Contrary to some who perceive rather unsympathetically saudara wahid’s recent assertions that the malays lag behind the non-malays and hence need a more level playing field in terms of employment and economic opportunities to catch up with the other races (ie the minorities in Malaysia), I for one take wahid at face value and i am supportive of such initiatives. Indeed, it is in the best interests of us non-malays to see a strong and prosperous malay middle class emerge in malaysia so if we can play our part to facilitate a greater and more stable Malaysia, why not, i ask. The main stumbling block to this however, is the skills set that the malay employee or business associate brings to the table. It isn’t for want of opportunity but for want of better linguistic and business sense that the malays are excluded from the dynamic growth engines in Malaysia’s economy. Young malays in particular must equip themselves with a progressive mindset and knowledge so that they are attractive employment options and not just stick to the old herd. To do this, we need to revamp Our education system by emphasising a curriculum That places strong emphasis on the mastery of both the Malay and English languages as was intended by our founding fathers. Once the political will to do this asserts itself and a new crop Of young progressive and open minded malays come to the fore, believe me, they will be snapped up like hotcakes. Do Not be content with wallowing in self-pity and looking at others with jealousy or seething resentment but do seize the various government jnitiatives to better yourselves. Then and only then will you be the towering malays the world will universally respect and accept.
Saturday, March 2, 2024
Monday, July 24, 2023
Why has the government not abolished the Sedition Act?
A common grouse against the Madani reformist Government of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is its failure to-date to fulfil many campaign promises, amongst of which the most notable being its pledge to repeal the Sedition Act 1948. This Act was originally enacted by the colonial authorities of British Malaya in 1948 to contain the local communist insurgence. Now that the communists are no longer a threat (real or imagined), what use then is the Sedition Act in today's context? Well, basically anyone who plots to overthrow the government can be charged under the Act and, if found guilty, can be imprisoned for up to 3 years or fined RM5,000, or both. Let's examine the Act.
Under Section 3(1), those acts defined as having a "seditious tendency" are acts with a tendency:
For an Act that has been challenged as being unconstitutional, these are very wide sweeping powers indeed to fortify the almost unassailable position of the incumbent powers-that-be and silence dissent.
However, Section 3(2) provides certain exceptions, providing examples of speech which cannot be deemed seditious. It is not seditious to "show that any Ruler has been misled or mistaken in any of his measures", nor is it seditious "to point out errors or defects in the Government or Constitution as by law established". It is also not seditious "to attempt to procure by lawful means the alteration of any matter in the territory of such Government as by law established" or "to point out, with a view to their removal, any matters producing or having a tendency to produce feelings of ill-will and enmity between different races or classes of the population of the Federation". However, the act explicitly states that any matter covered by subsection (1)(f), namely those matters pertaining to the Malaysian social contract, cannot have these exceptions applied to it.
It is small wonder that the government of the day is slow to repeal an Act which obviously protects incumbency. It is to be seen whether this dragging of feet on reforms will adversely affect the Madani Government come the 12 Aug 2023 state elections which will be held in 6 peninsular states, namely Kedah, Terengganu, Kelantan, Penang, Negeri Sembilan and Selangor. It will not affect hardcore supporters of the Madani Government, but the fence-sitters who are being hotly-courted by both sides of the political divide may be swayed or they may spoil their votes in protest. We shall see.
Thursday, January 12, 2023
The Failure of Modern Malay Secular Politicians in Malaysia
The last Malaysian general elections held in 19 November 2022 was a watershed moment for local Malay politicians. Amidst the "Green Wave" from newly-registered Undi-18 voters, the old Malay political establishment came crumbling down and were largely washed aside. UMNO which thought itself a clear winner ended up as the biggest loser in GE 15 with PAS emerging as the dominant Malay party in Parliament.
Old fogeys like Tun Dr Mahathir, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and the elite secular Malay politicians fell like dominoes.
There is a very clear message being sent by young Malay voters. The Malay elite political establishment has failed them and they want an alternative representation. The old order is seen as corrupt, crony-benefitting and self-serving compared with the likes of PAS, inflammatory incendiary and all-provoking as they may seem to us non-Malays. But the fact remains that PAS is perceived as cleaner and mostly untouched by the horrid corruption and other scandals befalling the Malay elites. It is closer to the roots of the Malay psyche, the kampung pondok agama, and the common Malay peasant. It is remarkable how from being a marginalised, fringe looney religio-party that PAS has emerged as the main voice of the discontented and restless segment of the Malay voters.
