reduced and recycled

I’ve read quite a number of posts and articles on this very question, and I’m quite disappointed to find that answers usually fall into two categories. The answers smell of a bit of dissemblance and avoidance that I’ve lately become familiar with in the recent debates on what the Pope said or was thought to have said.

It’s worrying how the prevalence of blame and pot-calling-the-kettle black sort of counter-arguments seem to have purchase with many people, even my colleagues and friends. It’s worrying because pointing out the other’s apparent hypocrisy is used in several ways:

Dissemblance
Pointing out the plank in the other’s eye seems to be regarded as an effective means of answering the question at hand. That’s far from the truth, and strikes not at the question per se but at the person asking the question. Because it is usually the case that both sides are tainted with the blame such questions seek to address, it is asserted that the same question should be asked of both the questioned and the questioner.

The question, as a consequence, is ignored or forgotten in an elaborate blame game: if you appear to be guilty of X, you have no authority – moral or otherwise – to question me about my committing X. All this when in the first place the question wasn’t about one’s own moral authority, but whether one was guilty of X, or whether one’s assertion of another’s committing X is true.

So instead of addressing LKY’s assertion that the Chinese in Malaysia have been marginalized because of their success and work ethic, detractors have pointed out several obvious facts: that there are few, or token, Malays in the RSAF or that there seems to be very little representation of Malays in the Singapore parliament.

These same detractors fail, as usual, to point out the more positive policies undertaken by the Singaporean government, such as the benefits Malay families receive with respect to education. Even Indians in Singapore, through SINDA, receive bursaries and aid for practical needs.

Instead of addressing LKY’s assertions, they point to our coalition government under Barisan Nasional, with power sharing between communal parties, while never pointing out that the PAP, for all its purported and real errors, is a multi-racial party. They fail, of course, to point out that our political system of communal compromises and segregation draws sharp lines between the races.

In the same breath, these detractors point to a Chinese Chief Minister in Penang, who has since been accused of not doing enough for Malay constituents by chauvanist, pro-Ketuanan Melayu factions. They fail to point out that there will be no are no new vernacular schools to be built under the 9th Malaysian Plan⁽¹⁾.

Our own problems are easily forgotten when confronted by outsiders, it seems.

Substance
But there have been a few who are quick to point out that the Chinese in Malaysia do not face discrimination. This is, in some senses only, true. Quite a number have pointed out that the lion’s share of the economic wealth in this country lay in the hands of the Chinese. If government statistics are to be believed, this is undoubtedly true.

But if it’s true on paper, it’s not necessarily true in practice, and for this, I have no statistics or hard facts to provide. I will say, however, that if you’d like to ask businessmen in manufacturing (packaging, furniture, cloth and yarn imports and manufacture), in food production, or in construction you might hear a different story. Maybe some of you working in the financial sector have heard some things also.

If the recent report by ASLI (Asean Strategic Leadership Institute) is anything to go by, however, it appears that the story being told, and the truth, are a little different. For some background and analysis of ASLI’s findings, especially on the 45% bumiputera equity stake, you might want to check out Ktemoc’s coverage over here.

If ASLI’s findings are true, then it should be noted that the share of Chinese equity is smaller than made out to be. What’s far more important, to me, is how the large stake has been eroded. It isn’t really a matter of larger pies, as it was first envisioned, is it?

What no one seems to want to admit, in the mainstream media at least, is how Chinese businessmen have sustained and survived against bumiputera companies who have been giving choice contracts, loans and other means of aid by the government. There is, also, the fact that Chinese businessmen are a clannish lot, and I don’t mean this in a good way. The picture of the ‘ugly chinaman’ which, in my work experience, prevails is reported in far greater detail by Ye Lin-Sheng in The Chinese Dilemma.

LKY’s comments, in the above-context, is in some sense one-sided.

In any case, there’s already quite a groundswell of ill-feeling amongst the races, at least where I am, and comments from an outsider tipping the balance one way or the other only reinforces such ill-feelings. Lim Kit Siang has come out strong, supporting LKY’s comments and views, and if anything this will serve to reinforce certain partisan views, if not prejudices. I wonder what will come of all this.

Perhaps in the final analysis, it will matter less whether what LKY said was right or not.

1. Admittedly, a sore point with both Chinese and Indians in Malaysia. I must say, however, that the perceived need for such vernacular schools has been perpetuated by strict communal lines drawn and encouraged by party leaders. You’d think Malay nationalists would want nothing to do with our colonial masters and their ideas, but ‘divide and conquer’ prevails, unfortunately. (↩)