Pros
UMNO - Proven leadership. Provided stability in Malaysia for many years. Good administrator.
MCA - Willing partner to UMNO. Supports UMNO in governing Malaysia. Good administrator.
MIC - Supports UMNO in governing Malaysia.
PKR - Their values and objectives could stand the stress test in any democracy around the world. The most multi-racial party in Malaysia.
PAS - Their Islamic values give makes them a principally strong party. Strong ground level organisation.
DAP - Similar to PKR, their values could stand the stress test in any democracy.
Cons
UMNO - Too corrupt. The party is too extreme in its Malay agenda, alienating their partners in BN.
MCA - A lot of infighting lead to split leadership.
MIC - Weak leadership. Laughing stock of Malaysian politics.
PKR - Anwar Ibrahim is too arrogant in pursuing power. Weak ground level organisation.
PAS - Weak administrator. Division between moderates and Islamists. Too Malay.
DAP - Lack of Malay support. Too Chinese.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Cleaning Up Malaysia
From The Wall Street Journal Asia, 18 December 2008
In the era of Blagojevich, Illinois isn't the only place considering how better to deal with political corruption. This week Malaysia passed its most aggressive anticorruption legislation in a decade as well as a bill that aims to protect judicial independence.
These steps are worth applauding, but they're a far cry from the reforms that Malaysia needs. Like many young democracies, Malaysia lacks the full separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches that lies at the core of successful democracies. Until these branches of government can act as checks and balances against each other, band-aid reforms will make little difference.
A case in point is the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, proposed by Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, which parliament passed yesterday. High-profile scandals -- including a videotape released last year that purports to show an attorney brokering judicial appointments with a top judge -- have eroded trust in the judiciary. The bill's purpose is to "provide a more transparent mechanism in the process of appointments and promotions of senior judges," a government spokesperson told us by telephone.
Yet the legislation still gives the prime minister sole power to appoint all senior judges in the nation's three highest courts. The bill creates a body, the Judicial Appointments Commission, that makes recommendations to the PM, but he is free to reject them, ask for more recommendations or appoint someone else entirely. The PM also appoints the majority of the members of the commission.
The other side of Mr. Abdullah's reform plan is the Anti-Corruption Commission Bill, which was passed on Tuesday. The bill upgrades Malaysia's anticorruption watchdog from an agency to a commission, and greatly increases the scope of its mandate, including, for example, the power to investigate relatives of corrupt officials. Mr. Abdullah said last month that the staff of the commission would be increased to 5,000 over the next five years.
But the catch is that the commission is still tied to Malaysia's political establishment. Its members are appointed by the prime minister, with royal approval, and the commission must obtain approval from the Attorney General or someone approved by the AG before conducting certain types of investigations. The PM also appoints, with royal approval, all members of the advisory board that oversees the commission.
Mr. Abdullah is expected to step down in March, and he has made judicial reform and anticorruption efforts high priorities during his last months in office. Bravo to him for drawing public attention to the problems. It will be up to a successor to establish the full separation of powers that Malaysia's democracy needs.
In the era of Blagojevich, Illinois isn't the only place considering how better to deal with political corruption. This week Malaysia passed its most aggressive anticorruption legislation in a decade as well as a bill that aims to protect judicial independence.
These steps are worth applauding, but they're a far cry from the reforms that Malaysia needs. Like many young democracies, Malaysia lacks the full separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches that lies at the core of successful democracies. Until these branches of government can act as checks and balances against each other, band-aid reforms will make little difference.
A case in point is the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, proposed by Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, which parliament passed yesterday. High-profile scandals -- including a videotape released last year that purports to show an attorney brokering judicial appointments with a top judge -- have eroded trust in the judiciary. The bill's purpose is to "provide a more transparent mechanism in the process of appointments and promotions of senior judges," a government spokesperson told us by telephone.
Yet the legislation still gives the prime minister sole power to appoint all senior judges in the nation's three highest courts. The bill creates a body, the Judicial Appointments Commission, that makes recommendations to the PM, but he is free to reject them, ask for more recommendations or appoint someone else entirely. The PM also appoints the majority of the members of the commission.
The other side of Mr. Abdullah's reform plan is the Anti-Corruption Commission Bill, which was passed on Tuesday. The bill upgrades Malaysia's anticorruption watchdog from an agency to a commission, and greatly increases the scope of its mandate, including, for example, the power to investigate relatives of corrupt officials. Mr. Abdullah said last month that the staff of the commission would be increased to 5,000 over the next five years.
