NEP turns Malaysia into a dysfunctional society

YOURSAY | ‘When the country has racial policies, how do you expect the people to be united?’

Racial discrimination is prevalent in M'sia, report shows

Clever Voter: Discrimination happens as a result of race stereotyping starting from home. We insist on race identity from birth to death.

While we recognise ethnicity comes with diverse but unique habits and beliefs, institutionalising religious practices, education and even work and doing business have put us into a mess.

Attempts to eradicate the identification of race with occupation through discrimination has been a noble one but after almost 40 years, the efforts were costly but results less impressive.

We cannot beat market forces, recent survey among graduates found majority of Malays prefer public sector careers because of perks and security and the rest prefer to be self-employed. What does that tell you?

Politicians see issue of race as their bread and butter. There is no simple answer, but we can begin at home and we need to put Malaysians above all else. After all, we have done that with sports and food.

Telestai!: One of the biggest mistakes made by Malaysia's founding fathers is to allow government-funded vernacular schools. There should be only one national-type school system with equal emphasis on Bahasa Malaysia and English.

Vernacular schools can be allowed to exist but should be privately funded and regulated to ensure the emphasis on BM and English. This will go a long towards national integration and hopefully develop a national identity and sense of belonging.

We need to emulate our neighbours like Thailand and Indonesia where the non-indigenous people there speak the national language fluently.

I've been saying this for a long time - the intention of the National Economic Policy is good but the implementation is horrendous and the outcome sets the country onto a dangerous trajectory.

As a Chinese, I accept what the government wants to achieve with NEP - that is, helping to uplift the economic status the Malays and bumiputeras.

However, NEP has been abused and was used to enrich certain politically-connected individuals, leaving the masses of Malays and bumiputeras largely impoverished.

The non-Malays too benefited from NEP in many ways with those connected non-Malays getting sub-contracts while those unconnected have to work doubly hard to make a living.

When non-Malays work hard, they find new ways to prosper and improve their competitive edge. The Malays who benefitted from NEP on the other hand live with a sense of entitlement.

Fast forward this 30 years, we now have a totally dysfunctional society - the non-Malays prosper because they are battle hardened while many of the Malays continue to languish.

Wira: Yes, the Chinese descendants in Thailand are fully integrated in all facades of Thai society. But Indonesia is a bad example.

Every 10 or 20 years, some politicians still make a bogeyman out of the Chinese there because they are more hand working, and willing to take risks and are thus successful.

With its Pribumi policy, Indonesia is no different from Bolehland. If full integration is the purpose, all forms of race/religion-based discrimination must go.

Telestai!: Wira, bogeyman or not, Chinese Indonesians live and breathe Indonesian Malay. I once witnessed an Indonesian family saying grace in Indonesian Malay in a Chinese restaurant in Melbourne.

Bogeyman or not, Chinese Indonesians are a lot closer to their indigenous countrymen than their Malaysian counterpart.

Is there racial/religious discrimination in Indonesia or the rest of the world? Most definitely, but integration prevents it from spiralling out of control.

Anonymous #70881335: When the country has racial policies, how do you expect the people to be united?

When we dropped English as the medium of instruction, a potent unifying force was lost. As the next generation takes over, with not many conversant in English, the problem will become worse, not better.

Kamaapo: G25 spokesperson Noor Farida Ariffin, the existence of vernacular schools is not the cause of racial polarisation here. If so, how was there no simmering polarisation in 50s and 60s?

Even by having single-medium schools, that lost blissful years of mutual racial respect period can never be resurrected. Not with this BTN (Biro Tatanegara) hegemonic divisiveness so callously sown even from primary one.

Anonymous 2353391441138772: Malaysia is only one of the countries that have not ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination… and there is a good reason for it.

Because the government’s policy is to continue with racial discrimination. Having said that, none of our opposition parties stated that they will sign it either.

Anonymous 1802761448130592: The biggest problem which fair-minded Malaysians faced is the huge lack of public space to express their constructive opinions.

If racial discrimination is allowed to fester uncontrollably, ultimately all races in Malaysia will lose out; more so, the Malays as they are not being taught how to "swim".

When everyone in the "boat" starts quarreling and when the "boat" sinks - as it must if we carry on the way we do now - the Malays will find themselves ill-prepared to swim to safe shores.

Yes, they may be riding first-class now by default, but will the deep blue ocean accord them special privileges when the "boat" sinks?

Anonymous 1802761448130592: To cite a good example, the mandatory 5 percent to 7 percent discounts for Malays to purchase new houses, irrespective of the value of the houses and the number of houses already owned, is one of the worst forms of racial discrimination in Malaysia.

It can be readily accepted if the discounts are mandated on houses below a certain value to help the poorer Malays, but not when discounts are imposed even on high-end units and when rich Malay buyers already own more than a unit.

This policy if meant to help the poor is fine, but forcing the non-Malays to subsidise the rich is obscene. Don't forget there are also many poor non-Malays too.- Mkini