According to Law Singapore Latest Information, “Malaysia is facing a severe Human Capital Flight with large-scale emigration of intellectuals seeking greener pastures in more advanced society like in Singapore who is estimated to have 45 % of the best brains from Malaysia and 25 % to other Asian countries with the balance of 30 % to Europe and the USA out of the total estimated one million Malaysian working overseas”.
If Malaysia’s brains are taking flight then surely Singapore – a society whose core belief is meritocracy excellence, elitism and whose aspiration is to develop human capital to lead the world from mathematics, airports to automated building plan approval – will be first to try harness and poach these brains…And Singapore also strives to be first in field of poaching – not only for boys like Tan Zhong Shan to join its legal service (so that when they prosecute, their lead prosecutor will not come out with something outlandish like “self strangulation”) but also girls! This year Top Girl in Singapore who scored 10 A1s in the Cambridge General Certificate of Education (O Levels) Examination is 16 year old student Lai Kai Rou from Selangor, Malaysia. She is on a bond-free scholarship from St. Nicholas Girls’ School of Singapore and stays at the Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) hostel. She has a younger brother, a secondary two student in HCI, who is also on scholarship. The Top Girl for last year Haw Sue Hern is also from Malaysia with 10 A1s.

Of course this kind of poaching benefits Singapore society as a whole as well as the ruling clique there that gets the confidence of their voters: they have an efficient public/civil service because the people in public/civil service compete and try their best to solve the most intractable problems and come out with intelligent as well as practical solutions, and in that process the public socio-economic infrastructure there become even more developed and efficient, and being developed, attract as an on-going process and way into the future more brains (human capital), not necessarily from Malaysia (the most convenient source) but also elsewhere. (One of the features of Globalised world is migration of talent from less developed to the more developed societies and such migration activated tends to widen even more the existing gap between the less developed and more developed…).

The NEP and loss of human capital buttressed by the Kasim Amat’s xenophobic attitude of “I’d rather my country not so well developed and live with my own people than live in a highly developed country and surrounded by foreigners” (per taxidriver post #31) will guarantee Malaysia in the backwaters.

To get out of the travails, one needs a strong bold and visionary leader to push for transformation but even in this area no one steps up the plate here.

The present crop of politicians here are mediocre in individual talent (which is being generous) whilst the more capable ones – caught up in a moribund political system which sustains itself on negative factors of securities, racial and religious sentiments of their constituencies, political trickery, propaganda and situational repression of dissent than the positives of competence and efficiency of governance – have no desire and will (beyond lip service) to change the system for both the government as well as the country to become more competent and efficient. So they look inwards to self gain, especially gains from the gravy train that power provides access to and use money made from such access to perpetuate power by buying votes and gaining influence to further stay in power. It is a short sighted attitude, and selfish because it abdicates the responsibilities of power and governance to preserve, nurture and develop the nation’s resources – especially human capital resources – for the benefit of the next and future generations.

TDM’s sum zero racial hypothesis – that Malays cannot be seen to lose out to Non malays and being handicapped needs affirmative policies tends to have the unintended consequence of making the majority race diffident of their own capabilities and therefore even more reliant on the crutch of govt.’s affirmative help and making the other races, perceiving themselves marginalised, strive harder in an adverse milieu and therefore become even more competent to thrive and survive not just here but anywhere in this world, thereby widening the very gap between Malays and non Malays that the policies are supposedly intended to narrow….

There is much wisdom in being more inclusive in attitude – not seeing each other in terms of race and how my race can do better than yours, but together how we could tap develop and bring out the talents of each our countrymen without regard to creed and race to face the global challenge and uplift the country as a whole. Surely if the country prosper so will the majority race and vice versa if the country suffers so will that be a natural consequence except that the minority race being more self reliant, competitive and comptent – being forced to to learn to do so in a discriminating environment – need not have to stay and suffer but could pack their bags and go since they have survivors skills needed by other countries…