But the catch is that the commission is still tied to Malaysia's political establishment. Its members are appointed by the prime minister, with royal approval, and the commission must obtain approval from the Attorney General or someone approved by the AG before conducting certain types of investigations. The PM also appoints, with royal approval, all members of the advisory board that oversees the commission.
Mr. Abdullah is expected to step down in March, and he has made judicial reform and anticorruption efforts high priorities during his last months in office. Bravo to him for drawing public attention to the problems. It will be up to a successor to establish the full separation of powers that Malaysia's democracy needs.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Charade of Meritocracy by Michael D. Barr
The Charade Of Meritocracy
October 2006
By Michael D. Barr
The legitimacy of the Singaporean government is predicated on the idea of a meritocratic technocracy. A tiny number of career civil servants play a leading role in setting policy within their ministries and other government-linked bureaucracies, leading both an elite corps of senior bureaucrats, and a much larger group of ordinary civil servants. Virtually all of the elite members of this hierarchy are "scholars," which in Singapore parlance means they won competitive, bonded government scholarships—the established route into the country's elite.
Scholars not only lead the Administrative Service, but also the military's officer corps, as well as the executive ranks of statutory boards and government-linked companies (GLCs). Movement between these four groups is fluid, with even the military officers routinely doing stints in the civilian civil service. Together with their political masters, most of whom are also scholars, they make up the software for the entity commonly known as "Singapore Inc."—a labyrinth of GLCs, statutory boards and ministries that own or manage around 60% of Singapore's economy.
The basis of the scholars' mandate to govern is not merely their performance on the job, but also the integrity of the process that selected them. The educational system is designed to cultivate competition, requiring top students to prove themselves every step of the way. Singapore's schools first stream students into elite classes after Primary 3 and 4. They then compete for entry into special secondary schools and junior colleges, before vying for government and government-linked scholarships to attend the most prestigious universities around the world.
These scholarships typically require several years of government service after graduation, and the scholars are drafted into the Administrative Service, the officer corps of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), or the career track of a statutory board or GLC. The government insists that all Singaporeans have equal opportunities to excel in the system, and that everyone who has made it to the top did so purely by academic talent and hard work. Other factors such as gender, socioeconomic background and race supposedly play no more than a marginal role, if they are acknowledged as factors at all.
On the point of race, the Singapore government has long prided itself on having instituted a system of multiracialism that fosters cultural diversity under an umbrella of national unity. This is explicitly supposed to protect the 23% of the population who belong to minority races (mainly ethnic Malays and Indians) from discrimination by the Chinese majority.
But this system conceals several unacknowledged agendas. In our forthcoming book, Constructing Singapore: Elitism, Ethnicity and the Nation-Building Project , Zlatko Skrbiš and I present evidence that the playing field is hardly level. In fact, Singapore's system of promotion disguises and even facilitates tremendous biases against women, the poor and non-Chinese. Singapore's administrative and its political elites—especially the younger ones who have come through school in the last 20 or so years—are not the cream of Singapore's talent as they claim, but are merely a dominant social class, resting on systemic biases to perpetuate regime regeneration based on gender, class and race.
At the peak of the system is the network of prestigious government scholarships. Since independence in 1965, the technique of using government scholarships to recruit cohorts of scholars into the administrative and ruling elite has moved from the periphery of Singaporean society to center stage. Even before independence, a makeshift system of government and Colombo Plan scholarships sent a few outstanding scholars overseas before putting them into government service, including most notably former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. Yet as late as 1975 this system had contributed only two out of 14 members of Singapore's cabinet. Even by 1985, only four out of 12 cabinet ministers were former government scholars.
By 1994, however, the situation had changed beyond recognition, with eight out of 14 cabinet ministers being ex-scholars, including Prime Minister Goh. By 2005 there were 12 ex-scholars in a Cabinet of 19. Of these, five had been SAF scholars, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. A perusal of the upper echelons of the ruling elite taken more broadly tells a similar story. In 1994, 12 of the 17 permanent secretaries were scholars, as were 137 of the 210 in the administrative-officer class of the Administrative Service.
