http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/opinion/tunku-aziz/24653
-1-malaysia-a-cruel-joke-

1 Malaysia: A cruel joke?

APRIL 27 - It never ceases to amaze me how simple and trusting we Malaysians
are.

We have heard all these promises before. Pak Lah, the Mr Clean and Mr Nice
Guy of Malaysian politics proclaimed his great mission of fighting
corruption after 22 years of unprincipled and largely unaccountable
governance under Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

We lapped it all up, initially at any rate, and believed every word the spin
doctors spewed out about Abdullah Badawi.

It was not too difficult a job for Abdullah Badawi, or anyone else for that
matter, after Mahathir, to look ethically spotless, clean and pure as the
driven snow.

Badawi, with his religious credentials, gave every appearance of being the
reformer that this country had been praying for. Alas, his leadership proved
a total let-down for Malaysia.

What began as a journey full of hope and promise turned very quickly into a
national nightmare. Abdullah, who skippered the good ship MALAYSIA, was in
truth an incompetent and inept rating playing at being Admiral of the Fleet.

We discovered soon enough that he could not tell north from south and a
sexton from a pair of compasses. We had to put up with his erratic command,
watching with increasing anxiety as he set the ship adrift aimlessly, with
no prospect of ever making landfall.

Now let me move away from naval to boxing metaphors, and I hope I am not
mixing them in the process.

Abdullah had come to lead us laden with his own strange stock-in-trade. It
was a mix, in no particular order, of Islam Hadhari that he himself could
not explain to save his life, the memorably inane "Work with me and not for
me" catchphrase, and the almost absurdly messianic anti-corruption clarion
call that he had used to fool the entire nation.

I am embarrassed to admit, on reflection, that he had me fooled from Day
One.

Abdullah was persuaded by close family members and advisers that he was
doing a brilliant job, and this was what he wanted to hear.

He believed that he had what was needed to punch above his weight. He did
not realise until too late that the Islam Hadhari as he had postulated it
was no match for the reality of Umno politics with its long-established
culture of money politics (for which, read grand corruption), in-fighting
and back-stabbing.

Soon enough, he found himself out-pointed at every turn by his own seconds,
Najib and Muhyiddin, whose protestations of eternal love and loyalty made
with a straight face before the disastrous March 2008 elections seemed the
height of black humour.

They pushed all the responsibility for the electoral failure to him, and
with indecent haste, distanced themselves from him. They turned collective
responsibility on its head. This was their interpretation.

And now, they are now leading Malaysia.

I am recalling the Abdullah years as a way of reminding ourselves not to be
tempted into swallowing the "right noises" that Najib is making, hook, line
and sinker.

He is apparently good at developing popular policies on the trot, and all
his reform promises seem to flow so effortlessly and glibly off his silvery
tongue and that worries many people who are looking more for substance
rather than form.

His 1 Malaysia is a case in point. How does Najib propose to give practical
effect to his excellent concept given the reality of Malaysia's race-biased
policies of racial discrimination?

Does he not see a contradiction? Is he clear in his own mind what he is
talking about? For now, it remains a slogan and, without a clear vision of
what 1 Malaysia is intended to be, it could well turn out to be nothing more
than a grand illusion.

Does he really believe that he has what it takes to reconcile Umno's
pathological obsession with bumiputra rights on the one hand with the
principles of inalienable equality for ALL Malaysians on the other?

1 Malaysia without complete equality of opportunity is nothing if not a
cruel and dishonest practical joke.

So, until Najib sets out his plan for 1 Malaysia that accords with the
conditions for a truly "Malaysian Malaysia" (with apologies to Lee Kuan
Yew), I suggest, in a manner of speaking, we do not put the champagne on ice
as it could be premature.
----------------------------------------------------
Tunku Aziz, one of the prime movers in setting up Transparency International
Malaysia, in happier times was regarded by Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi as
"one man (who) was able to harness his personal passion and deep commitment
to the values of ethics and integrity, give it a larger purpose and meaning,
and turn it into a force to transform society for the better." Why then was
he left out of the MACC Advisory Group? He is regarded as being too
outspoken for comfort and, therefore, difficult to handle.
____

http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2009/04/27/only-a-good-beginning/

Only A Good Beginning
posted on Monday, April 27th, 2009

by M. Bakri Musa

Prime Minister Najib Razak's liberalizing some segments of the service
sector is a good start. However, it is merely good but not excellent, and
only a beginning but not the total solution.

