New Economic Policy Rhetoric

I'm kinda late blogging this issue, as the matter was discussed and a ruckus was created in Parliament last Thursday morning in Parliament. You would have read all about it here (Malaysiakini) or here (The Sun).

The question from REMBAU was:

...adakah kerajaan bercadang untuk mengubah polisi yang telah digubal berlandaskan semangat Dasar Ekonomi Baru, terutamanya yang menolong kaum bumiputera sejajar dengan desakan pembangkang untuk menolak dasar ini.

The replies from the Government, which has been asked numerous times on this issue in this session, of which written replies has been provided has been standard and rhetorical and does not at all address the issues at hand. To quote some of the standard replies provided, the Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, Senator Datuk Amirsham A Aziz stated that:

DEB telah digubal pada awal 1970-an dengan matlamat utama iaitu untuk mencapai perpaduan nasional dan pembentukan negara melalui strategi serampang dua mata.

Pertama, pembasmian kemiskinan tanpa mengira kumpulan etnik dan kedua, penyusunan semula masyarakat bagi menghapuskan pengenalan etnik mengikut fungsi ekonomi. Semangat DEB kemudiannya telah diterapkan dalam dasar-dasar ekonomi selepasnya iaitu Dasar Pembangunan Nasional, Dasar Wawasan Negara dan Misi Nasional di bawah Rancangan Malaysia Kesembilan bagi menangani masalah jurang sosial ekonomi antara dan di kalangan kumpulan etnik bandar dan luar bandar.

I won't quote the entire thing but you can read the rest of his "standard" reply here from the Hansard. The government has never responded to the issue that the problem and objection with the DEB doesn't really lie with the "noble" objectives but with its discriminatory practices and overzealous implementation.

Anyway, the whole episode got "politicised" when REMBAU asked in his supplementary question:

Ahli Yang Berhormat daripada bahagian yang juga Ketua Menteri Pulau Pinang telah berikrar untuk menghapuskan Dasar Ekonomi Baru daripada pentadbiran Kerajaan Negeri Pulau Pinang kerana DEB ini, “Breeds corruption, cronyism and systematic inefficiency”, dengan izin.

Saya hendak bertanya Yang Berhormat Menteri, adakah adil untuk Yang Berhormat
Bagan membuat rumusan umum seolah-olah rakyat yang mendapat faedah daripada DEB, yang miskin tidak kira kaum, berjuta-juta pelajar dan profesional bumiputera termasuk Yang Berhormat Menteri sendiri yang menjadi produk DEB, yang menjadi ketua pegawai eksekutif bank yang terbesar di Malaysia seolah-olah kita semua ini kroni dan kaki rasuah. Adakah ini kenyataan yang adil, Yang Berhormat Menteri? Adakah ini adil?

That was when the Minister started reading his 2-page prepared text which clearly demonstrated that the answer was prepared in advance, making a mockery of the parliamentary question time. There was obvious collusion between REMBAU and the Minister, to attack BAGAN on his statement to eliminate the corruption and cronyism associated with the New Economic Policy.

Datuk Amirsham started his reply with

...saya berpendapat kenyataan Ketua Menteri Pulau Pinang itu tidak tepat dan langsung tidak memahami objektif DEB... Kalau itu kesimpulan beliau tentang DEB, maka sesiapa sahaja yang mendapat bantuan melalui DEB sama ada dalam bentuk pinjaman, peluang pekerjaan, peluang perniagaan, biasiswa dan lain-lain itu adalah kroni dan kaki rasuah...

An answer like that from a so-called technocrat and professional Minister certainly deserves, in my opinion, the heckling from the opposition members he received subsequently. IPOH TIMUR rightly asked, "Panjangnya jawapan tambahan, siapa sediakan?" You can watch the video here.

I had stood to ask an additional supplementary question, but the opportunity went to BATU KAWAN [Prof Ramasamy]. I had wanted to ask the Minister:

Bukankah satu dasar yang memberikan tumpuan khusus kepada membantu golongan miskin jauh lebih berkesan membantu kaum bumiputera yang kurang berkeupayaan berbanding dengan DEB yang memberikan tumpuan mengikut bangsa, kerana ramai yang diberikan bantuan kerajaan bukannya golongan miskin kaum bumiputera, tetapi kaum UMNOputera yang telah kaya-raya, dan yang menerima manfaat yang lumayan sekali?

