Slower growth and a drain of talented citizens are only the beginning.
By JOHN R. MALOTT
The Wall Street Journal
Feb 8, 2011
OPINION
Malaysia’s national tourism agency promotes the country as “a
bubbling, bustling melting pot of races and religions where Malays,
Indians, Chinese and many other ethnic groups live together in peace
and harmony.” Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak echoed this
view when he announced his government’s theme, One Malaysia. “What
makes Malaysia unique,” Mr. Najib said, “is the diversity of our
peoples. One Malaysia’s goal is to preserve and enhance this unity in
diversity, which has always been our strength and remains our best
hope for the future.”
If Mr. Najib is serious about achieving that goal, a long look in the
mirror might be in order first. Despite the government’s new
catchphrase, racial and religious tensions are higher today than when
Mr. Najib took office in 2009. Indeed, they are worse than at any time
since 1969, when at least 200 people died in racial clashes between
the majority Malay and minority Chinese communities. The recent
deterioration is due to the troubling fact that the country’s
leadership is tolerating, and in some cases provoking, ethnic
factionalism through words and actions.
For instance, when the Catholic archbishop of Kuala Lumpur invited the
prime minister for a Christmas Day open house last December, Hardev
Kaur, an aide to Mr. Najib, said Christian crosses would have to be
removed. There could be no carols or prayers, so as not to offend the
prime minister, who is Muslim. Ms. Kaur later insisted that she “had
made it clear that it was a request and not an instruction,” as if any
Malaysian could say no to a request from the prime minister’s office.
Similar examples of insensitivity abound. In September 2009, Minister
of Home Affairs Hishammuddin Onn met with protesters who had carried
the decapitated head of a cow, a sacred animal in the Hindu religion,
to an Indian temple. Mr. Hishammuddin then held a press conference
defending their actions. Two months later, Defense Minister Ahmad
Zahid Hamidi told Parliament that one reason Malaysia’s armed forces
are overwhelmingly Malay is that other ethnic groups have a “low
spirit of patriotism.” Under public pressure, he later apologized.
The leading Malay language newspaper, Utusan Melayu, prints what
opposition leader Lim Kit Siang calls a daily staple of falsehoods
that stoke racial hatred. Utusan, which is owned by Mr. Najib’s
political party, has claimed that the opposition would make Malaysia a
colony of China and abolish the Malay monarchy. It regularly attacks
Chinese Malaysian politicians, and even suggested that one of them,
parliamentarian Teresa Kok, should be killed.
This steady erosion of tolerance is more than a political challenge.
It’s an economic problem as well.
Once one of the developing world’s stars, Malaysia’s economy has
underperformed for the past decade. To meet its much-vaunted goal of
becoming a developed nation by 2020, Malaysia needs to grow by 8% per
year during this decade. That level of growth will require major
private investment from both domestic and foreign sources, upgraded
human skills, and significant economic reform. Worsening racial and
religious tensions stand in the way.
Almost 500,000 Malaysians left the country between 2007 and 2009, more
than doubling the number of Malaysian professionals who live overseas.
It appears that most were skilled ethnic Chinese and Indian
Malaysians, tired of being treated as second-class citizens in their
own country and denied the opportunity to compete on a level playing
field, whether in education, business, or government. Many of these
emigrants, as well as the many Malaysian students who study overseas
and never return (again, most of whom are ethnic Chinese and Indian),
have the business, engineering, and scientific skills that Malaysia
needs for its future. They also have the cultural and linguistic savvy
to enhance Malaysia’s economic ties with Asia’s two biggest growing
markets, China and India.
Of course, one could argue that discrimination isn’t new for these
Chinese and Indians. Malaysia’s affirmative action policies for its
Malay majority—which give them preference in everything from stock
allocation to housing discounts—have been in place for decades. So
what is driving the ethnic minorities away now?
First, these minorities increasingly feel that they have lost a voice
in their own government. The Chinese and Indian political parties in
the ruling coalition are supposed to protect the interests of their
communities, but over the past few years, they have been neutered.
They stand largely silent in the face of the growing racial insults
hurled by their Malay political partners. Today over 90% of the civil
service, police, military, university lecturers, and overseas
diplomatic staff are Malay. Even TalentCorp, the government agency
created in 2010 that is supposed to encourage overseas Malaysians to
return home, is headed by a Malay, with an all-Malay Board of
Trustees.
Second, economic reform and adjustments to the government’s
affirmative action policies are on hold. Although Mr. Najib held out
the hope of change a year ago with his New Economic Model, which
promised an “inclusive” affirmative action policy that would be, in
Mr. Najib’s words, “market friendly, merit-based, transparent and
needs-based,” he has failed to follow through. This is because of
opposition from right-wing militant Malay groups such as Perkasa,
which believe that a move towards meritocracy and transparency
threatens what they call “Malay rights.”
But stalling reform will mean a further loss in competitiveness and
slower growth. It also means that the cronyism and no-bid contracts
that favor the well-connected will continue. All this sends a
discouraging signal to many young Malaysians that no matter how hard
they study or work, they will have a hard time getting ahead.
Mr. Najib may not actually believe much of the rhetoric emanating from
his party and his government’s officers, but he tolerates it because
he needs to shore up his Malay base. It’s politically convenient at a
time when his party faces its most serious opposition challenge in
recent memory—and especially when the opposition is challenging the
government on ethnic policy and its economic consequences. One young
opposition leader, parliamentarian Nurul Izzah Anwar, the daughter of
former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, has proposed a national
debate on what she called the alternative visions of Malaysia’s
future—whether it should be a Malay nation or a Malaysian nation. For
that, she earned the wrath of Perkasa; the government suggested her
remark was “seditious.”
Malaysia’s government might find it politically expedient to stir the
racial and religious pot, but its opportunism comes with an economic
price tag. Its citizens will continue to vote with their feet and take
their money and talents with them. And foreign investors, concerned
about racial instability and the absence of meaningful economic
reform, will continue to look elsewhere to do business.
Mr. Malott was the U.S. Ambassador to Malaysia, 1995-1998.
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