Isn’t a one-race civil service a form of apartheid?


By Dr Boo Cheng Hau
June 18, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

JUNE 18 — I remember once, as a young medical officer, I was boycotted by operating theatre staff when I wanted stern action taken against a staff nurse who went for a kenduri when she was supposed to scrub for a surgery.

An assistant nurse had to cover up for her delinquent senior. Both the nurses — the one who had absented herself and the one suddenly forced to relieve her duty — were Malay. The young patient lying on my operating table waiting to deliver her baby was Malay too. And also Malay, the anaesthetist and other operating theatre staff who gave me the cold shoulder after I remonstrated with the matron.

I had informed Matron right away after I found the young nurse shivering in fear because she was thrown into the deep end and unprepared to assist in a surgery. If I had expected disciplinary action to be taken, I was disappointed.

My colleagues who rallied around the race banner sadly failed to see that the patient (someone belonging to their own ethnic community) about to give birth deserved the best medical care.

What if it had been an emergency case where a life was at stake? Malays have to be made aware that an incompetent and one-race dominated civil service may not be beneficial to them and as the majority, they would be the ones ultimately most affected. With such experiences, you can understand why I resigned from the public health sector.

One of my Malay superiors urged me to “think about the service” but then again, if only the Malays themselves could think about how racism among civil servants has hindered their own progress.

1 Malay first and foremost

Malaysia has a “huge and largely ethnic Malay civil service, completely loyal to Umno, but increasingly incompetent” that is the biggest obstacle to Prime Minister Najib Razak’s 1 Malaysia. This was the view of former Economic Planning Unit deputy director-general K. Govindan, according to a leaked United States diplomatic cable.

The WikiLeaks that appeared in Malaysia Today on June 6 had the cable further quoting Govindan’s opinion that our civil service adopts “a very narrow worldview and will oppose, even refuse to implement, reforms perceived as damaging ethnic Malay interests, even if convinced of the long-run gains for Malaysia”.

Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has referred to the service as a “Malay administration”. He did not even bother to pass it off as a “Bumiputera administration” in which case it can be claimed by the non-Muslim natives of East Malaysia. Alas, the Orang Asli indigenous to the peninsula do not even figure in the equation.

Non Malays have been gradually cleansed from the public sector with only a few remaining now in crucial and inevitable sectors such as teaching in vernacular schools. The Orang Asli have been totally excluded.

Umno ultra nationalists defend majority-race dominance as justifiable opposed to the minority-race dominance previously in South Africa under apartheid. They’re pretending their systemic racism is not discernible to the rest of the world even if the minorities in Malaysia are resigned to this supremacist order of public affairs.

The public sector should reflect the country’s plural society or in other words, set the example and no longer display the same “ethnic imbalances” blamed on the divide-and-rule policy under British colonial rule.

Not a “reasonable” apportioning

Mahathir and his ultras claim their affirmative action differs from apartheid. Yet the end result of the affirmative or rather discriminative action is the monopoly of all aspects of socio-economic life by a single politically dominant ethnic majority. One example of the 1 Malay administration at work is the annual Public Service Department (JPA) scholarship disbursement where top non-Malay students appear to have been systematically sidelined.

Even though Article 8 (2) of the Federal Constitution states that all citizens are eligible if suitably qualified by educational standards to enter any branch of the public service, and there can be no discrimination on grounds of race, religion and the like, in reality, the Malay ultras have ignored this constitutional provision.

The public sector can declare that it is devoid of racial discrimination only if its staff composition reasonably reflects the ethnic composition of the country and its intake based primarily on merit. The competence, integrity and efficiency of personnel must take precedence over one’s skin colour and ancestral status.

In 1967, the Malays accounted for 68 per cent of all civil servants (Supian Ali and Mohd Zainuddin: p.162). Chinese accounted for 16 per cent and Indians 15 per cent. In 1968, Malays outnumbered non-Malays only in two (administrative services and legal services) out of nine public service areas, and accounted about half of the uniformed services manpower (Mohamed Suffian: p.297). Nonetheless, many top administrative jobs, legal officer and technical posts were held by the Chinese and Indians.

Under clause (2) of Article 153 in the Constitution, it is the responsibility of the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong acting on Cabinet advice to ensure the reservation for Malays and natives of Borneo a “reasonable proportion” of positions in the federal public service. The constitution also prohibits any deprivation of a person of any public office held by him; and public servants all races of all levels must be treated impartially (Mohamed Suffian: p.294).