The government scholarship system claims to act as a meritocratic sieve—the just reward for young adults with talent and academic dedication. If there is a racial or other bias in the outcomes, then this can only be the result of the uneven distribution of talent and academic application in the community. As Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong put it when he spoke on national television in May 2005, "We are a multiracial society. We must have tolerance, harmony. … And you must have meritocracy … so everybody feels it is fair…." His father, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, was making the same point when, in 1989, he told Singapore's Malay community that they "must learn to compete with everyone else" in the education system.
Yet if Singapore's meritocracy is truly a level playing field, as the Lees assert, then the Chinese must be much smarter and harder working than the minority Indians and Malays. Consider the distribution of the top jobs in various arms of the Singapore government service in the 1990s (based on research conducted by Ross Worthington in the early 2000s):
• Of the top 30 GLCs only two ( 6.7%) were chaired by non-Chinese in 1991 (and neither of the non-Chinese was a Malay).
• Of the 38 people who were represented on the most GLC boards in 1998, only two (5.3%) were non-Chinese (and neither of the non-Chinese was a Malay).
• Of the 78 "core people" on statutory boards and GLCs in 1998, seven (9%) were non-Chinese (and one of the non-Chinese was a Malay).
A similar outcome is revealed in the pattern of government scholarships awarded after matriculation from school. Of the 200 winners of Singapore 's most prestigious scholarship, the President's Scholarship, from 1966-2005 only 14 ( 6.4%) were not Chinese. But this was not a consistent proportion throughout the period. If we take 1980 as the divider, we find that there were 10 non-Chinese President's Scholars out of 114 from 1966-80, or 8%, but in the period from 1981-2005 this figure had dropped to four out of 106, or 3.8%. Since independence, the President's Scholarship has been awarded to only one Malay, in 1968. There has been only one non-Chinese President's Scholar in the 18 years from 1987 to 2005 (a boy called Mikail Kalimuddin) and he is actually half Chinese, studied in Chinese schools (Chinese High School and Hwa Chong Junior College), and took the Higher Chinese course as his mother tongue. If we broaden our focus to encompass broader constructions of ethnicity, we find that since independence, the President's Scholarship has been won by only two Muslims (1968 and 2005).
If we consider Singapore's second-ranked scholarship—the Ministry of Defence's Singapore Armed Forces Overseas Scholarship (SAFOS)—we find a comparable pattern. The Ministry of Defence did not respond to my request for a list of recipients of SAF scholarships, but using newspaper accounts and information provided by the Ministry of Defence Scholarship Centre and Public Service Commission Scholarship Centre Web sites, I was able to identify 140 (56%) of the 250 SAFOS winners up to 2005.
Although only indicative, this table clearly suggests the Chinese dominance in SAFOS stakes: 98% of SAFOS winners in this sample were Chinese, and about 2% were non-Chinese (counting Mikail Kalimuddin in 2005 as non-Chinese). Furthermore I found not a single Malay recipient and only one Muslim winner (Mikail Kalimuddin). A similar picture emerges in the lower status Singapore Armed Forces Merit Scholarship winners: 71 ( 25.6%) of 277 (as of late 2005) scholars identified, with 69 (97%) Chinese winners to only two non-Chinese—though there was a Malay recipient in 2004, and one reliable scholar maintains that there have been others.
The position of the non-Chinese in the educational stakes has clearly deteriorated since the beginning of the 1980s. According to the logic of meritocracy, that means the Chinese have been getting smarter, at least compared to the non-Chinese.
Yet the selection of scholars does not depend purely on objective results like exam scores. In the internal processes of awarding scholarships after matriculation results are released, there are plenty of opportunities to exercise subtle forms of discrimination. Extracurricular activities (as recorded in one's school record), "character" and performance in an interview are also considered. This makes the selection process much more subjective than one would expect in a system that claims to be a meritocracy, and it creates ample opportunity for racial and other prejudices to operate with relative freedom.
Is there evidence that such biases operate at this level? Unsurprisingly, the answer to this question is "yes." Take for instance a 2004 promotional supplement in the country's main newspaper used to recruit applicants for scholarships. The advertorial articles accompanying the paid advertisements featured only one non-Chinese scholar (a Malay on a lowly "local" scholarship) amongst 28 Chinese on prestigious overseas scholarships. Even more disturbing for what they reveal about the prejudices of those offering the scholarships were the paid advertisements placed by government ministries, statutory boards and GLCs. Of the 30 scholars who were both prominent and can be racially identified by their photographs or their names without any doubt as to accuracy, every one of them was Chinese. This leaves not a shadow of a doubt that those people granting government and government-linked scholarships presume that the vast majority of high-level winners will be Chinese.
