Alif Ba Ta, Towards the New Malay....

M. BAKRI MUSA
[Talk given at a forum at the University of Buffalo, on November 1, 2008, themed “Alif Ba Ta, Towards the New Malay,” organized by Kelab UMNO New York-New Jersey. The contents here are from my book Towards A Competitive Malaysia.]
Whenever the theme of this conference (or variations thereof, as with the “Malay Problem” or “Malay Dilemma”) is discussed, whether in the hallowed halls of Putrajaya or the warong kopi in Kota Baru, the various arguments expounded could be crystallized around two main clusters. On one side there are those who would confidently assert that there is nothing wrong with us, rather the fault is with the evil outside world intent on doing us in. The other would find nothing right with us; we are our own problems.
The two viewpoints may be poles apart in their basic assumptions, but they share one underlying commonality. They view Malays essentially as victims, with the first seeing us as victims of the merciless outsiders – the “them” – while the second viewing us as invalids, the tragic victims of our inadequacies, real and perceived.
The cruel “them” could be the colonialists. If only they had stayed out of our world, we would not today be burdened with a dangerous race problem, and we would not have to work so hard to keep up with them. We would then enjoy our tropical nirvana shaded by the lush fronds of the coconut tree and soothed by the lapping waves of the South China Sea.
Colonialism is now long gone. It is no longer cool to be a colonialist, except in such odd places as Russia. Still colonialism, or its variants, is being invoked every so often, and not just by the less informed. With the old form gone, the more sophisticated have invented new players to fill in the void. Enter the neo-colonialist. This modern variant is even more virulent as it is concerned with colonizing us mentally rather than just physically! Worse, those who fall victims to this new spell do not even realize that they are being colonized! Such are the awesome powers of the neo-colonialists!
If only these neo-colonialists in the form of the cabals of evil international financiers with their foreign ideology of capitalism would leave us alone, we would still have Bank Bumiputra and its massive portfolio of dud loans.
The “self blamers” do not lack for ammunition either. We are burdened by the inadequacies of our culture, we are being repeatedly reminded ad nauseam, and not just by our own kind. We are too nice and not aggressive enough, hence we are easily taken advantage off by others.
If only we are a wee bit kurang jar (uncouth), more kiasau (crude), or be more like “them!” Hence we are urged to have our own Revolusi Mental (Mental Revolution!”), be a Melayu Baru (New Malay), and assert our Ketuanan Melayu (Malay Hegemony). That would be our salvation, we are repeatedly assured.
There is yet a variation of this theme. If only we Malays were united! They would like us to be like sheep, meekly and blindly following the shepherd; follow our leaders, we are endlessly exhorted, even if they are corrupt and incompetent as they lead us over a cliff. To them unity is unanimity.
Culture is not our only burden. We have also strayed from our faith, they piously chastise us. Thus more religion, especially for our young, hugely expanded religious establishments, and more religious police to make sure that we stay on the straight and narrow path. Just to be sure, we also concocted a new and presumably improved version of our faith, Islam Hadhari.
My favorite is the self-blamers’ pseudo-scientific theory that the fault is with our genes, our fate sealed the moment we were conceived. There is nothing that we can do to alter that; so accept it. It is our price for indulging in too much inbreeding! “We must intermarry!” our supposedly scientifically enlightened leaders urge us!
If our ancestors’ psyche was destroyed by the religious determinism of the past (our fate is written in the book – al kadar), today our minds, especially those of the young, are being crippled by the biologic determinism propagated by these pseudo scientists whose understanding of modern genetics is gleaned from reading Readers’ Digest.
A Different Approach
My approach to the “Malay problem” is different. I could not care less what caused our present tribulations; I am more interested in solving or at least ameliorating them. Physicians treat and at times cure complicated diseases like cancers or even simple ones like appendicitis without ever knowing the cause. We do with what works. That is my approach to the “Malay problem.”
