Ruminations On Heritage 6: The Point of No Return

In February 2022, the woman who was then Malaysia’s Deputy Minister for Women and Family advised husbands to calm wayward wives by beating them ‘lightly’. The politician, Siti Zailah, remains a Member of Parliament. This is the sort of country I come from.  

When flight MH-17 was shot down in 2014 by a Russian missile, Malaysia’s flourishing Islamists, including the same Siti Zailah, blamed Malaysia Airlines. Allah’s wrath had apparently been incurred by the alcohol the airline continues to serve. His anger was further stoked by those sexy stewardesses parading in form-hugging kebaya blouses and skirts. The Malaysians who believe this are in the minority, but they’re allowed to make an awful lot of noise. This is the sort of country I come from.

On the things that really matter – religious extremism, endemic corruption, nepotism, cronyism and most of all, Malaysia’s entrenched racism – its leaders have been conspicuously silent. This is exactly the sort of country I come from.

A long time ago – May 13, 1969, to be precise – so-called ‘racial riots’ occurred just after a set of important elections. Most of the people killed were Malaysians of Chinese ethnicity. I remember it as a period of curfews, shop closures and adults walking in fear. When grown-ups are scared, kids get scared, too.

Afterwards, a new Prime Minister took over and a suite of racist policies, euphemistically called the New Economic Policy, was instigated. Such massive changes should have warranted close examination – as would have happened in any proper democracy.

Not Malaysia. For the next thirty years, we were told not to breathe the words ‘May 13’, as if just hearing the words would cause Malaysians to become hot and bothered and start attacking one another with parangs and krises. And like sheep, we obeyed! That, too, is the sort of country I come from.

Until those pivotal elections of 1969, there was real democracy. The largest political party, the United Malays National Organisation or UMNO, realised it could lose elections. Losing elections meant losing power and UMNO was determined not to lose power. Under the camouflage of ‘addressing racial inequality’, its leaders set about dismantling democracy, but we were too blind and naïve to notice.

That was so long ago, I hear you say: why does it matter anymore?

It matters because our present is shaped by the past. Truth matters.

Has any attempt been made by any Malaysian government since 1969 to find out the whole truth about May 13, 1969? Of course not. Until there is truth, how can there be reconciliation?

UMNO proceeded to rule until 2018. Think of it! Hegemony from 1957 to 2018 – a total of 61 years! Six decades are more than enough time to corrupt the entire country from the bottom up and dumb it down from the top to the very roots. The dumbing-down has been nothing short of phenomenal.

Earlier this year, in my home state of Perak, a woman seeking treatment at a public hospital was told off for her attire! Imagine the scenario: you need help, you go to a hospital and before anything else, the doctor lectures you about your clothes.

Here was the response from the chair of the state’s health committee:

‘If you go to a government department, there should be decorum. … If you go to a temple, there’s also no signboard, but we know we cannot wear short skirts there. It’s an unwritten understanding.’

The guy actually compared a temple to a hospital, even though a temple is a place of worship that you visit voluntarily, while a hospital IS NOT a place of worship and you go there normally under duress. His was a wonderful example of cow sense (with grave apologies to cows).

It reminded me of the last time I renewed my passport. I went to Perak’s Urban Transformation Centre (UTC) in Ipoh and the passport officer refused to serve me because I was wearing a T shirt and Bermuda shorts. My shorts were perfectly respectable – but not respectable enough, it seems, if you’re a Muslim-Malay passport officer. In Malaysia, the job of a civil servant is no longer limited to paperwork: it’s also his role to judge what you wear. He told me to come back with a sarong or trousers that would ‘cover my knees’.

The only surprise is that he didn’t also complain about my bare elbows. This will change, no doubt: Malaysia’s home-grown, Taliban-inclining political party, called Parti Islam Se-Malaysia or PAS for short, will see to that.

PAS was a fringe party when I left. It is now flying high, with more seats in Malaysia’s parliament than ever before. The politician I’ve already mentioned, Siti Zailah, is a member of PAS – a shining example of their intellectual quality.

On that same trip, on the very day my passport was renewed, I was asked by a Malaysian-Chinese businessman why I did not live there. What was it I had in England that I could not find in my land of origin?

I gave no answer, not because I didn’t know, but because the answer is so complicated that I did not know where to begin. How do you explain to someone who has never lived in a liberal democracy what it’s like to live in a country that isn’t corrupt from top to bottom, where you can trust the courts, the press isn’t muzzled, there is civic discourse and crucially, where I am equal to everyone else under the laws of the land?

