work permits. This turned out to be a major privatised effort as well; the companies licenced to import workers limited to those closely linked with the Deputy Home Minister of that time. From what I hear, millions of ringgit were made at that time; just as millions are now expected by the company that enjoys the monopoly on health examinations for the migrant workers.

What struck me about this massive influx of initially illegal immigrants especially those from Indonesia was the relative ease they
blended into Malaysian society. Some of those who came early literally built whole communities in their own setttlements with their bare hands and nothing else. There are the Achehnese "refugees" who have practically sought asylum in this country. As a Malaysian, I am impressed with their hardworking nature, their sincerity, their single minded goal to earn a living even make a fortune and most important of all, their being free of any hangups or prejudices, racial or religious. What a refreshing change to know these people, here in our own land.

I have seen the extreme poverty and the extreme disparity of wealth in their home countries to know that for these illegal immigrant workers, having made it to Malaysia, even illegally across the hazards of the Straits, it was like a striking a lottery ticket. Malaysia is, was, and will probably always be, the land of plenty; milk and honey. The 100 million living on Java island alone compete with the little they have to get to the top of whatever little dungheap they find themselves on. Indonesia is without doubt a country of immense resources; but they have ten times as many mouths to feed as there are Malaysians. That these resources were not brought to bear for the good of the majority of Indonesians is another story we shall keep for later.

The Indonesian illegal immigrants later recast as immigrant workers, no doubt provided much of the brawn for the rapid infrastrucuture development of the early nineties; doing much of the jobs beneath most Malaysians. For those who could not get jobs, they become cobblers, hawkers, street peddlars, even once at the height of the haze, selling face masks. Even if they had to work for their Chinese shopkeeper or hawker stall bosses; there was nothing they were not prepared to do to legally earn a living and to be on their own two feet.

Nobody talks about their resourcefulness in trying to stay alive in a country which is not their homeland. Nobody talks about how hard they strive to be self-reliant; if at most dependent on the "network" of fellow immigrant workers in times of need. Nobody talks most of all, about their enterprise even in the most basic of businesses. Yet, the Malaysians, including the Malays, the Chinese and the Indians all know that the Indonesians and the Filipinos are "se rumpun" with the bumiputras of Malaysia.
When the Government closed an eye, amidst the pressures of a labour shortage in the late eighties, to the illegal influx of the
Indonesians, it was a very selective eye that kept out the chinese vietnamese refugees, even the mainland chinese, the buddhist thais, and the hindu indians from mainland india. Those compatible with the muslim bumiputra were alright and these included the indonesians and the bangladeshis. When the immigrant workers were registered and legalised, this selection was enforced as policy. The current recession has seen large numbers of these workers despatched to their homelands, albeit reluctantly. Even as Kuala Lumpur looks "deserted" these days, many, at least a million or two of them are still around in Malaysia providing as the social scientists would put it; a control group of specimens of the same genetic stock living in a non-bumiputra
environment. Given ten, twenty, perhaps thirty years, if they could find the means to stay here, they would undoubtedly rise to be an independent self-reliant wealthy entrepreneurial community all by themselves.

As a group and a phenomenon, these are the first "immigrants" in Malaysia since the days before Independence and the drafting of the Malaysian Constitution which granted citizenship to all those living and born in Malaysia at that time irrespective of race and religion. The concession of "jus soli" was granted in return for the "special rights of the Malays" enshrined in the constitution of the country and the constitution of the United Malays National Organisation. This exchange, surrounded in controversy when it was negotiated then and for at least a decade that followed, is at the very root of the non-bumiputra Malaysian citizen versus the communal preference policy of the nep/ndp debate.

The special rights were put in place to protect the bumiputras from essentially the economic superiority of the Chinese who if and when they became citizens threatened to overwhelm and dominate the Malays in their own homeland. One of the points raised by the Malaysian Chinese Association and the Malaysian Indian Congress in the negotiations was whether these rights were temporary or in perpetuity; they were assured that it would only be until the economic parity is achieved. It made a lot of sense then and its still does today.