The absence of Malays from the SAFOS scholarships and their near-absence from the SAF Merit Scholarships deserves special mention because this is an extension of discrimination against the admission of Malays into senior and sensitive positions in the SAF that is officially sanctioned. The discrimination against Malays has been discussed in parliament and the media, and is justified by the assertion that the loyalty of Malays cannot be assumed, both because they are Muslim and because they have a racial and ethnic affinity with the Malays in Malaysia and Indonesia . Current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has historically been a vocal defender of this policy.
This discrimination hits Malay men hard, first because it deprives many of promising careers in the army, and second—and more pertinent for our study of the elite—it all but completely excludes potentially high-flying Malays of a chance of entering the scholar class through the SAF. A Chinese woman has a much better chance of winning an SAF scholarship than a Malay man.
Yet even before the scholarship stage, the education system has stacked the deck in favor of Chinese, starting in preschool. Here is the heart of Singapore 's systemic discrimination against non-Chinese. Since the end of the 1970s, the principles of "meritocracy" and "multiracialism" have been subverted by a form of government-driven Chinese chauvinism that has marginalized the minorities. It was not known to the public at the time, but as early as 1978, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew had begun referring to Singapore as a "Confucian society" in his dealings with foreign dignitaries. This proved to be the beginning of a shift from his record as a defender of a communally neutral form of multiracialism toward a policy of actively promoting a Chinese-dominated Singapore .
The early outward signs of the Sinicization program were the privileging of Chinese education, Chinese language and selectively chosen "Chinese values" in an overt and successful effort to create a Mandarin- and English-speaking elite who would dominate public life. Two of the most important planks of this campaign were decided in 1979: the annual "Speak Mandarin Campaign" and the decision to preserve and foster a collection of elite Chinese-medium schools, known as Special Assistance Plan ( SAP) schools.
The SAP schools are explicitly designed to have a Chinese ambience, right down to Chinese gardens, windows shaped like plum blossoms, Chinese orchestra and drama, and exchange programs with mainland China and Taiwan. Over the years the children in SAP schools have been given multiple advantages over those in ordinary schools, including exclusive preschool programs and special consideration for preuniversity scholarships.
For instance, in the early 1980s, when there was a serious shortage of graduate English teachers in schools, the Ministry of Education ensured there were enough allocated to SAP schools "to help improve standards of English among the Chinese-medium students, in the hope that they will be able to make it to university"—a target brought closer by the granting of two O-level bonus points exclusively to SAP school students when they applied to enter junior college. By contrast, neither Indians nor Malays received any special help, let alone schools of their own to address their special needs. They were not only left to fend for themselves, but were sometimes subjected to wanton neglect: inadequately trained teachers, substandard facilities and resources and the "knowledge" that they are not as good as the Chinese.
This account of discrimination against non-Chinese might lead the reader to assume that the quarter of Singaporeans who are not Chinese must form a festering and perhaps even revolutionary mass of resentment. Such an assumption would, however, be a long way from the mark. Non-Chinese might be largely excluded from the highest levels of the administrative elite, but just below these rarefied heights there plenty of positions open to intelligent and hardworking non-Chinese—certainly enough to ensure that non-Chinese communities have much to gain by enthusiastically buying into the system, even after the glass ceilings and racial barriers are taken into account . There are many grievances and resentments in these levels of society but the grievances are muted and balanced by an appreciation of the relative comforts and prosperity they enjoy. For most, any tendency to complain is subdued also by knowledge that it could be worse, and the widespread assumption among members of minority communities that it will be if they seriously pursue their grievances. As long as the Singapore system continues to deal such people a satisfactory hand, if not a fair one, it should be able to cope with some quiet rumblings in the ranks.
While this discrimination is not sparking a reaction that threatens the regime in the short term, the resulting injustices are certainly undermining the myth that the regime operates on meritocratic principles. This is worrying in the longer term because this myth, along with the capacity to deliver peace and prosperity, is one of the primary rationales by which Singaporeans reluctantly accept the many unpopular aspects of the regime, such as the lack of freedom and democracy, the intrusion of government into most aspects of private life, the pressure-cooker lifestyle and the high cost of living.