The man who asked the question is obviously happy living under Ketuanan Melayu (Malay lordship). I wouldn’t be happy. And since I have a choice about where I live, I can’t see any reason to go back.

An estimated 1.8 million Malaysians live outside Malaysia (population 34 million in 2023). At least half of my classmates from secondary school and many members of my family have left. That’s a huge brain drain for any country, especially one still in development mode.

When Malaysia’s current Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, visited New York recently, he was asked what he would do about this talent bleed. He gave an astonishingly lame reply about ‘enhancing incentives’.

The idea that money alone would bring us back is laughable. Financial incentives have been available to tempt Malaysians back since 2011 and only 2,500 overseas Malaysians have taken them up (Source: video below by Mariam Mokhtar), roughly 0.138% of the diaspora.

A charitable view is that Anwar just doesn’t get it. Perhaps he genuinely believes that tax breaks on luxury cars and tax breaks on just about everything else would be enough to bring us back. I will speak only for myself here, but I’d like to say it loudly and clearly: what I have in England is freedom, and this freedom is priceless.

Since freedom is a nebulous concept, an example might help. If I wrote an op-ed on the subject ‘Is Charles the King of all Britons, or does he represent the interests only of white Britons?’, I’m confident it would be accepted by a broadsheet publication here. But if I wrote an op-ed entitled ‘Is Malaysia’s King (Agong) really the King of all Malaysians, or does he favour the Malay race?’, would the official Malaysian press dare touch it?

The difference is that England goes out of its way to accommodate different viewpoints and to protect the rights of minority groups. In my adopted country I am equal by law and can rely on a judicial system I trust. No economic incentive is going to make me give this up.

Going back to Anwar Ibrahim (and his limp solutions for Malaysia’s brain drain), a less charitable view is that he actually understands what’s at stake and fears the consequences. What would Malaysia look like if all 1.8 million of us went back?

Some of us would surely join the brave Malaysians who’re still speaking up against the things its politicians don’t have the guts to discuss. We would be vocal, certainly. UMNO wouldn’t like that, and it’s unclear whether Anwar would be all that keen, either.

I once told myself that when Malaysia abolishes bumiputera rights, I will go back, at least for a time, in order to give something of myself to the country I came from. I now know this is a pipe dream. Bumiputera rights won’t be abolished anytime soon. But it took the break enforced by COVID for me to see the light.

Finally, after forty four years away, I’ve given up on Malaysia. Perhaps some immigrants reach this point, when both they and the country they left behind have changed so irrevocably that there’s no turning back.

Giving up on a dream is never easy. Part of me is angry, but mostly, I’m sad. We have all lost; even those who think they’ve gained have actually lost.

We lost the spirit of Malaysia and in losing that precious spirit we squandered the chance to build a truly great nation.

And for what? So that a small group could cling to power while enriching itself and its cronies.

I won’t be returning, but I will support the Malaysians still fighting for a better tomorrow. One of these is the writer Mariam Mokhtar. We don’t know one another; I’ve only enjoyed her articles from afar. As she describes below, her writing has been deemed so incendiary that the slavish Malaysian press won’t publish her.

That hasn’t stopped Mariam. She launched her own news platform and now makes videos, too. I discovered them while carrying out research for this blog-post and I find her analysis always spot-on. 

If you’re interested in what took place during May 13, 1969, I would recommend the book May 13 by Dr. Kua Kia Soong, director of Suaram (short for Suara Rakyat Malaysia, or Voices of the People of Malaysia). He wrote it by piecing together extracts from documents that were only declassified after thirty years. When his book came out in 2007, some Malaysian politicians wanted it banned – which is reason enough to read it.

Walau pun saya berada jauh, Malaysia tetap di hati.

An Open Letter to my Malay Friends and Anyone Who Cares Where Malaysia is Going

August 31 is Malaysia’s Independence (Merdeka) Day. On this day fifty five years ago, the Union Jack was lowered for the last time and a new country was born.

Malaysia (then called Malaya). 

She was to be a powerful narrative for multiculturalism. A place where many races – Malay, Chinese, Indian, Eurasian, Orang Asli (native indigenous people) – would live together, work together, as one, to move the country beyond the shadow of colonisation.

Malaysia remains a powerful idea. It’s one I believe in. But it has gone badly wrong. That’s why today, I’m writing this open letter to my Malay family and friends. I believe Malaysia is fast reaching a crossroad; where it goes next will be determined by you, my dear Malay friends. And where Malaysia goes is important to the world – because it remains one of the more tolerant Muslim countries.