It's a question I hope to get the opportunity to ask one day in Parliament, as I would really like to hear the answer from the Ministers involved.

The Malaysian Apartheid

Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz was a furious lady in India, especially when she had to defend herself from accusations of apartheid practices in Malaysia.

Holding up the DNA newspaper of Nov 28, the International Trade and Industry Minister said that the article quoted a 22-year-old Sri Lankan-born poet who had spent 17 years in Malaysia, as saying that she fled Malaysia last month to escape “systematic racial harassment.”

“Fleeing Malaysia? Oh my goodness gracious. Can you imagine? This is really telling lies,” Rafidah told reporters yesterday after chairing a Wanita Umno meeting.

[...]

Rafidah added that Sharanya had said in the article that “countless (Hindu) temples have been demolished and idols smashed – oftentimes in the middle of prayer sessions and devotees attacked”.

“What a lie. Words like this are terrible. The article really hurts,” she said.

Now, what did the poet write that made the Iron Lady so worked up?

In the article, “The Malaysian Apartheid” which appeared in the 4 December 2007 edition of ‘The New Indian Express’, Sharanya was eloquently wrote that:

…The entire bureaucratic system of Malaysia privileges the Malay above all of these groups.

Historically, Indians of Malaysian origin have been at the lowest rungs of the race/class ladder because of how they migrated there in the first place, usually in the servitude of the British empire. Post-colonial Malaysia did not only keep the divide-and-conquer system intact, it augmented it, making race essentially the be-all and end-all of everything.

And yes, the Indian minority does have it worst — socially, economically and politically. But under a political system that thrives on division and uses the threat of discord as a means of ensuring silent acquiescence, everybody suffers. To different degrees, admittedly, and a few, maybe not at all.

But by and large, living in a society that judges, rewards and punishes on purely race-based motives takes its toll. To live conscious of inequality makes one a participant, willing or not, victim or not.

Readers can make their own judgement as to who is closer to telling the truth, and who, on the other hand is covering it up.

Royal Address on Inequality

The Yang Di-Pertuan Agong, Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin in his maiden address when opening the first meeting of the Fourth Session of the 11th Parliament, said the implementation of the distribution strategy must be continued so as to eliminate the income disparity among the races which is still wide. He said that “the Government must ensure the target to reduce the income rato between bumiputra and Chinese to 1:1.5 by 2010 is met. The ratio between bumiputra and Indians is to be reduced to 1:1.15 over the same period.”

I believe that income inequality, whether amongst Malaysians or between races must be reduced significantly or eliminated altogether. However, the mechanism to achieve such a result must be based on a needs-based affirmative action policy and not a race-based one, such as the New Economic Policy (NEP).

While there may be significant income inequality between bumiputras and the other ethnic groups, a race-based policy will inadvertently perpetuate inequality between the various races, and further accentuate the income inequality within the bumiputra ethnic group.

When a policy specifically targets a racial group instead of those who are specifcally in need, those who are best able to take advantage of the affirmative action policy will naturally be those with better education, better connections with the political elite as well as those with greater financial power. Hence, a policy such as the NEP will only serve to benefit parties like UMNOputras as epitomised by the Selangor state assemblyman, Datuk Zakaria Mohd Deros.

The continuation of the existing policy will also exacerbate the already widening ">income gap within the bumiputra community. As highlighted in the 9th Malaysia plan, the Bumiputra community not only have the highest income inequality in the country, the inequality has also grown by the fastest between 1999 to 2004.

If the government is serious about raising the plight of the bumiputras, the affirmative policy has to be needs-based. Only then will all the necessary benefits go to the poor bumiputeras, as well as the poor of other communities. This way, it will eliminate leakage to the already wealthy and powerful amongst bumiputras, and hence becoming more effective in raising the income levels of the poor, meeting the objectives set out by the King.

Therefore even though the King has called for redressing the ethnic income disparity between the various races in the country, it is critical for the Government to terminate its affirmative action policy based on race, such as the NEP, and focus purely on merit and needs. It is the most effective and practical way not only to raise the income of the poor bumiputras, but also the poor of other neglected communities like the Indians and Chinese.