In less than 30 years, PAS has grown from strength to strength, benefitting always from the many follies and scandals befalling its arch-rival UMNO. The final straw that literally broke the UMNO camel's back was 1MDB involving disgraced former UMNO President and ex-PM Najib Tun Abdul Razak. In their final hours of desperation, najib and his deputy zahid both sought the support of PAS to stave off their court cases and when that and the Perikatan Nasional tie-ups didn't work, they sought an alternate refuge: Pakatan Harapan.
Who can save the so-called secular modern Malay politican, if such a man/woman truly exists? If najib tun abdul razak personifies the modern moderate secular malay polituician, then the future looks bleak indeed. Can there be a clean, honest and competent Malay politician free from political Islam and yet far-seeing enough to guide KD Malaysia to safe harbour away from the storms of racial and religious extremism and gutter poltics? Perhaps a taste of Hadi Awang as Prime Minister for one term is all the anbtidote that is really needed to stir the slumbering hordes out of its morbid fantasies.
Monday, January 10, 2022
American exceptionalism explained
American exceptionalism.
This is not anti-American propaganda. I write based on facts. Fact 1: America is a global trouble-maker who wages wars against regimes it considers to be a threat against its industrial-military complex. Fact 2: America preaches but it does not do or act as it preaches. It wants you to follow its admonitions but it claims "exception" to its own rules. Eg. For centuries, America decimated her native Indian population and marginalised their language and culture into so-called "reservations" where the natives are confined for generations until only recently. But America preaches hatred against China, Russia, Iran, any country that it deems to be a potential threat or rival against its global hegemony. Fact 3: America preaches "freedom" of speech but hunts down its own whistleblowers as in the case of Julian Assange under the pretext of "National Security". How does this make America any different from other despotic regimes who use national security or "national interests" as a shroud to cover its misdeeds? Fact 4: Ameirca is in decline and it knows it is in decline interminably so it tries to find ways and means to denigrate and destroy its perceived rival, namely China. America doesn't even pretend to care for the welfare of the poor and marginalised worldwide, what it does do is to hand out crumbs to needy nations and attempt regime-change through the CIA and its dirty war operatives. Fact 5: America has LONG AGO LOST its moral authority to lead the world therefore it is not fit to pretend to continue to lead the world. It cannot even manage its own massive homelesness, drugs, gun culture, social decay problems so how can it lead anyone? A former classmate of mine showed me a link to a PBS video denigrating China for its alleged human rights abuses. Fine. But what about America's own human rights abuses? What is good for the goose is clearly not good for the gander. Hypocrites.
Wednesday, January 5, 2022
Hear us Roar?
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Yes it is 06 January today and we are fast into the new year with some predicting a global runaway inflation and economic mayhem this evil 2022 the year of our Lord. It sure looks pretty gloomy with prices of most essentials and foodstuffs rising globally amid unresolved supply chain bottlenecks. Meanwhile, the government of Ismail Sabri has had to contend with floods and missing ministers who took year end leave only to be summoned home to help Malaysians suffering from the floods. The government's response has been to give handouts again though thankfully the EPF is left alone this time. Once GE 15 is called and it has to be called by June 2023, the government which is expected to win hands-down will likely turn its attention to reviving the economy and its revenue base so what better way to collect more monies than to re-introduce the Goods and Services Tax (GST)? After all, our neighbour downsouth is revising upwards their GST rate from 7% to 9% soon since it is mid-term for the singapore govt and therefore there is no better time to raise taxes than now. I am thinking that post GE 15, GST in the region of 4-5% for Malaysia will be the case for us. Alrighty then, bring it on, 2022.
Sunday, November 22, 2020
Uneven development and transformation, Vision 2020 and beyond
Uneven development and transformation, Vision 2020 and beyond
By Jomo Kwame Sundaram (published in The Edge, 1346 the week of Nov 23-29, 2020 and re-produced here without permission for academic discourse purposes). All credits to the author.