I do not belittle the importance of understanding the cause of something. Consider the miracle of the polio vaccine, made possible because we know exactly what caused the disease. Polio is now wiped out, and with that the elaborate iron lungs and fancy reconstructive surgeries.
In the sphere of human and social behaviors however, unlike that of the natural sciences, there is rarely a unitary cause or principle to explain reality. Often it is multi-factorial, their interactions and dynamics rarely predictable. The best that we can hope for is that by replicating some of these conditions we might also reproduce the same results.
In approaching the “Malay problem,” I am also guided by another overriding assumption. That is, there is nothing unique to the problems we face; others have faced similar problems. The corollary to this is that there is much that we can learn from others, those who are successful as well as those less so.
Voluminous treatises have been written on the rise and fall of great civilizations and empires. Today however, I am discussing the fate of smaller social units and over a much shorter time span. The rise and fall of civilizations span centuries; the relevant field of studies there being primarily history, archeology, and perhaps the classics. My discussions today examine the development of societies over a much shorter time period of a generation or two, within the memory of those currently living. The relevant disciplines here are essentially the social sciences, specifically economics.
Diamond of Development
When we study successful societies, we can anchor the various contributing factors around four main pillars: leadership, people, culture, and geography. These elements form the four angles of my “Diamond of Development,” with each factor influencing and in turn being influenced by the other three. When all four are favorable, they create a virtuous cycle, with each synergistically reinforcing the other three. Conversely when all elements are negative, there would be a rapid downward spiral.
The importance of leadership is readily apparent, as encapsulated in our traditional wisdom: Endah negeri kerana penghulu (Great country, great leadership!) Leaders are to a country what wings are to a plane; they define and limit the capability and performance. The old double wings were suitable for slow single piston planes but would impose a severe drag on faster jets; they need backswept wings with adjustable leading and trailing ends to adjust the wing shape to effect maximal lift at low speed and minimal drag at high speed. Likewise with leaders; the all-knowing powerful dictator may be best for an emerging society but he would be out of place for an educated sophisticated nation.
As for people, the UNDP declares that people are the real wealth of a nation. As for the crucial interactions between the two, consider that Saddam Hussein could never be elected dog catcher in America. He was lucky to have been caught by the Americans and not the Iraqis. Had he been caught by his own people; he would have been butchered and his corpse desecrated. Saddam’s sadism had spread to the Iraqi people, illustrating my point on the interactions between all factors, in this particular instance, between leader and people.
Culture is society’s DNA (genes); it determines the behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all the other products of human work and thought that we socially transmit to members of our society. Economist Douglass North defines institutions, a component of culture, as the rules of the game, the humanly devised constraints that shape human interactions. Cultures and institutions assure some predictability to our interactions and thus serve to reduce transaction costs.
Of the four factors, only geography is the gift of nature and thus essentially unalterable. A society is either fortunate to be endowed with favorable geographic attributes or it does not. There is not much we can do to alter that reality. The other three are human creations, and thus potentially alterable. While we cannot change our geographic attributes, we can modify our attitudes towards them, which in turn govern our relationship with and how we treat them.
If we treat our coastlines and rivers as sources of pestilence and inherently evil, the place where the hantu laut (sea spirit) and hantu darat (land spirit) are in constant conflict as portrayed by Joseph Conrad’s many Malay novels, then our attitude towards those properties would be negative. Consequently we would not hesitate dumping our garbage there with abandon; we would not care for the ensuing pollution.
We could however, alter our mindset and instead respect and appreciate those geographic attributes. We would then build levees and canals as in the Sacramento delta and south Florida so we could have beautiful marinas, fertile farmlands, and prime real estate. Similarly, while we cannot change the hot humid south, but through air-conditioning and skillful marketing, we can create the desirable Sunbelt.
In desert Las Vegas with less than 10 inches of rain annually, homes sport fountains and swimming pools. Good governance and institutions make that possible. Malaysia has daily downpours, yet its taps are frequently dry; blame bad institutions for that. Milton Friedman once famously remarked that with inept governments and corrupt institutions even sand could be made scarce in Saudi Arabia!