The rhetoric of meritocracy has given Singaporeans the consolation of believing that their ruling elite are the best of the best and can therefore be trusted almost blindly on important matters, even if they are highhanded and lack the common touch. As this illusion gradually falls away—and today it is already heavily undermined—the trust that Singaporeans have for their government is becoming increasingly qualified. It remains to be seen how long the regime can avert the logical consequences of the contradictions between the myth and the reality.
Mr. Barr is a lecturer at the University of Queensland and author of Lee Kuan Yew: The Beliefs Behind the Man (Routledge, 2000) and Cultural Politics and Asian Values: The Tepid War (Routledge, 2002).
October 2006
By Michael D. Barr
The legitimacy of the Singaporean government is predicated on the idea of a meritocratic technocracy. A tiny number of career civil servants play a leading role in setting policy within their ministries and other government-linked bureaucracies, leading both an elite corps of senior bureaucrats, and a much larger group of ordinary civil servants. Virtually all of the elite members of this hierarchy are "scholars," which in Singapore parlance means they won competitive, bonded government scholarships—the established route into the country's elite.
Scholars not only lead the Administrative Service, but also the military's officer corps, as well as the executive ranks of statutory boards and government-linked companies (GLCs). Movement between these four groups is fluid, with even the military officers routinely doing stints in the civilian civil service. Together with their political masters, most of whom are also scholars, they make up the software for the entity commonly known as "Singapore Inc."—a labyrinth of GLCs, statutory boards and ministries that own or manage around 60% of Singapore's economy.
The basis of the scholars' mandate to govern is not merely their performance on the job, but also the integrity of the process that selected them. The educational system is designed to cultivate competition, requiring top students to prove themselves every step of the way. Singapore's schools first stream students into elite classes after Primary 3 and 4. They then compete for entry into special secondary schools and junior colleges, before vying for government and government-linked scholarships to attend the most prestigious universities around the world.
These scholarships typically require several years of government service after graduation, and the scholars are drafted into the Administrative Service, the officer corps of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), or the career track of a statutory board or GLC. The government insists that all Singaporeans have equal opportunities to excel in the system, and that everyone who has made it to the top did so purely by academic talent and hard work. Other factors such as gender, socioeconomic background and race supposedly play no more than a marginal role, if they are acknowledged as factors at all.
On the point of race, the Singapore government has long prided itself on having instituted a system of multiracialism that fosters cultural diversity under an umbrella of national unity. This is explicitly supposed to protect the 23% of the population who belong to minority races (mainly ethnic Malays and Indians) from discrimination by the Chinese majority.
But this system conceals several unacknowledged agendas. In our forthcoming book, Constructing Singapore: Elitism, Ethnicity and the Nation-Building Project , Zlatko Skrbiš and I present evidence that the playing field is hardly level. In fact, Singapore's system of promotion disguises and even facilitates tremendous biases against women, the poor and non-Chinese. Singapore's administrative and its political elites—especially the younger ones who have come through school in the last 20 or so years—are not the cream of Singapore's talent as they claim, but are merely a dominant social class, resting on systemic biases to perpetuate regime regeneration based on gender, class and race.
At the peak of the system is the network of prestigious government scholarships. Since independence in 1965, the technique of using government scholarships to recruit cohorts of scholars into the administrative and ruling elite has moved from the periphery of Singaporean society to center stage. Even before independence, a makeshift system of government and Colombo Plan scholarships sent a few outstanding scholars overseas before putting them into government service, including most notably former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. Yet as late as 1975 this system had contributed only two out of 14 members of Singapore's cabinet. Even by 1985, only four out of 12 cabinet ministers were former government scholars.
By 1994, however, the situation had changed beyond recognition, with eight out of 14 cabinet ministers being ex-scholars, including Prime Minister Goh. By 2005 there were 12 ex-scholars in a Cabinet of 19. Of these, five had been SAF scholars, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. A perusal of the upper echelons of the ruling elite taken more broadly tells a similar story. In 1994, 12 of the 17 permanent secretaries were scholars, as were 137 of the 210 in the administrative-officer class of the Administrative Service.