Work in an Evolving Malaysia - by Hawati Hamid, Siti Aiysyah Tumin and Nur Thuraya Sazali - is the second Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) report in a month to revisit the period associated with Vision 2020, announced in early 1991, after the era typically associated with the New Economic Policy (NEP) of 1971 to 1990.
Vision 2020 sought to create a psychologically liberated, mature, ethical, tolerant, liberal, democratic, scientific, industrialised, prosperous, progressive, caring, economically just and united Malaysian nation.
Arguably, Vision 2020 was killed by the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis followed by the Mahathir-Anwar political fallout and the 2008 global financial crisis. Two decades before, the NEP was introduced to create the conditions for national unity after the traumatic racial riots of May 1969 by eradicating poverty and restructuring society to eliminate the association of race with economic function.
It is a pity that the country has not had a fuller debate over what happened to this progressive national vision, which sought to go beyond the ethnically divisive dominant interpretation and implementation of the NEP, repudiating its intent to forge national unity.
Capturing public policy, ruling party politicians and their business partners ensured the NEP undermined such prospects by invoking ethno-populist victimhood to secure "ketuanan Melayu" privilege.
Curiously, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed hardly referred to Vision 2020 that he launched during his recent political comeback, although many consider it to be his finest moment, rising - albeit briefly - above the divisive legacy of NEP implementation, privatisation and the mid-1980s' split in UMNO.
It is no secret that Vision 2020's modernist unifying vision was first drafted by three now-departed Malay intellectuals at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS), namely its director-general Noordin Sopiee, fiscal economist Ismail salleh and political sociologist Rustam Sani.
Rustam - son of progressive nationalist politician Ahmad Boestmam, who helped draft the 1947 PUTERA-AMJCA People's Constitution (Perlembagaan Rakyat), which envisaged a bangsa Melayu (Malay nation defined by patriotism and not ethnic genealogy or religion and long-concerned with nation-building) - was key to envisaging Vision 2020's bangsa Malaysia (Malaysian nation).
Sadly, the main reference to Vision 2020 often made in Malaysia these days is to Datuk Seri Najib Razak's caricatured equation of developing the nation with achieving high-income country (HIC) status, a World Bank category. Najib's regime claimed that Malaysia was on the cusp of HIC status by statistically ignoring foreign labour, especially the undocumented foreign workers.
This remains a major problem, inetr alia, in Malaysian economic statistics as we pretend they do not contribute significantly to economic output despite being poorly treated. For example, discriminating against them adversely affects Malaysian workers working in similar jobs and puts the malaysian public at risk by refusing to test them for Covid-19 as if the virus discriminates on the basis of citizenship.
Official data acknowledges over 32 million citizens and over 15 million in the labour force, including 2.2 million non-citizens. Half a decade ago, the then human resources minister announced that an estimated 6.7 million foreign workers in the country used data from telcos. In other words, about 4.5 million were undocumented, and hence not recognized as part of the labour force.
This implies that about a third of the labour force in Malaysia of closer to 20 million is foreign and of whom two-thirds were not acknowledged. By ignoring their contribution and meausring productivity and income without them, we only delude ourselves that we have nearly achieved high-income status despite lacklustre investment and development for well over two decades.
Uneven structural change and employment
With such caveats in mind, we can learn a great deal from the KRI report's review of Malaysia's labour trends from 1989 to 2019, almost coinciding with the period since 2020 was proclaimed. Work influences incomes, consumption and well-being, covered in last month's report, especially as labour incomes accounted for more than four-fifths of household income in 2019.
Household incomes are linked to spatially varying employment conditions in the country. Using available official data, it offers a spatial perspective, reviewing workforce characteristics in different states to identify some challenges and opportunities.
Such uneven economic development resulted in varied employment conditions. More economically advanced states had higher labour force participation rates (especially for women), more skilled and educated workers as well as lower unemployment rates. Hence, better paid jobs were mainly in the central hub of Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya.
But differences in work conditions persist. Formal and secure employment is widespread, but vulnerable and precarious jobs are growing. In the more economically advanced states, almost four-fifths of workers had more secure employment terms. But decent work deficits have been increasing, even in richer states.