Unitary Versus Systemic Approach
Relating my Diamond of Development to the “Malay problem,” there are two possible approaches: unitary versus systemic. The unitary approach would be to focus on one factor, for example leadership, in the hope that it would pull up the other three. Prophet Muhammad, s.a.w., was an example of such a transforming leader; he transformed the Arabs, their culture, and the area’s political geography. The risk with such a single-approach strategy is that we could also end up with a Hitler; he too transformed the German people, their culture, and the geography of Europe.!
Likewise, there are many ready examples of society being transformed by pivotal changes in culture, people, or even geographic events. Malay culture was transformed with the coming of Islam, European colonization, and currently, capitalism and globalization. Islam ended our animist beliefs; it also brought the written culture, and with that, a quantum leap in the intellectual development of our society. Colonization upended our feudalism, ending for example, slavery and indentured labor. The impact of capitalism and globalization is yet to be reckoned.
Cataclysmic geographic events can also have transforming effects on people, culture, and leaders. In his book Guns, Germs. And Steel. The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond theorized that climactic and environmental changes doomed the Norwegians in Greenland and the Easter Islanders; their leaders, people, and culture could not cope with the new physical environmental demands required of them.
Those are the dangers of focusing or depending on changing any one factor alone. A surer and more achievable approach would be of small incremental enhancements targeting all four factors simultaneously.
Elect slightly more competent and less corrupt leaders, provide more education and better health services for your people, tame some of the non-productive and destructive elements of your culture, and have some respect for the environment. These small incremental changes could be readily implemented, and they would reinforce each other and combined, they would produce great synergy.
An equally important consideration is that if we were to make a mistake (inevitably there will be), it would be more readily corrected and its negative consequences more readily contained and hopefully be restrained by all the other elements that are working right.
There is one overriding consideration to my Diamond of Development; it is premised upon the fact that there must be peace. If citizen are at war with each other, there can be no development and the ideas represented by my diamond of development are mute. When people are in turmoil as in war, their primary concern is survival, not development.
Leaning From Others
Lastly, returning to my earlier theme of learning from others, there is much that we can learn from the exemplary society, certainly in the eyes of Muslims, of the first Muslim community in Medinah led by Prophet Muhammad, s.a.w.
Here we had a truly transforming leader; selected no less by Allah. It is instructive what he did first at Medinah. He recognized that he did not have as yet a united community, his followers divided between the native Medinans (al Ansar) and the immigrant Meccans (Muhajireen). Instead of dwelling on their real and potentially divisive differences (tribal, geographic, etc.), he appealed to their commonality, their commitment to the new faith. This is the crucial point. We need leaders who can bring people together not divide us. This is true in Malaysia as in America and elsewhere, as well as today and in the past.
This brings the centrality and assumption of my diamond of development. There must be first peace before there can be any economic development. This was what the prophet emphasized, by appealing to the commonality of the Muhajireens and Ansars.
Once he had his people committed to a common goal, the prophet then addressed the other three elements of my diamond. First he made sure that his followers were educated. He offered his prisoners freedom if they were to teach the Muslims. He also built bazaars so citizens could partake in trade among themselves. He did not charge them for using those facilities. He encouraged them to trade, as indicated by this hadith (approximately translated), it is better to give than to receive a paycheck, meaning, better to be an employer than an employee. That is also the essence of free enterprise and capitalism.
As for the environment, knowing that Medina was at the time wrecked by malaria, he had the swamps drained and advised citizens to cover their water at night to prevent mosquitoes from breeding. Even the minutest element of hygiene did not escape him as when he urged Muslims not to urinate on stagnant water. The prophet essentially addressed the two key determinants as to the quality of people: health and education.
The last point is culture; he removed some of the more odious practices of the Arabs like slavery, female infanticide, and the denigration of women. He did all these mundane but necessary things without waiting for divine revelations. His leadership style was one through personal examples (quadrhat hasanah). He not only told people what to do, he also showed them how.
