By Michael Yeo
There are reports of mass migration of Malaysian to overseas, and the Malaysian per capita income is decreasing. The country economy lacks foreign investments due to incorrect policies taken in 1989. The Asian Tigers – Thailand, China, Taiwan, S Korea, Japan, and Vietnam is all vying for foreign investments and aggressively pursuing value-added export market. With the potential oil production in Cambodia from 2011 (estimated), Malaysia will be relegated to the bottom in the ladder. Globalisation does not discriminate against any nation, but they will shy away from countries where her Governments have acted against the flow of capital. The oil asset is fast dwindling in Malaysia.
Malaysia is going backward; this is not a surprised as bad policies in educations, corruptions, cronyism, political systems that give rise to self imposed racism are all present in this dysfunctional state. Let me elaborate:
Present political divides With the formation of Malaysia we have political parties that were established to serve sectorial population – the MCA, MIC and BN. In Malaysia we have political parties that are solely race or religious based – MCA, MIC, BN, PAS, DAP, PKR. Within these parties they form coalition government or coalition opposition.
Though the Constitution Article 153 provides for the Malays it must be seem that their provisions have indeed marginalised all non Malays that have at present give rise to current discontents, but with the exception of the super rich.
I acknowledged the cultural diversities of Malaysia, but this segmentation of political parties on race is and will continue to be the source of discontents. In USA their political systems are not race orientated, yet USA is a country of immigrants of various nations. The American does not have MCA or MIC or BN equivalent but they have Democrat and Republican parties. Malaysian political race based parties are itself a self imposed problem. I do not see the race problem solve by merely forming a coalition. There will never be equitable dissection of the spoils in the events of a victory in the next election. How long will it get out of hand before one party accused the other of unfair policies – it is 50 years and yet the MIC and the MCA is losing their traditional ground support, not to mentioned their living standards has stagnated.
Segmentation of School by race
To compound the problem we have schools that are also race based – Chinese school, Tamil school and Malay school, religious school – and these schools caters from day one of a child education. Imagine of the indoctrination the child gets in his or her education. They seldom mixed with other races except the few who chose to send their children to the school of their choice and not according to their race. It is therefore a segregation of races at the tender age.
The current Malaysian leadership is advocating 1Malaysia, to me it is a Sisyphean task. In the past 50 years they have not succeeded and under current political and economic environment it will be a futile attempt.
Cohesion is when all races gather together, they communicate and respect each cultural difference. The only way to overcome the problem is to start a free primary and secondary national school that caters for all races rich or poor, with English as a medium of instruction, fully funded by the ruling Government with curriculum comprising compulsory on science, maths, social science, Malay language and English language with optional language subject Chinese (Mandarin), and Tamil and Islamic Studies. In order to convinced parents of the national school, the optional Mandarin or Islamic Studies or Tamil classes is open to all students year on year until they finishes their secondary school. These national schools are to be staff by qualified teachers and are paid 20% above their counterpart in current sectorial school and where local teachers are in short supply, overseas qualified teachers are to be appointed. In order to maintained a desired standards KPI are to be set for the teachers,
One might asked what happen to the current schools. To me I will say let them be as time will prove to the old mindset that change is inevitable. If we are sincere about change the parents of today will vote with their feet.
If Malaysia is sincere in their search for long term solution for racial harmony and economic growth, they must begin with education of the young that must be in non race based school so the young will mingle and enjoy their cultural diversities. These schools will be creating future productive citizens of the nation that can articulate and communicate with the rest of the world. And most importantly the population of the future will eventually rid themselves of the MCA, MIC, and BN mentality but instead form political parties that are relevant to all races.