NOV 28 — Over the past week or so, there has been a number of exceptionally bovine noises coming out of our beloved national leaders. Two, however, in particular relate to Malay dignity and position.
On November 21, deputy prime minister Zahid Hamidi warned Malays not to let themselves end up powerless like the “Red Indians” in America or the Maoris in New Zealand while fellow minister Azalina Othman on November 26 said the unaffordability of homes in Selangor and Penang constitutes a challenge to Malay dignity.
Hearing these brings to mind a question asked me by a non-Malay some weeks ago: “As a Malay, do you feel tertindas (oppressed)?” It’s an interesting question to me and the answer is not as straightforward as it may seem.
So do we Malays feel oppressed? Okay, living costs have risen a lot recently, especially if you’re in the Klang Valley. It’s difficult for a lot of urban Malays to afford a decent and well-located home relatively close to their workplace. A recent report by Khazanah Research Institute suggests the problem of unaffordable housing extends to the whole country.
Out in the sub-urban and rural areas, there are places where development is slow in coming. Good economic prospects and promising jobs are not that easy to find and young Malays who want to do better often have to ponder the prospect of moving to bigger cities, often the Klang Valley region in the end.
Politically you, a Malay, may feel like the non-Malays are jockeying for more power and more influence over the country, what with scandal after scandal they raise involving Malay politicians. A number of factors along these lines may make you think yes, we are suffering here.
But before you say Malays are, indeed, oppressed, hold that thought. Of 30 million or so in our population, almost two-thirds are Bumiputera which is predominantly Malay. This proportion is only going to increase further in favour of the Malays who have a fertility rate 40 per cent higher than Indians and 56 per cent higher than the Chinese, according to government statistics.
Our Cabinet has 36 full ministers backed by 32 deputy ministers — of this total of 68, two-thirds or 46 are Malays. The appointment of Cabinet must be ratified by the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong, who is elected from among the nine Malay rulers. A big proportion of our government ministries are led by Malays, with anecdotally a Malay-majority public service corps.
Meantime the police force, predominantly staffed by the Malays, is led by a Malay Inspector-General of Police. Similarly the Malaysian Armed Forces is led by a Malay Chief of Defence Forces and the chain of command ultimately goes up to the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong of the day as Commander-in-Chief. The central bank is governed by a Malay.
In other words, there is no doubt that Malaysia is run by Malays and power is almost certainly going to remain in Malay hands for a long time.
There is no doubt that the ones making the ultimate decisions concerning government policies which affect ordinary citizens like you and me are mainly Malay. The economy and its long-term growth is managed by a Malay-run government.
Our national security is guarded by Malay soldiers and officers, overseen by Malay generals. Politically a Malay-majority voter base means it is unthinkable and probably impossible that a non-Malay prime minister would ever be a reality here, whatever former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad says.
This reality makes a mockery of the comparison of Malays to the Native Americans or the Maoris in New Zealand, who ended up minorities in their own lands — as of 2013, Maoris are but 15 per cent of New Zealand’s population while the Native Americans amount to under 1 per cent of the US population in 2010.
If we really want to make comparisons to either people, it would be more appropriate to think about our own Orang Asli peoples, the Kadazan-Dusuns in Sabah or even the Dayaks of Sarawak.
As a Sarawakian, the Dayak case is especially glaring in my view in that they are still the majority in Sarawak but do not even hold leading political power, instead bowing to the Malay-Melanau faction which is a minority of the population in the state.
Coming back to the question, do Malays feel oppressed in their own country? Do you, a Malay, feel that way?
Maybe you do feel tertindas. Maybe you don’t. Either way, there is only one culprit race mainly responsible for the supposed oppression of the common Malay person on the street. And it is neither the Chinese (only a quarter of the Malaysian population) nor the Indians (barely more than 7 per cent).
At the launch of an art gallery in Kuala Lumpur I attended a few months ago, former finance minister Daim Zainuddin repeated an old joke about the idiocy of people running the country: We Malaysians are so lucky to have so many clowns to entertain us.
The sad thing is these clowns may really be the ones having the last laugh in the end.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