Najib must remember that a half-cooked meal is often not only inedible but
could also poison you; likewise a half-baked solution.

For Najib to have an excellent and comprehensive solution would require him
to address the more difficult underlying issue of what prompted the
instituting of quotas in the first place. Unless that is resolved, his new
policy will not be politically sustainable - meaning, not sustainable at
all -regardless how eminently sensible it is economically. Ameliorate it and
Najib would be able to liberalize not only the whole service sector but also
the entire economy, if not every facet of Malaysian life. That would bring
his "1Malaysia" aspiration that much closer.

On the other hand, if he fails to resolve that fundamental problem, he would
have succeeded only in triggering a severe backlash among Malays, the bulk
if not his only base of support. Were that to happen he would push back race
relations; the half-cooked meal poisoning him!

Already we are seeing some interesting and unlikely coalition of opposing
forces. The Bar Council, the self-styled champion against discrimination and
a vociferous and relentless opponent of Malay "special privileges," suddenly
becomes protective of its members when the government tries to liberalize
the legal profession to allow for the entry of foreign law firms.

The objective of reform is to enhance Malaysia's competitiveness. Malaysia
cannot be competitive unless Malays, who constitute the bulk of the
population, are also competitive. Increase Malay competitiveness and you
enhance the nation's competitiveness.

This being Malaysia, with its "monkey see and monkey do" culture, Najib's
half-baked move will be echoed by others eager to imitate and flatter him.
We already have one monkey in the person of Khir Toyo, the discredited
former Mentri Besar of Selangor, now suddenly discovering "reform" religion.
Rest assured that these guys are merely mouthing what is popular (or think
is popular); they have no clue of the profound implications or associated
difficulties.

Quotas were instituted to dismantle "the identification of race with
economic activities," to borrow the eloquent phrase of the New Economic
Policy. I would have expected that after nearly 40 years, the announcement
of the lifting of quotas of a small segment of the service sector would have
been greeted with unbridled joy. That it was not points to potential
troubles ahead. Najib ignores this at his own peril, especially considering
that his hold on power is at best tenuous.

The response is not to suspend the liberalization process rather to address
its opponents' concerns. The first step involves answering the basic
question of why, sans quotas, there were so few Malays in that sector. If
there were but they had no sustaining power, the next line of inquiry should
be to focus on why those Malays were not competitive.

Next would be to examine the failures of the current quota system. Why does
it fail to nurture a class of enterprising Malays? It could be that the
current policy perversely encourages the emergence of pseudo entrepreneurs
and ersatz capitalists, thus oppressing the genuine variety, much like
lallang to lengkuas.

Unless answers are found to these questions, we are guaranteed to muddle
through yet another half-baked solution. I have yet to hear sensible
discussions from our leaders on these fundamental problems.

The key to making Malays (or any group for that matter) competitive is in
revamping the schools and universities, and altering the reward system so as
to encourage genuine entrepreneurs and risk takers.

Revamp Our Education System

Graduates of our schools and universities have limited language abilities,
abysmal quantitative skills, and are incapable of critical thinking. In
short, they lack the very skills needed to survive in the marketplace.

There is only one "official" language in the marketplace, and that is the
language of your customers. Those Chinese hawkers peddling their goods in
the kampongs intuitively know this. That is why they speak fluent Malay.

The bulk of our customers speak English. This applies to our domestic as
well as foreign markets. Hence fluency in that language is essential,
especially in the service sector. This is where Malays are sorely lacking.
We have erroneously and successfully indoctrinated our young, and also
ourselves, that learning another language (especially English, the language
of our former colonizer) equals contempt of our own.

The average non-Malay speaks three languages: their mother tongue, Malay and
English. The majority of Malays however are monolingual, in Malay. This did
not happen by accident; our education system deliberately created this sorry
mess.

Language skill is a good beginning, but by itself is not enough. To be a
successful entrepreneur one must be able to manage risks. This requires an
ability to quantify it. A business plan is nothing more than a formalization
of your assessments and assumptions of those risks.