During this forum I hope that my diamond of development would help you organize your thoughts. I look forward to the discussions. Thank you.
www.bakrimusa.com
Comments (15)
...written by zul4kulim, November 04, 2008 00:58:02
Even the arabs are losing ketuanan as well as identity with the current globalisation...read about Unlike nationals of other countries, the indigenous people of the UAE are less likely to be referred to by others or refer to themselves by their nationality. http://1426.blogspot.com/2008/...nt-of.html
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...written by DreamLady, November 04, 2008 00:59:46
My dear Bakri,( ...addition of "my..." ) to show how much I appreciate your writing when you are sobber. One more time, I beg you again so that you are all the time sweet and nice for the eyes to read, cos' the readers count on your intelligence and inspiring articles to educate us further... not all of us are as smart as you are.... Thank you once again for the special narration...Take care, so that you are healthy enough to continue your mission as an educator !!
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...written by michael chick, November 04, 2008 01:23:13
UMNO tells us that some of these great gals below are Superior, and some are Inferior UMNO ought to have their Marbles checked... Truly Asia, Truly Psychotic....
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...written by sbp boy, November 04, 2008 01:53:14
Dear Michael Chick & all MT readers, Why not ask a 3year child, to spot the difference(s) between the 5ladies. They are the naive and pure in mind... You can have the answer quite directly yourself in choice of humanity OR racism supremacy?
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...written by yipck, November 04, 2008 01:59:50
Yeah Yeah Yeah.. NEW Malay.. Ketuanan Malay.. Blah Blah Blah Malay... WAKE UP!!! WE are all Malaysian!! Not just Malay in Malaysia!! Sick and tired of One race is better than the others sluts!! The more one race trying to show superiority, it is exposing that that race is really inferior!! China no need to shout Ketuanan Cina, US don't need to shoult Ketuanan Ang Mo. Jews no need to shout Ketuanan Jews... European no need to shout Ketuanan Frech, German, UK, etc... Japan don't need to shout Ketuanan Japanese!! to show their superiority. They take action and prove that they are Superior!!! Not just like Malaysia's Malay only knows NATO!!! Sick Sick Sick!!!!
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...written by Spear Bing, November 04, 2008 03:15:00
When you have the majority of the Malays achieve middle class citizenry, when you have the common Malay kampong folks are free from the shackles of poverty, when they have more than enough 'food on the table', then the problem is solved. As for the Indians and Chinese, as long as they are given all the opportunities to improve themselves, don't worry about them. They have proven themselves to be hard working, diligent and resilent enough to pull off from their bootstrapps and remain competitive.
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...written by varvoom, November 04, 2008 03:53:33
We should be like cats, try herding cats?
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...written by PASOK, November 04, 2008 06:06:35
If the Malaysian chinese were not such racists in the first place, the Malays would not have been either. At the heart of Malaysian racism is the fcuking chinese who refuse to adopt Malaysian culture but insist on keeping their own - their own language schools for example. Not fair for chinaman to accuse Malays of racism when we all know who are the biggest racists on this planet.
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...written by teohchye, November 04, 2008 06:11:50
Dr. M. Bakri Musa, you are a truly great Malay and an even greater Malaysian. You are an amazing man with your wisdom and vision. You are a class act in the league of Raja Petra and Zaid Ibrahim. My hats off to a truly great disertation!