The constitution compels that any preferential treatment must still be reasonable to all ethnic groups and merit take precedence. The implementation of preferential policies has to be transparent.

In 1978, the American court ruled in Regents of University of California v. Bakke that merit must take precedence over ethnicity in the implementation of affirmative action, and reverse racism as well as racial quotas are strictly forbidden.

Strictly speaking, racial quotas have been found by the courts to be unconstitutional and not regarded as affirmative action in the United States. Instead racial quotas were the main feature of apartheid in South Africa

Consequences of racial quotas

Shortly after Independence, there were about 40 per cent Indians in the Johor civil service. Today the 8,372-strong Johor civil service has witnessed the dwindling of Indians to a mere 1.39 per cent and Chinese to an even more miniscule 0.12 per cent (The Star, April 8, 2010).

All of the Johor leading administrative officers, including state secretaries, secretaries, directors of various state agencies, district officers and land officers and special administrators are Malays in a state where non-Malays account for almost half of the population. 1 Malay domination of the public service is prominent not only at the top administrative levels but also down to the general workers.

Is the absolute domination of the public service by the Malays to be deemed “reasonable” and constitutional?

XXL size govt and payroll

As we all know, the Malaysian public sector is bloated and we have the highest proportion of civil servants to population compared with our neighbours. In fact, we’re likely the world record holder!

Yet the civil service still keeps expanding. It keeps absorbing Malay graduates who would otherwise be [elsewise employed]. This will cause the Malay young generation to cling to the theory of Malay supremacy until the bubble bursts.

The public sector comprised 11.9 per cent of our total workforce in 1970, peaking at 15 per cent in 1981 but dropping to 12 per cent in 1991 after an aggressive privatisation programme launched in the mid-1980s (K.S. Jomo et al: p.65).

Like other totalitarian states in history such as the Third Reich of Nazi Germany, Umno needs a large number of Malay civil servants to control the populace through racism. Its state-sponsored Biro Tata Negara propagates Malay supremacy from top civil servants down to the grassroots.

BTN has successfully infused not only Malay supremacy but also Sinophobia and xenophobia among Malay civil servants. The British were perceived as the colonizers and Chinese subsequently became the new bogeymen after Independence as the counterfoil for instilling Malay “unity”.

Nonetheless, there are unintended consequences from the bloated number of Malay civil servants. Some of them living in urban areas take on second jobs — teachers give private tuition and sell insurance; nurses engage in direct sales; government office general workers work at petrol kiosks at night. But at least they are trying to augment their income through honest means.

Corruption among civil servants has even been justified as an acceptable way to “balance the income disparity” between the Chinese-dominated private sector and Malay-dominated public sector. The tragic thing about the whole issue is that corruption has not only victimised the non-Malay poor but has also denied the underprivileged Malays access to state resources.

The lack of promotion prospects has contributed to the phenomenon of many non Malays resigning from the public service besides deterring new prospective entrants from applying. The “kulitfication” (skin colour) ceiling and other preferences along racial lines comes at the expense of public administration efficiency. Inefficiency in the public sector has in turn adversely affected our national economic growth and the incomes of those who dominate the public sector.

There were preferential policies during the apartheid era to upgrade the living standards of politically dominant white Afrikaner minority among other better-off whites. But apartheid is an immoral regime because it degrades fellow countrymen and refuses to allow that all human beings are equals.

Such discriminative preferential policies are not “affirmative action”; they are immoral.

  1. #1 by waterfrontcoolie on Saturday, 18 June 2011 - 11:22 pm

    Today’s Star has an article on the Hi-speed rail connection between Beijing and shanghai.It was reported that the Chinese Gomen suspected that out of the total cost of the project of rm$102 billion, rm$88 million is thought to have be siphone; or 0.086%. this rail is designed for a speed of 350km/hr. It travels 1318 km across some 30 bridges including one said to be some 30km in length and a few tunnels. Whay is the average cost per km? some $77.38 million perkm. What is our double-tracking cost per km? at 150km/hr? and still lying around? it just tells the reality of our attitude and the cost Malaysia is paying! I am told, the ground work itself would have cost the Chinese track 3 times our cost, even similar ground condition! And yet they are able to do it much cheaper and faster than we do!
    all this boils down to the state of affairs of our nation which over the past 30 years we have been absorbing all the propaganda of how good and successful we were; while at the same time, the nation was robbed high and dry! The sad thing is the power that be is just keeping dumb on it so that Malaysians will just forget about it until the next election! Of course, the sadder thing is Malaysians seem to be forgetful as pronounced by the Super Ego!

