Endless, meaningless debates on ‘the Malay problem’ – M. Bakri Musa

For as long as I can remember, the so-called masalah Melayu (“The Malay problem”) has been stridently debated ad nauseam. Endless meaningless seminars, symposiums and “kongresses,” have been devoted to it, not to mention the countless discussions at Pak Mat’s warong kopi in Kota Baru to the lofty ministerial suites at Putrajaya.

I am now entering the seventh decade of my life. Chances are that when my grandchildren become grandparents, our community would still be debating the issue.

Pendita Zaaba was the first to coin the phrase “Masaalah Melayu.” In his prolific writings he would never cease to menegur (chastise) our community for our spendthrift ways, our not emphasizing education for our young, and our myopic interpretations of our great faith of Islam. 

Earlier in the 19th Century, Munshi Abdullah wondered out loud what it was about our community that we were not at all curious about and thus not eager to learn from the English. Yes, they were our colonizers, but surely as Abdullah noted, there must be something that we could learn from a society that brought in the Age of Enlightenment as well as ushered in the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions.

More recently there was Datuk Onn, arrogantly wanting to membetulkan orang Melayu (to correct the Malays). To him we were but wayward children who needed to be whipped into shape.

Then there was Mahathir who thought that Malays were OKU, a Malay acronym for those who are challenged, mentally, physically and in many other ways. His messianic mission was to change us, our culture as well as our biology. He too failed; he could not even change his own OKUs (Orang Kuat Umno – diehard Umno supporters).

Compared to those giants, today’s Perkasa’s Ibrahim Ali and other strident champions of Ketuanan Melayu are but mere pygmies. Giants or pygmies, the results of their efforts are, well, we are still discussing the issue.

I likened the “Malay problem” to an elephant in a dark room. What these giants and pygmies had done was merely to shine the light from only one angle, the rear. No surprise that what they saw was its posterior and all its ugliness. They also dared not examine the view closely for fear of being whipped by the beast’s tail, or worse, get sprayed.

In my book Liberating The Malay Mind, as well as in all my earlier books, I shine the light from as many different angles as possible so as to get a better appreciation of the magnitude and complexity of the problem, as well as all its myriad manifestations.

I begin by posing four fundamental questions. One, what is meant by the phrase “The Malay problem?” Two, is it a genuine problem or merely a myth? Three, if it is the former, is it unique only unto Malays? And four, why is it now with Malaysia about to celebrate its Diamond Anniversary of Merdeka, with the sultans and prime ministers being Malays, the government almost exclusively in Malay hands, as well as a constitution that is blatantly favouring our community, Malays are still left behind?

My Liberating The Malay Mind explores this particular question. Before proceeding, I will briefly dispose of the first three.

The meaning of the phrase “The Malay problem” is best answered through a series of illustrations rather than with a formal definition.

If you, a Malay, has a leaky pipe at home or a broken air-conditioner, who would you most likely call to fix the problem? Ahmad, Ah Chong, Arumugam, or even not a Malaysian?

Walk along any street of any town. You don’t see many signboards touting Rahimah Restaurant, Halimah Hair Saloon, or Aziz Accountancy Services. Don’t keep your eyes off the road too much in looking for those signboards lest you risk being run down by those road roaches, the Mat Rempits on their ear-splitting motorcycles.

Incidentally where would those Mat Rempits go to have their machines fixed?

Yes, we have ZICO, the country’s largest law firm founded by Datuk Zaid Ibrahim. Such successes however are the “outliers,” not reflective of the norm.

Then open up the daily papers. The headlines are of hundreds of thousands of unemployed graduates, babies abandoned in toilets and ditches, and the epidemic of drug addicts and HIV sufferers ravaging our society.

You do not need to read the World Bank Reports or expensive consultants’ studies to realize that our community is fast being marginalized in our own Tanah Melayu.

Even by the government’s own accounting, our contribution to the economy barely exceeds 20 percent, despite we being in the majority. Take away the role of the government-linked companies (GLCs), and our contribution is but in the single digits, percentage wise.             

The “Malay problem” is real, not just a mere myth. Noam Chomsky differentiates between a problem and a myth thus. With a problem you could study, analyze and research it, hire experts to help you, and design pilot programs to overcome it. When you have a successful initiative, expand on it. Likewise, when you have an ineffective one, terminate it right away and learn from the experience. In short, a problem is potentially solvable.

With myths on the other hand, you would need a shaman or dukun. He would chant mysterious verses, invoke unseen forces, burn incense, cook yellow saffron rice, and slaughter black cockerels to appease those evil spirits.

Malays behave as if we are being bedeviled by myths and not problems. We invoke various hantus (devils) as sources of our difficulties, as with the hantu of colonialism, hantu pendatang (immigrants), hantu capitalism, and the latest, hantu globalization and hantu “Islam liberal.”

The “Malay problem” is real, not a mere myth ala Syed Hussein’s "Myth of the Lazy Native". The next query then is whether our problem is unique only unto us. I will explore this and the other two questions in subsequent essays.  – February 16, 2016.

* Dr M. Bakri Musa is the author of Liberating The Malay Mind, ZI Publications, Petaling Jaya (2013). This is the first of a six-part piece.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.