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...written by The dragonheart, November 04, 2008 06:18:59
I wonder why The Chinese in MT will never like if anything said good about Malays and Islam... Try write something good about chinese ... I bet you they will never complaint... A lot of the comments in the MT website criticize UMNO and the NEP and various other policies in a racist manner are from the Chinese people… It is no secret that the Chinese are the most racist in this country… Remember in 1969 the chinese won the the GE... but because they cannot keep they big mouth shut, NEP was drafted... Today the Chinese won again... and now they bad mouth again about Malays and Islam... Remember the population of Malays is over 60% and the Chinese is just reaching over 30%... Chinese won because of malays' votes... Can you please wash youre big smelly mouth before you talk? do you want history to repeat again? Don't make the Malys and Muslim get sick of your racist remarks in here... If you chinese want to be one Malaysian Race, learn and act as one... Stop diversifying Yourselves as an alien.. I posted the song Bahasa Jiwa Bangsa in the last few articles and i saw it was voted down by the readers here.. Ask yourself... Are Patriotic? Are you Proud to be Malaysian? Do You really care? Most of you here are bloody racist... Your not fit to be a true malaysian.. I gonna post the song again... Lagu: Bahasa Jiwa Bangsa Gunakanlah bahasa kebangsaan kita marilah amalkan ramai-ramai bahasalah menyatukan kita semua yakinlah bahasa jiwa bangsa. marilah mari rakyat semua buktikan taat setia dengan satu bahasa maju bangsa dan maju negara megahkan bahasa kita bahasa jiwa bangsa Malaysia Berjaya (Saiful Bahri) Malaysia kita sudah berjaya Aman makmur bahagia Malaysia abadi selamanya Berjaya dan berjaya Berbagai kaum sudah berikrar Menuju cita-cita Satu bangsa satu negara Malaysia berjaya Dari Perlis sampailah ke Sabah Kita sudah merdeka Negara makmur rakyat mewah Kita sudah berjaya Dengan semboyan kita berjaya Menuju di angkasa Satu bangsa satu negara Malaysia berjaya
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...written by Catharsis, November 04, 2008 06:33:49
SOurce:wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_race Origins In his 1775 doctoral dissertation titled De generis humani varietate nativa (On the Natural Varieties of Mankind), Blumenbach outlined four main human races by skin color, namely Caucasian (white), Ethiopian (black), Native American (red), and Mongolian (yellow). [edit] Colonial influences The view of Malays held by Thomas Stamford Raffles had a significant influence on English-speakers, lasting to the present day. He is probably the most important voice who promoted the idea of a ‘Malay’ race or nation, not limited to the Malay ethnic group, but embracing the peoples of a large but unspecified part of the South East Asian archipelago. Raffles formed a vision of Malays as a language-based 'nation', in line with the views of the English Romantic movement at the time, and in 1809 sent a literary essay on the topic to the Asiatic Society. After he mounted an expedition to the former Minangkabau seat of royalty in Pagaruyung, he declared that it was the ‘the source of that power, the origin of that nation, so extensively scattered over the Eastern Archipelago’. In his later writings he moved the Malays from a nation to a race.[3] [edit] Malaysian context Main articles: Malaysian Malay and Article 160 of the Constitution of Malaysia In Malaysia, the early colonial censuses listed separate ethnic groups, such as "Malays, Boyanese, Achinese, Javanese, Bugis, Manilamen and Siamese". The 1891 census merged these ethnic groups into the three racial categories used in modern Malaysia – Chinese, ‘Tamils and other natives of India’, and ‘Malays and other Natives of the Archipelago’. This was based upon the European view at the time that race was a biologically based scientific category. For the 1901 census, the government advised the word "race" should replace "nationality" wherever it occurs.[3] After a period of generations being classified in these groups, individual identity formed around the concept of bangsa Melayu (Malay race). For younger generations of people, they saw it as providing a unity and solidarity against the colonial powers, and non-Malay immigrants. The Malaysian nation was later formed with the bangsa Melayu having the central and defining position within the country.[3]
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...written by Spear Bing, November 04, 2008 06:36:57
To: PASOK and Dragonheart, If you have been intelligently observant and discerning enough, you would not have made such racist remarks. Why lump all Chinese readers in MT in one basket just as why generalize all Malays to be racist. Absolutely no. It's only when you have UMNO ultras and those politicians in the midst who choose to be extremist in their mindset, in the likes of Zul Nordin, Ahmad Ismail, Ali Rustam etc that make the non-Malays feel disgusted. Be gracious enough to the tell the difference. Open up the mind for it will only function only when it opens.