Transformations
As Malaysia's economy has grown, the distribution of economic activities among states has evolved. Agriculture's share of employment declined from 31% in 1982 to 10% in 2019 but remained important in most rural areas and, relatively more significantly, in the poorer north and east coast states of Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak.
Thus, agriculture still accounted for 24% to 26% of employment in Sabah, Sarawak and the federal territory of Labuan, and 14% in the other poor Peninsular Malaysia states in 2019 (highest in Pahang at 21%). Decent work deficits - for example, in occupational health and safety and non-standard jobs lacking formal social protection - are strongly associated with agriculture.
Manufacturing employment shares grew in all states in the decade before the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis, with the national share peaking at 24% in 2000 before falling to 18% in 2019. West coast states in Peninsular Malaysia have industrialised more. More export-oriented high-technology manufacturing, with more skilled workers, is also concentrated in the advanced states.
Penang and Johor still have higher shares, at 37% and 25% resepctively. Manufacturing accounted for 21% of employment in Selangor-Kuala Lumpur-Putrajaya in 1982, declining slightly by 2019 despite its huge population increase and high concentration of modern services. Meanwhile, the 2019 manufacturing employment shares were only 7% in Sabah and Sarawak and 12% in the other poorer states.
Traditional services growing most
Employment in services continued to grow faster throughout the country, especially between 1999 and 2019, amid lacklustre growth in other economic activities. With 63% of national employment in 2019, its job share in Sabah and Sarawak also rose from 30% in 2009 to 37% in 2019.
While the sector has provided many jobs, traditional services - including wholesale and retail, food and beverage and accomodation - have grown more, offering lower pay and more irregular employment compared with modern services such as finance, information and communication, and professional services.
Between 2009 and 2019, traditional services rose from 35% to 40% for all jobs as the job share of modern services shrank from 8.0% to 6.8%. Modern services, typically involving more skills and better pay, were more common, with 15% in more urbanised Selangor-Kuala Lumpur-Putrajaya, which is more than triple the average elsewhere.
Meanwhile, employment in social services like education, health and public administration contracted from 17.2% in 2009 to 15.8% in 2019. Such services not only improve social well-being but also employ more skilled workers, providing stable jobs and better pay.
Jobs, gender, skills, pay
The more economically advanced states have seen increasingly higher labour force participation rates (LFPR). In Selangor-Kuala Lumpur-Putrajaya, close to three quarters of the working age population (15 to 64 years old) were in paid employment, while other states had rates below 70%.
Women's participation drives the oevrall LFPR, rising from 45% in 1982 to 56% in 2019. Women's LFPR rose fastest in Selangor-Kuala Lumpur-Putrajaya from half to over two-thirds while other states grew less, from 45% to 51%. Flexible work arrangements, support for care work and other policies enabling women's participation could further raise women's LFPR.
Over the past two decades, the share of skilled employees has risen faster in these states, as low-skilled employees became more significant elsewhere while semi-skilled jobs' share declined everywhere. Of semi-skilled jobs, services and sales workers grew most in recent years, but with low wage growth.
Between 2011 and 2019, such workers grew from 20% to 23% of total employment, without stemming the overall decline of semi-skilled jobs, with sluggish wage growth (3.4% annually), relatively lower wages (RM2,060) and great risk of job displacement by automation.
Jobs needing more education and skills are now more concentrated in the economically advanced states. More skilled and educated employment, including in modern services, have raised wage levels and household incomes, but also living costs in Selangor-Kuala Lumpur-Putrajaya above other states.
Employment and vulnerability
The more economically developed states have lower unemployment rates. In 2019, close to four-fifths of working people in these states were paid employees, mostly in standard employment relations. Shares in paid employment were 71% in Sabah and Sarawak and 68% in the poorer states of Peninsular Malaysia, which include Kelantan, Perlis, Kedah, Pahang and Perak, but not Terengganu.
Between 1982 and 2019, unemployment in the more advanced states averaged under 3%, and slightly more in the less-developed states. Unemployment rates for women, rural areas, the less educated and younger people and in Sabah and Sarawak were also generally higher. Less-advanced states have more employed in small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which typically have more decent work deficits.
