Do we want to leave the Ghost of 1969 behind or not? (Part II) – Nicholas Chan

In my previous article, I talked about how we, supposedly a proud post-colonial nation that has significantly eradicated poverty and achieved rapid industrialisation and urbanisation, are in denial about our own achievements brought about by the New Economic Policy (NEP) paradigm.

The clock of the nation seems to have stopped at 1969, and the prevailing psyche of “Malay poor, Chinese rich” was handed down until the post-NEP era, colouring almost every discourse in the country with a racially rhetorical paintbrush, argued curtly in a destructive zero-sum manner.

The problem is, these narratives are not reflective – at least to a significant extent – of the truth on the ground, as described in Part I. So what fuelled such misperceptions?

The fuel of misperceptions

Among the most obvious reasons are, empirical evidence is not only disregarded but also published and presented in a flawed manner. In the case of the former, one can easily attribute it to a society, while the literate in general are not used to critical thinking and constructivist ways of learning. As the National Education Blueprint (NEB) is supposed to address the educational dimension of this issue, I will not dwell on such discussions in this article.

However, education is not the only structural factor resulting in this preponderance of a falsely remembered and imagined society. The official statistical data, whether deliberately or not, is presented in a way that is prone to misperception. For example, household income data when segregated into ethnic categories combines the Malay ethnic group with other non-Malay bumiputeras as “bumiputeras”. This heavily skewed income data towards over-representing the Malay poverty problem was made possible due to the high regional and intra-bumiputera imbalances.

To illustrate, the Malays in peninsular Malaysia had a poverty rate of only 4.3% in 2009, according to the United Nations Human Development Report 2013 (HDP 2013), the lowest among all bumiputeras except for the Sarawakian Malays (3.8%). But the non-Malay bumiputeras have poverty rates that are over 10%, with the Kadazan Dusun Sabah, Murut Sabah and Bajau Sabah having poverty rates in the levels of 25-30%. This comes as no surprise as to why the poverty rate in Sabah is 4 times the national average.

Using this aggregate data to compare with the Chinese in a Sino-Malay antagonistic framework makes a strong case for right-wing politicians and groups to argue for greater “protection” for the Malays, whatever that means. Providing extra ammunition for this argument are two more factors. First, the rural population in West Malaysia is still predominantly Malay, hence lower-income rural households in peninsular Malaysia are still defined by Malay households [1], highlighting their depravity from the benefits of “modernity” symbolised by urban living.

The second factor is the absolute numbers of the Malays vis-à-vis the Chinese. While in percentage the Malays and the Chinese do not differ (in the statistical significant sense) in measures of relative poverty and even poverty, such differences when translated into absolute numbers will result in a huge difference, given that the Malay population is more than two times larger than the Chinese (by 2010).

Collectively, the differences in numbers of absolute poverty, poverty and relative poverty (the Chinese do slightly better than the Malays in percentage and figures of income) will lead to a palpable subpopulation of Malays that is poor and marginalised and which demands to be heard, and rightfully so. The Chinese poor, disadvantaged in size and popular rhetoric, is commonly rendered non-existent, as are the other sidelined minorities. An often pictorial and anecdotal representation (or overrepresentation) of the rural Malay poor is used to embalm the 1969 picture.

Why the need for the caricature of ‘poor Malay, rich Chinese’?

To examine why this caricature of poor Malay and rich Chinese is stuck despite the changing realities on the ground, one has to look at the expediency of maintaining such a narrative. In Malaysia, the electoral weightage given to rural constituencies vis-à-vis urban constituencies is not limited in explicit written guidelines. In other words, one vote in a rural area can outweigh a vote in the urban areas by several times.  GE13 has shown that one can actually bank on the rural population, despite its smaller numbers, to emerge as the victor of Malaysia’s parliamentary democracy system.