The government scholarship system claims to act as a meritocratic sieve—the just reward for young adults with talent and academic dedication. If there is a racial or other bias in the outcomes, then this can only be the result of the uneven distribution of talent and academic application in the community. As Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong put it when he spoke on national television in May 2005, "We are a multiracial society. We must have tolerance, harmony. … And you must have meritocracy … so everybody feels it is fair…." His father, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, was making the same point when, in 1989, he told Singapore's Malay community that they "must learn to compete with everyone else" in the education system.
Yet if Singapore's meritocracy is truly a level playing field, as the Lees assert, then the Chinese must be much smarter and harder working than the minority Indians and Malays. Consider the distribution of the top jobs in various arms of the Singapore government service in the 1990s (based on research conducted by Ross Worthington in the early 2000s):
• Of the top 30 GLCs only two ( 6.7%) were chaired by non-Chinese in 1991 (and neither of the non-Chinese was a Malay).
• Of the 38 people who were represented on the most GLC boards in 1998, only two (5.3%) were non-Chinese (and neither of the non-Chinese was a Malay).
• Of the 78 "core people" on statutory boards and GLCs in 1998, seven (9%) were non-Chinese (and one of the non-Chinese was a Malay).
A similar outcome is revealed in the pattern of government scholarships awarded after matriculation from school. Of the 200 winners of Singapore 's most prestigious scholarship, the President's Scholarship, from 1966-2005 only 14 ( 6.4%) were not Chinese. But this was not a consistent proportion throughout the period. If we take 1980 as the divider, we find that there were 10 non-Chinese President's Scholars out of 114 from 1966-80, or 8%, but in the period from 1981-2005 this figure had dropped to four out of 106, or 3.8%. Since independence, the President's Scholarship has been awarded to only one Malay, in 1968. There has been only one non-Chinese President's Scholar in the 18 years from 1987 to 2005 (a boy called Mikail Kalimuddin) and he is actually half Chinese, studied in Chinese schools (Chinese High School and Hwa Chong Junior College), and took the Higher Chinese course as his mother tongue. If we broaden our focus to encompass broader constructions of ethnicity, we find that since independence, the President's Scholarship has been won by only two Muslims (1968 and 2005).
If we consider Singapore's second-ranked scholarship—the Ministry of Defence's Singapore Armed Forces Overseas Scholarship (SAFOS)—we find a comparable pattern. The Ministry of Defence did not respond to my request for a list of recipients of SAF scholarships, but using newspaper accounts and information provided by the Ministry of Defence Scholarship Centre and Public Service Commission Scholarship Centre Web sites, I was able to identify 140 (56%) of the 250 SAFOS winners up to 2005.
Although only indicative, this table clearly suggests the Chinese dominance in SAFOS stakes: 98% of SAFOS winners in this sample were Chinese, and about 2% were non-Chinese (counting Mikail Kalimuddin in 2005 as non-Chinese). Furthermore I found not a single Malay recipient and only one Muslim winner (Mikail Kalimuddin). A similar picture emerges in the lower status Singapore Armed Forces Merit Scholarship winners: 71 ( 25.6%) of 277 (as of late 2005) scholars identified, with 69 (97%) Chinese winners to only two non-Chinese—though there was a Malay recipient in 2004, and one reliable scholar maintains that there have been others.
The position of the non-Chinese in the educational stakes has clearly deteriorated since the beginning of the 1980s. According to the logic of meritocracy, that means the Chinese have been getting smarter, at least compared to the non-Chinese.
Yet the selection of scholars does not depend purely on objective results like exam scores. In the internal processes of awarding scholarships after matriculation results are released, there are plenty of opportunities to exercise subtle forms of discrimination. Extracurricular activities (as recorded in one's school record), "character" and performance in an interview are also considered. This makes the selection process much more subjective than one would expect in a system that claims to be a meritocracy, and it creates ample opportunity for racial and other prejudices to operate with relative freedom.
Is there evidence that such biases operate at this level? Unsurprisingly, the answer to this question is "yes." Take for instance a 2004 promotional supplement in the country's main newspaper used to recruit applicants for scholarships. The advertorial articles accompanying the paid advertisements featured only one non-Chinese scholar (a Malay on a lowly "local" scholarship) amongst 28 Chinese on prestigious overseas scholarships. Even more disturbing for what they reveal about the prejudices of those offering the scholarships were the paid advertisements placed by government ministries, statutory boards and GLCs. Of the 30 scholars who were both prominent and can be racially identified by their photographs or their names without any doubt as to accuracy, every one of them was Chinese. This leaves not a shadow of a doubt that those people granting government and government-linked scholarships presume that the vast majority of high-level winners will be Chinese.
