From: mlt@gdwb.oz.au (Mee Teng)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asean
Subject: Re: Malaysia's racial policies
Date: 10 Nov 92 03:15:43 GMT

azran@leland.Stanford.EDU (Azran Osman Rani) writes:
>These are only my opinions but it is not a simple matter of reducing
>poverty. i.e. to provide assistance according to level of wealth/poverty
>regardless of race. It is about race. Ethnic distributions of the economy.
>The socio-economic restructurization that the gov't is doing is probably
>done under the assumption that a multi-racial country like malaysia needs
>to have racially-proportionate representation in all socio-economic fields,
>to avoid a monopoly of a certain sector of the economy by a certain race,
>in order for the so called 'national harmony' to establish. This was the
>first objective of the NEP. Elimination of poverty was the second.


First of all, let's get our facts right. NOBODY (Chinese , Indians
or whoever) is against giving special aids, help or previleges to the
so called 'economically' & academically disadvantaged Malays, IF this
is done in a SENSIBLE way by the gov't. 

The problems, the dissatisfactions, the tensions, the disharmonies
arise because this is done in a most outrageous manner.
Just to give a couple of cases :-

1. The intention of the "Residential schools" may have been good. 
But the way the "officials" from JPA & Ministry were invited to the 
schools to falsely indoctrinated the so called elected students,
& potential future leaders is just dispicable. For those who are not
aware, these officials are sent to the schools to indoctrinate the
students (during civic classes) by telling them that the CHINESE
ARE THE MIGRANTS. OUT OF GOODWILL, THE MALAYS LET THE CHINESE INTO
THE COUNTRY. THE GOODWILL OF THE MALAYS ARE NOT ONLY UNAPPRECIATED
BUT THEY HAVE TURNED AROUND BITING THE MALAYS, ROBBING THEM(MALAYS)
OF THEIR WEALTH. THEY LIKEN IT TO A CAGE OF CHIKENS(MALAYS), OUT
OF GOODWILL BY LETTING THE DUCKS IN(CHINESE), THE DUCKS NOW NOT ONLY
ROBBED OF THEIR FOOD BUT TRY TO CHASE THEM (CHICKENS) OUT. 
Now, the intention here is to give the Malays a 'kick' so that 
they will STUDY HARD. But what sort of policy is that ? What racial
harmony you are trying to create ?  I am 100.00% sure about this
a few years ago. In 1992 ? I am not too sure.



>essentially, it is about numbers. THis is perhaps clearly reflected in local
>university admissions (the quota thingy). Currently, there are 
>disproportionate numbers of ethic representation in fields like engineering,
>medicine, law, etc. Since more malay engineers and doctors are needed
>to balance the 'numbers', more spaces are allocated for malays in these
>fields. Similarly, more spaces are allocated for say, Chinese in the
>Arts. This does not mean that any malay off the street can qualify for

This will be an ideal case. But you got to admit that it may not always
be possible. So to what extent you should push for it ? Until it 
becomes totally ludicrous ?

A few years back, about half a dozen students from a residential
school failed their STPM.  Guess what ?  3 were admitted to Medical
course in Univrsity of Malaya, & the other 3 to Medical course in
UKM ??  Isn't this ridiculous enough ? Don't you think that some
standard should be maintained ? 

I ONCE used to be so proud of University of Malaya, NOT NOW !!

Read my first sentence of my posting, if you want to flame me. NO,
I am not against giving some form of special previleges to the
BUMIS, but do it with some COW-SENSE please. !!
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asean