A project that would be economically viable when the cost of borrowed funds
is 5 percent would not be so if it were to double. Likewise, a profit margin
of 1-2 percent may be generous where the turnover is fast and high as with a
retail store, but not when the volume is slow. To evaluate all these would
require some mathematical skills.

This does not mean one needs higher mathematics to be successful. Indeed the
current meltdown of Western financial firms is attributed in part to the
uncalled for faith and reliance on higher mathematics. You do however have
to appreciate the difference between simple versus compound rates, or when
the interests are calculated on a declining balance, or whether it is
calculated weekly, monthly or annually.

In my book An Education System Worthy of Malaysia, I suggested innovations
to our schools so they would produce graduates who are trilingual (Malay,
English, and Arabic), have high mathematical skills and enhanced science
literacy. In some instances, I suggested bringing back the old
English-medium schools, especially in rural areas. Currently those kampong
students are the weakest academically and least prepared for the
marketplace. And they are mostly Malays.

I also suggested reforming the undergraduate years so our students would be
exposed to a broad-based liberal education regardless of their ultimate
career choices. These reforms in education must go in tandem with if not
precede our opening up the economy lest we would return to the bad old days.

Alter Our Rewards System

After we have prepared our young rigorously through better schools, then we
must align our cultural values, in particular our reward system, so as to
encourage our young to be entrepreneurs.

One is our cultural attitude towards failure. In Silicon Valley, California,
a bankrupt entrepreneur wears his failure as a badge of honor, as a war hero
would his battle scars, and moves on. To him, failure is a learning
experience. In our culture, a failed businessman is viewed with contempt.
Worse, he is seen as a caricature of the collective weakness of our race,
forever stereotyped and stigmatized.

We must have a healthy attitude towards failure, looking upon it not as a
reflection of a mortal defect in our national character but part and parcel
of the entrepreneurial process and indeed of capitalism. Hence bankruptcy
courts; it is an integral part of a vibrant capitalistic society, Schumpeter
's "creative destruction" formalized.

To be sure, entrepreneurs have their own value system. To them, the success
of their ventures is reward enough. Their satisfied customers are the
rewards, expressed in the profits of their enterprises. What we hope to
achieve by aligning our reward system would be to encourage other would-be
entrepreneurs and risk takers by honoring those who have succeeded.

The remarkable observation on successful entrepreneurs in America is that no
one begrudges them of their wealth. On the contrary, they are our role
models. When we think of Bill Gates, we think of his many wonderful
inventions to make our work more productive; his fabulous wealth is
therefore well deserved.

On the other hand, when we think of Malay billionaires, we have nothing but
contempt for them. It is not so much their obscenely ostentatious lifestyles
that offend us, rather we could not think of any useful service or product
that they have produced that had improved our lives. Their wealth comes
through their rent-seeking activities, not economic creation. They are
parasites sucking the life out of our economy.

In the same vein, we see similar contempt in America today for those highly
compensated financiers because we cannot see the positive tangible results
of their "work." Instead we suffer through the destructions they wreck.

Peruse the list of honorees of our royal awards (focusing only on Malays),
we would find that the overwhelming majority are civil servants and
politicians. It is rare for Malay businessmen and entrepreneurs (those
rent-seekers excepted) to be honored. As for the creative producers like
artists and scientists, they are never on the list.

The honors list is one measure; examine the list of beneficiaries of our
generous loan programs disbursed by MARA and other public agencies, or the
allocations of import permits and company shares. Rarely are the subsidized
loans given to those who have completed their apprenticeship programs so
they could start their own small enterprises. None of our agricultural
graduates get loans or land grants to start their farm businesses. Instead
those mega millions grants and valuable state land are given the politically
well connected who would then just as quickly sublease them to others for
hefty fees.

If we do not revamp our education system and realign our rewards, there is
real danger that liberalizing our economy would only aggravate inequities.
That would bring us back to those earlier ugly days of economic activities
closely identifiable with race. That would be unhealthy economically,
politically and socially. We paid dearly for that in 1969; we need not
repeat those grave mistakes.
____

Threat to bumiputras was never from within
http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/sub/news/story/0,4574,330327,00.html?
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