The fact that the current ruling regime clearly maintained a significant vote bank in the rural-Malay heartland (in addition to the Borneo non-urban regions) made it vital for the political elites to pander to this “mis”perception that got them voted in in the first place. For in this version of the story, without the party, the Malays are inherently unable to compete with the Chinese. The Malay dilemma postulated the Malays’ inferiority to be congenital and socio-cultural, hence the community was led to believe their protection must be structural and everlasting. What better than eternal political dominance to guarantee that?

If this pre-NEP memory of a “black and white” society safeguards the hegemony of the Umno-led government, it is no rocket science that it provides incentives for the stakeholders to continue perpetuating this false reality. The obstacles of data opaqueness, a government-controlled mainstream media and a compartmentalised society heavily obsessed with dialectical group identities (as a result of essentialist ethno-religious markers) make it difficult for anyone who wishes to break this wall of misperception and for anyone to have faith in a more non-confrontational approach in nation building.

The consequences of the big lie

The consequence to this never-ending mental capture of a society divided in all aspects by race is manifold. For one, it has shrunk Malaysia into a playground for Sino-Malay communitarian politics, resulting in rising ethnic tensions. It also disregards the “other” Malaysia which requires more attention, like the Indians, Orang Asli and Bornean communities that are caught in prevailing poverty and marginalisation. The fixation over the pre-NEP pictures makes them the “forgotten” children. Inclusive growth is subsumed by the parochially Sino-Malay defined collectivist politics. Individual empowerment is relegated secondary to group empowerment which often results instead in elite empowerment. 

This leads to a bigger blindfold being dragged over our eyes, covering the failure of Malaysia’s heavily statist trickle-down economics in promoting inclusive growth. In 2013, government-linked companies (GLCs) controlled 36% market capitalisation of Bursa Malaysia and 54% of the Kuala Lumpur Composite index. GLCs are not only omnipresent in many sectors, but have a controlling stake in industries like utilities (93%), retail (73%), banking (60%) and transportation and warehousing (72%).

The nationalisation of the economy has instead suffocated the private sector, especially the small medium enterprises (SMEs) that should rightfully form the bedrock of the economy. It is also one of the greatest contributors towards our economic lethargy. Concentration of wealth instead of redistribution occurred in a political economy ranked third by The Economist’s crony capitalism index. The total wealth of the top 40 richest constituted 22% of our GDP in 2012. For the middle and lower income groups, the reality gets starker in the face of mushrooming skyscrapers, feeding directly into the incendiary sentiment of racial distrust. 

We are all equally unequal

Without an accurate picture of the Malaysian reality, the class and regional dimension of inequality is largely neglected in favour of the 1969 picture that is more favourable for mass mobilisation in communitarian politics. It impedes sound policies made to address the real issues of inequality and deviates public attention from the pressing problems of wage inequality [2], urban poverty, lack of affordable housing and a detrimental pump-priming economic model that creates few jobs, but more high-end real estate enclaves the average citizen – regardless of race – simply cannot afford. The class stratification of society happens actively under the silhouette of a racially stratified discourse.

Whether we like it or not, Malaysia has stepped into a post-NEP era where the policy has lost its original shine after multiple reincarnations in the face of changing local and global dynamics. We must acknowledge the successes and failures of the NEP in colourless and honest terms in order to lay down the stepping stones for a progressive and inclusive future of the country. And to do that, we must tear down this wall of misperception, and see that we – most of us, at least – are equally unequal in a nation that promises much but leaves little for the majority.

Notes:

1. While urban households do report a higher income in average, it does not automatically translate into greater standard of living, most likely due to a higher cost of living. According to the HDP 2013’s calculations, since 1989, relative poverty has actually been higher in urban areas compared to rural ones. This suggests that inequality is actually higher in cities, resulting in greater relative depravity, culminating in the increasingly severe urban poverty problem.

2. As witnessed by the fact that in 2009, only 33% of national income in GDP terms went to wages compared to 42% in Singapore and close to 60% in developed countries like Japan, United States and United Kingdoms.

* Nicholas Chan is a socio-political research analyst of Penang Institute.