The absence of Malays from the SAFOS scholarships and their near-absence from the SAF Merit Scholarships deserves special mention because this is an extension of discrimination against the admission of Malays into senior and sensitive positions in the SAF that is officially sanctioned. The discrimination against Malays has been discussed in parliament and the media, and is justified by the assertion that the loyalty of Malays cannot be assumed, both because they are Muslim and because they have a racial and ethnic affinity with the Malays in Malaysia and Indonesia . Current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has historically been a vocal defender of this policy.
This discrimination hits Malay men hard, first because it deprives many of promising careers in the army, and second—and more pertinent for our study of the elite—it all but completely excludes potentially high-flying Malays of a chance of entering the scholar class through the SAF. A Chinese woman has a much better chance of winning an SAF scholarship than a Malay man.
Yet even before the scholarship stage, the education system has stacked the deck in favor of Chinese, starting in preschool. Here is the heart of Singapore 's systemic discrimination against non-Chinese. Since the end of the 1970s, the principles of "meritocracy" and "multiracialism" have been subverted by a form of government-driven Chinese chauvinism that has marginalized the minorities. It was not known to the public at the time, but as early as 1978, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew had begun referring to Singapore as a "Confucian society" in his dealings with foreign dignitaries. This proved to be the beginning of a shift from his record as a defender of a communally neutral form of multiracialism toward a policy of actively promoting a Chinese-dominated Singapore .
The early outward signs of the Sinicization program were the privileging of Chinese education, Chinese language and selectively chosen "Chinese values" in an overt and successful effort to create a Mandarin- and English-speaking elite who would dominate public life. Two of the most important planks of this campaign were decided in 1979: the annual "Speak Mandarin Campaign" and the decision to preserve and foster a collection of elite Chinese-medium schools, known as Special Assistance Plan ( SAP) schools.
The SAP schools are explicitly designed to have a Chinese ambience, right down to Chinese gardens, windows shaped like plum blossoms, Chinese orchestra and drama, and exchange programs with mainland China and Taiwan. Over the years the children in SAP schools have been given multiple advantages over those in ordinary schools, including exclusive preschool programs and special consideration for preuniversity scholarships.
For instance, in the early 1980s, when there was a serious shortage of graduate English teachers in schools, the Ministry of Education ensured there were enough allocated to SAP schools "to help improve standards of English among the Chinese-medium students, in the hope that they will be able to make it to university"—a target brought closer by the granting of two O-level bonus points exclusively to SAP school students when they applied to enter junior college. By contrast, neither Indians nor Malays received any special help, let alone schools of their own to address their special needs. They were not only left to fend for themselves, but were sometimes subjected to wanton neglect: inadequately trained teachers, substandard facilities and resources and the "knowledge" that they are not as good as the Chinese.
This account of discrimination against non-Chinese might lead the reader to assume that the quarter of Singaporeans who are not Chinese must form a festering and perhaps even revolutionary mass of resentment. Such an assumption would, however, be a long way from the mark. Non-Chinese might be largely excluded from the highest levels of the administrative elite, but just below these rarefied heights there plenty of positions open to intelligent and hardworking non-Chinese—certainly enough to ensure that non-Chinese communities have much to gain by enthusiastically buying into the system, even after the glass ceilings and racial barriers are taken into account . There are many grievances and resentments in these levels of society but the grievances are muted and balanced by an appreciation of the relative comforts and prosperity they enjoy. For most, any tendency to complain is subdued also by knowledge that it could be worse, and the widespread assumption among members of minority communities that it will be if they seriously pursue their grievances. As long as the Singapore system continues to deal such people a satisfactory hand, if not a fair one, it should be able to cope with some quiet rumblings in the ranks.
While this discrimination is not sparking a reaction that threatens the regime in the short term, the resulting injustices are certainly undermining the myth that the regime operates on meritocratic principles. This is worrying in the longer term because this myth, along with the capacity to deliver peace and prosperity, is one of the primary rationales by which Singaporeans reluctantly accept the many unpopular aspects of the regime, such as the lack of freedom and democracy, the intrusion of government into most aspects of private life, the pressure-cooker lifestyle and the high cost of living.