  2. #2 by sheriff singh on Saturday, 18 June 2011 - 11:27 pm

    1.2 million pro-UMNO civil servants.

    PR can take over Putrajaya but can it rule with all these pro-UMNO civil servants who cannot be touched?

  3. #3 by limkamput on Saturday, 18 June 2011 - 11:53 pm

    The malaise of our civil service is the doing of UMNO Malay leadership. It is the racism of UMNO that emboldens the civil service to be parochial and racist. I believe if the leadership and the policies are right, the civil service, even now with one race dominance, will comply with the national policies. Unless the leadership sees the folly of one race dominance, I don’t think the civil service will ever change. Blaming the civil service for sabotaging national policies is not exactly correct. Most often than not, civil service actions have the tacit and covert approval from the highest national leadership.

    Let me tell you a story about Nazi Germany: when officials gathered to discuss the final solution for the Jewish people, some moderates questioned the extremists by saying the Fuhrer has denied there was such a policy. Do you know what was the reply given by the extremists? Yes the answer was: Of course the Fuhrer will continue to deny.

  4. #4 by jus legitimum on Sunday, 19 June 2011 - 12:13 am

    This once a beautiful country is now already ruined by more than five decades of mismanagement,abuse of power,corruption,lack of transparency and accountability under the stupid BN.

  5. #5 by hallo on Sunday, 19 June 2011 - 12:16 am

    Hallo everyone

    If you think properly the 153 article special position which have already expired, it is a temporary condition which should review from times to times

    (deleted)

  6. #6 by cemerlang on Sunday, 19 June 2011 - 12:44 am

    When you talk about teambuilding, it means you put aside the race thingy. When you talk about professionalism, it also means race is not a hindrance. When you talk about discipline, it means you are discipline enough not to let your racial sentiments take over. In fact there are so many teachings regarding how to be a good civil servant. How come you all don’t know ? If this is a all Malay civil service, then do not recruit non Malays. When you recruit non Malays, you are saying you are not a racist. And if anyone needs to face the music, let her face the music and defend herself. Rakyat didahulukan. Pencapaian diutamakan. The people come first. Not the Malays come first. If not, it should be Melayu didahulukan. Results to be the foremost. Good results. Not the poor results. That is my understanding. What is your understanding ?

  7. #7 by drngsc on Sunday, 19 June 2011 - 8:40 am

    It is very true, Dr Boo. These forms of racial behaviour is also perpectuated by heads of departments in University institutions. What is worse, it is also present in Private Medical centers owned by government link companies.
    I have written before, that some doctors leave public service not because of the pull of private ( money ) practice, but because of the push from public service. As long as this BN government continues, these attitudes will not change.

    We must change the tenant at Putrajaya.

  8. #8 by Winston on Sunday, 19 June 2011 - 12:23 pm

    The huge and massively bloated civil service is there mainly as a fixed deposit for the BN.
    It will be untouchable!
    At least by the BN.
    But when the PR takes over, it can revamp the whole set-up.
    Anyone who plays their own agenda will be booted out.
    Knows what this means?
    It means that they’ll lose their pension, free medical treatment, which I understand extends to their immediate family, housing loans, car loans and what not!!!
    That means a lot!
    So, if they want to play play, go ahead!!!

  9. #9 by boh-liao on Sunday, 19 June 2011 - 5:04 pm

    What’s d fuss lah, BCH?
    If a Malay patient dies, no problem 1, takdir mah
    If a nonMalay patient dies, too bad lor, who asked d patient 2 b there, wrong time lor
    Semua OK 1, can kow dim 1

    Dis silly racist nation, not only civil service almost all Malays, many gomen or UmnoB cronies controlled companies also almost all Malays
    Every year, during puasa month, Hari Raya Aidilfitri, n 1 month after HRA, U no C meh, efficiency really bad, some public places got 2 close, toll services bad at certain times

  10. #10 by cemerlang on Monday, 20 June 2011 - 5:03 pm

    Has Penang revamp the whole service ? Divide and rule. Know who the Napoleons are. A copy cat can be okay at times.

You must be logged in to post a comment.