First though, I want to say a big thank you. On this Merdeka day, I want to thank you, my Malay family and friends, and all fellow-Malaysians of Malay descent, for your historic generosity. Your ancestors welcomed mine when they arrived. You have shared the land with us, and this in turn, gave us opportunities we wouldn’t have had on mainland China. You provided us safe refuge from the turmoil of China. When I learn what happened there in the past century, I am so grateful my ancestors left. And that they found shelter in the beautiful land now called Malaysia.

My Malay friends, your own ancestors came from other places. They knew what it was like to be strangers in a new country. They treated my ancestors with that gracious hospitality which I myself have experienced countless times. All this I acknowledge, and thank you for.

But now I need to move on to something else: why I left Malaysia, and why I won’t be returning any time soon.

You may already know that 2 out of 10 Malaysian graduates live outside Malaysia. This is an astonishing fact for a middle-income country like Malaysia. It was revealed in a detailed study on Malaysia’s brain drain, carried out by the World Bank.

My Malay family and friends, do you not care about this exodus of talent? This isn’t just an abstract number: in our family, half those of my generation live abroad. We are the graduates this World Bank report identifies. We compete happily in the world economy and have no need to return.

Perhaps, my Malay friends, you think the brain drain irrelevant, since most of the people who have left are of Chinese and Indian descent? Certainly, this is what many Malays think, as Nurul Izzah Anwar, daughter of Anwar Ibrahim, has alluded to. (If you haven’t heard her speak, I recommend you watch this youtube clip. The opening is in Malay; the rest in English). 

“For me,” she says, “one Malaysian regardless of race, who has left the country…is a loss to us. They should be here celebrating, to improve the economy. I detest many people trying to singularly find out whether they are Malays, Chinese or Indians.”

My sentiments entirely. This fixation on race, race, race, in Malaysia is strangling the country. Yes, 88% of the one million Malaysians estimated to be living abroad are of Chinese and Indian descent. So what? My Malay friends, I ask you: does our race matter more than the fact that we have taken our talents elsewhere?

Yet, should I expect anything else? How could any Malaysian not be fixated on race, when you, my Malay family and friends, are accorded ‘special’ rights solely because of your race and religion?

Imagine if the United States had given ‘special’ privileges to the Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers and their descendants. Special rights to land, schools, gold mines and everything else – all because they sailed first; yes, just imagine! This is exactly what your special rights equate to. If the US had adopted such a policy, do you think it would have turned into a magnet for talent and skills?

Tell anyone about a Malaysian university reserved for people with ‘special’ privileges based on race, and you will see the reaction. What? People stare in disbelief. You must be kidding!

I’m not. And there have been demonstrations against opening the institute up to other Malaysians. Yet, Malaysians are so used to these oddities that we don’t bat an eyelid. We no longer notice the strange ideas plaguing our country.

Your ‘special’ rights, my Malay family and friends, alienate me. They make me feel unwelcome, unwanted and second-class. They are why I left. They are also why I won’t be back. Rights are a zero-sum game: for you to have more rights, others must necessarily have fewer. TalentCorp (the agency set up to attract Malaysians back) completely misses the point.

And when I see the culture of entitlement your ‘special’ privileges have led to, and the increasingly racist rhetoric this culture generates, I fear for Malaysia. Outrageous remarks are now commonplace, as former US ambassador John R. Malott outlined in his Feb 8 2011 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

Malaysia has once again been called Tanah Melayu (Malay Land). Malay Land was given airtime by none other than Mahathir Mohamed, former Prime Minister and rabble-rouser extraordinaire, who is himself from a family with Indian immigrants. Malay Land is more than just a name. His is a supremacist concept: a land for Malays, where Malays will be Lords, everyone else their subjects.

Some people say Mahathir no longer matters, but actually he does. I feel less welcome now in Malaysia than at any time in the past. The attitudes of Malay Land are creeping in, and Malay Land is completely the opposite of Malaysia. Malay Land excludes, while Malaysia embraces and includes – a country for all races.

My Malay family and friends, which is it you want: Malay Land, or Malaysia? You cannot have both; you must choose.

On this Merdeka Day, I urge you to think about that choice. Because you, my dear Malay friends, are the only people who can truly change the direction Malaysia takes. Know that we, your fellow-Malaysians who have voted with our feet, are rooting for Malaysia. We are no traitors. 68% of the Malaysians abroad who were surveyed by the World Bank expressed a strong sense of patriotism/attachment to Malaysia. I am among this 68%. I may have been away for thirty three years, but Malaysia continues to be in my dreams. I left with regret, and I stay away with sadness. I hope Malaysia will prevail. Assalamualaikum.

The above blog-post was published in its entirety, but without video or links, on Malaysia Kini on August 31 2012 (http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/207623).