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...written by Catharsis, November 04, 2008 06:37:06
[edit] Philippine context In the Philippines, many Filipinos consider the term "Malay" to refer to the indigenous population of the country as well as the population of neighboring countries like Indonesia and Malaysia. This misconception is due in part to American anthropologists H. Otley Beyer who proposed that the Filipinos were actually Malays who migrated from Malaysia and Indonesia. This idea was in turn propagated by Filipino historians and is still taught in schools. However, the prevalent consensus among contemporary anthropologists, archaeologists, and linguists actually proposes the reverse; namely that the Austronesian people of Malaysia and Indonesia originally migrated south from the Philippines during the prehistoric period. [edit] United States context In the United States, the racial classifcation "Malay race" was introduced in the early twentieth century into the anti-miscegenation laws of a number of western US states. Anti-miscegenation laws were state laws that prohibited marriage between whites and African-Americans and in some states also other non-whites. After an influx of Filipino immigrants, these existing laws were amended in a number of western states to prohibit marriage between whites and Filipinos, who were designated as members of the Malay race, and a number of Southern states committed to racial segregation followed suit. Eventually 9 states (Arizona, California, Georgia, Maryland, Nevada, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming) explicitly prohibited marriage between whites and Filipinos.[4] Many anti-miscegenation laws were gradually repealed after the Second World War, starting with California in 1948. In 1967, all remaining bans against interracial marriage were judged to be unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia and therefore repealed. By 1795, Blumenbach added another race called 'Malay' which he considered to be a subcategory of both the Ethiopian and Mongoloid races. The Malay race were those of a "brown color, from olive and a clear mahogany to the darkest clove or chestnut brown." Blumenbach expanded the term "Malay" to include the inhabitants of the Marianas, the Philippines, the Malukus, Sundas, as well as Pacific Islands such as Tahitians. He considered a Tahitian skull he had received to be the missing link; showing the transition between the "primary" race, the Caucasians, and the "degenerate" race, the Negroids. Blumenbach writes: Malay variety. Tawny-coloured; hair black, soft, curly, thick and plentiful; head moderately narrowed; forehead slightly swelling; nose full, rather wide, as it were diffuse, end thick; mouth large. upper jaw somewhat prominent with the parts of the face when seen in profile, sufficiently prominent and distinct from each other. This last variety includes the islanders of the Pacific Ocean, together with the inhabitants of the Marianne, the Philippine, the Molucca and the Sunda Islands, and of the Malayan peninsula. I wish to call it the Malay, because the majority of the men of this variety, especially those who inhabit the Indian islands close to the Malacca peninsula, as well as the Sandwich, the Society, and the Friendly Islanders, and also the Malambi of Madagascar down to the inhabitants of Easter Island, use the Malay idiom.[2]
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...written by educationist, November 04, 2008 08:37:07
Bakri , as usual, has given us food for thought, Hmm.. interesting that it's an UMNO club in USA that invited him. I don't think any UMNO division here will dare do it -save Gua Musang. Anyway I agree with the thrust of his argument - it is how we can change and improve based on the raw materials at hand rather than blaming the past. He talks about the New Malay. It can very well be about the New Chinese, Indian, Kadazan, Iban and the whole lot of Malaysians. Yes, that will ensure the peace that will be so crucial for continued economic development.
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...written by Malaysiaputra, November 04, 2008 08:54:51
written by PASOK, November 04, 2008 06:06:35 At the heart of Malaysian racism is the fcuking chinese who refuse to adopt Malaysian culture but insist on keeping their own - their own language schools for example. ==== You have a skewed view. Even the Nonya and Babas are being considered as Chinese and are discriminated with the rest of the non Malays. If you mean adopting the Malay culture and enbracing Islam, then you are worst than a racist. You even want the non Malays to give up their choice of who they accept to be their God.