Hence the nep was scheduled for run for twenty years from 1970 ending in 1990. As Dr Mahathir himself writes in The Way Forward pp 37: "After the NEP ended in December 1990, the Government launched the ten-year National Development Policy (NDP), which stresses quality rather than quantity in the restructuring of the economic wealth of the nation. By 1997, the NDP was showing equally encouraging results. The hope is that, by the end of the NDP period at the turn of the century, the disparities between the races will have been largely eliminated."

We have seen how Dr Mahathir has tried through privatisation to increase the "quality" of the bumiputra economic wealth; conceding in a way that sufficient "quantity" in economic wealth has been attained by 1990. Strangely, the year that the NDP was supposed to show encouraging results, the "conspiratorial currency traders" chose to strike at Malaysia and unleash their deflationary horror. The nep/ndp has been predicated on high growth and in 1986 when the last recession hit Malaysia, Dr Mahathir was forced to suspend the NEP for the sake of inducing growth in a moribund economy.

This time around, specific companies are involved; those related to the "quality" of bumiputra economic wealth; and he feels compelled to rescue them because their collapse would mean financial ruin to friends and family members. Now as they say, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Going by the logic of increasing the "quality" of bumiputra economic wealth; the last and final hurdle to parity is the leap of conviction: " Are the quality bumiputra entrepreneurs able to turnaround their own companies given their own resourcefulness, without using the resources of the rakyat ? " That would be the one true test of entrepreneurship; alas, the Prime Minister wants to have his cake and eat it too. He is conscious, I know, and he knows full well what true entrepreneurship is. But he has practically handpicked these "quality" bumiputra entrepreneurs himself and cannot bear to see the "Schumpeterian cycle of creative destruction" lay waste to his legacy for the Malay race.

This dichotomy presents no dilemma for the Prime Minister who has learned to live the lie. Without political power, even his successors would not be able to continue to perpetuate his legacy. The game plan is to weather the storm, protect his brood, ensure they survive to do business another day. Given the setbacks wrought by the turbulent financial markets, Malaysia would have to extend the nep/ndp for another ten years to ensure that the handpicked "quality" bumiputra entrepreneurs have the breathing space to rebuild their capacities and wealth once again. The nep/ndp and its now expected extension serves the Prime Minister's pressing need to leave the Malays the legacy of his bumiputra entrepreneurial community. Victory in the coming election is sought as a mandate for the nep/ndp to be extended into the 21st Century.

The question now being posed is: not Dr Mahathir, but do the bumiputras themselves still need the nep/ndp ? Much has been set in place for the bumiputra over the last thirty years. In education, in employment, in participation in the private sector at all levels, the bumiputras have accummulated more than sufficient numbers in every range and sphere not to feel at a disadvantage to the non-bumiputra community. Access to the non-bumiputra network is now only a frame of mind. The non-bumiputra networks, if they were formed, were done so as a competitive response to the discriminatory policies that left them out of nep/ndp controlled busines loop. Every law, every policy invoked always invites an equivalent response by the affected group to work around it; to be more competitive against the favoured group. The effect of the nep/ndp on the non-bumiputras has been to make them ever more resourceful in their approach to doing business.

We should not be too concerned about the non-bumiputras. They have shown sufficient capacity to take care of themselves irrespective of the adversity of the situation. We are more concerned about what the nep/ndp is doing to the bumiputras. That they continue to be given quotas for education, employment and business, that they continue to be accorded quotas in allocations of equity, houses and preferences in privatisation projects will not enhance their competitiveness. That they are bailed out every time their business fails is not going to increase the "quality" of bumiputra wealth. Man to man, if they were to compete with not the Chinese, Indian or Eurasian, but the immigrant Indonesians who come from the same genetic stock, who now depend on nobody but themselves, the bumiputras would be at the losing end, even.

As the new Millenium draws near, the new malay dilemma is whether for them the nep/ndp or its future extensions have outlived its usefulness or to continue to depend on the nep/ndp and draw their security from a government led by a party bent on ensuring that the Malays depend on them.


Paksanno