Thus, precarious employment, including own account and unpaid family workers constiuting vulnerable employment, has been rising with more sluggish growth since the turn of the century. Although employment conditions appeared stable after the pandemic, increasing numbers in the economically advanced states were experiencing decent work deficits.
Investments, technology and the pandemic
Industrialisation grew rapidly with investments in the early and mid-1990s; but slowed as services, mainly traditional, became more important. As investments slowed, the country deindustrialised, becoming more service-oriented.
Capital accumulation, averaging 16% annually from 1989 to 1997, fell to around 6% yearly from 1999 to 2019. Reduced investments slowed long-term growth as investments in modern services declined with high-technology manufacturing. Less R&D also lowered demand for highly-educated employees.
Traditional services' jobs grew as modern and social services employment relatively declined in the past decade. Sales and services work, accounting for about a quarter of total employment in Malaysia, is at greater risk due to increased automation.
Half of existing jobs, mostly those considered semi-skilled, are considered to be at greater risk of being automated, with the pandemic probably accelerating this trend. Moreover, Covid-19 may accelerate the automation of some jobs that cannot be done from home during the pandemic.
However, timely and appropriate policy interventions can ensure that workers are upskilled or reskilled to anticipate, rather than be displaced by, technological advances. Flexibility and openness to innovation and willing ness to adopt new technologies would also ease such transitions.
Melayu Baru
One early reaction to Vision 2020 was the notion of Melayu Baru, which sought to assert a new self-confident Malay in bangsa Malaysia but get rid of the supremacist racist pretensions of "ketuanan Melayu".
The notion of "ketuanan Melayu" was first advanced in 1986, after Mahathir announced economic, educational and cultural liberalisation following the economic downturn and political challenges of the mid-1980s.
Mahathir successfully courted Pakatan Harapan leaders to take over PH leadership before its victory in the May 2018 general election. While as PM7, he worked with others within and outside PH to use ethno-populism to keep his other PH partners in check, perhaps hoping to eventually lead a government of national unity as the seemingly indispensable leader.
Today, UMNO and PAS have successfully hijacked the new discourse of Malay-Muslim unity, with the DAP designated "bogey-man", a caricature some culturally insensitive DAP leaders seemed all too ready to confirm, inadvertently undermining the popular legitimacy of PH, especially its Malay leadership.
Beyond 2020
Can the nation's future be saved or at least salvaged from the debris of the decades? Or is Malaysia condemned to continue replaying newer versions of the same old ethno-populist tunes, for a farcical tragedy with new casts and sets, while smug in our culture of self-congratulation and self-delusion?
Malaysian politics since February this year is slowly but surely exposing the emptiness of all ethno-populisms. But tragically, unlike in 1971 or 1991, there is no shared alternative national project ready to fill the vacuum left by the expiry of Vision 2020 and the earlier post-May 1969 quest for national unity with the Rukun Negara and the NEP.
Although the Vision 2020 alternative was wounded and abandoned, its envisioning and ensuing efforts in its name, however brief and compromised, remind us that all is not lost. For all patriots of goodwill, it is imperative to strive yet again despite the odds.
The Vision 2020 commitment is to establish a modern, industrialised, developed and united Malaysian nation. The potentially progressive nationalism of the Rukun Negara plus NEP and, later, Vision 2020 is still urgently relevant. Today, not only does the nation remain divided but the major political tendencies strive to split it further, albeit in the name of rival ethno-populism.
And while most post-colonial societies struggle to overcome colonial legacies and to cope with contemporary hegemonic rivalries, ethno-populist jingoism invokes nationalistic rhetoric to serve narrow reactionary agendas. To make things worse, internal divisions have not only compromised national resolve but also allowed hegemonic foreign interests and ideologies greater influence.
Undoubtedly, today's Covid-19 pandemic as well as containment, relief and recovery meaures are not only disruptive but also costly. But its dangers and threats also offer new opportunities to move forward, albeit to a less certain future, which certainly cannot be either a throwback to business as usual or an unchanging new normal.
We can only emerge stronger as a nation if we pull together, instead of working at cross-purposes for political advantage and economic gain. Covid-19 underscores the need for an all-government approach, unifying the whole of society, acknowledging the inevitable while striving to make the most of the new circumstances in the near, medium and long term.