The rhetoric of meritocracy has given Singaporeans the consolation of believing that their ruling elite are the best of the best and can therefore be trusted almost blindly on important matters, even if they are highhanded and lack the common touch. As this illusion gradually falls away—and today it is already heavily undermined—the trust that Singaporeans have for their government is becoming increasingly qualified. It remains to be seen how long the regime can avert the logical consequences of the contradictions between the myth and the reality.
Mr. Barr is a lecturer at the University of Queensland and author of Lee Kuan Yew: The Beliefs Behind the Man (Routledge, 2000) and Cultural Politics and Asian Values: The Tepid War (Routledge, 2002).
For unity!
I support Khoo Kay Khim's idea for the Chinese and Indian in Malaysia to give-up their mother tongue education and integrate into a one school education system.
I do think that the current system does not breed unity among the different races in Malaysia. I have come across many Chinese and Indian educated students that could not converse in proper Malay or English. When you can't communicate, unity is almost impossible.
No matter what the Constitution says about it, I don't think the current system is the best for this country. We have been independent for almost 51 years, and we are still far away from unity among the different races.
Unless you have a better idea of how we can create unity, do not throw away the idea at first thought!
I do think that the current system does not breed unity among the different races in Malaysia. I have come across many Chinese and Indian educated students that could not converse in proper Malay or English. When you can't communicate, unity is almost impossible.
No matter what the Constitution says about it, I don't think the current system is the best for this country. We have been independent for almost 51 years, and we are still far away from unity among the different races.
Unless you have a better idea of how we can create unity, do not throw away the idea at first thought!
Monday, September 8, 2008
Ahmad, you are an idiot!
As a Malay, I am ashamed by the acts of Datuk Ahmad Ismail, the Bukit Bendera UMNO division head, and his supporters. If all Malaysian leaders are like him, this country is heading towards destruction.
Read the following report by Malaysiakini, on how he handled his press conference today.
Ahmad: Saya sanggup hadapi risiko
Demi martabat Melayu, ketua Umno Bukit Bendera, Datuk Ahmad Ismail berkata beliau tidak akan memohon maaf dan sanggup menghadapi risikonya.
Bercakap dalam sidang akhbar hari ini, beliau berkata, ini bukan soal parti tetapi adalah soal maruah dan martabat Melayu serta agama Islam.
"Kami bersyukur YAB Pak Lah (Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) faham tentang isu tersebut dan ini boleh kita nilai sendiri dari kenyataan akhbar yang dibuat oleh beliau sebaik sahaja selesai mesyuarat Badan Perhubungan Umno Negeri Pulau Pinang.
"Pak Lah telah meminta saya untuk membuat satu lagi sidang akhbar - maka inilah kita adakan sidang akhbar pada hari ini," kata Ahmad.
Beliau juga berterima kasih kepada badan perhubungan Umno negeri yang telah membuat keputusan melantik peguam bagi mengkaji dan seterusnya mengambil tindakan menyaman wartawan yang didakwa telah sengaja menjadikan isu tersebut begitu sensasi dan kontroversi.
Katanya, tindakan itu juga akan turut diambil terhadap akhbar Sin Chew Daily yang didakwanya sengaja menerbitkan laporan yang berbau perkauman.
"Saya telah difahamkan juga bahawa ada akhbar yang telah melaporkan bahawa kononnya saya, di dalam sidang akhbar saya pada 5 September yang lalu, kononnya saya telah menafikan yang saya ada menyatakan bahawa "orang-orang Cina adalah menumpang di negara ini".
"Ini adalah satu permainan jahat yang mahu merosakkan kredibiliti saya," katanya.
Ahmad juga mendakwa bahawa beberapa pemimpin Gerakan sengaja mengambil kesempatan dan telah mengembar-gemburkan fakta menjadi isu-isu tersebut lebih nampak perkauman.
Beliau mendakwa, mereka berbuat demikian "untuk menyembunyikan kelemahan diri sendiri dan cuba menjadikan isu ini sebagai "kambing hitam" dan telah "cuba lari dari hakikat bahawa orang Cina sudah tidak lagi menyokong mereka".
Dakwanya lagi, keadan menjadi gawat lagi bila pemangku Presiden Gerakan, Tan Sri Koo Tsu Koon dan beberapa pemimpin Gerakan serta pemimpin Cina sengaja membuat kenyataan-kenyataan yang melambangkan perkauman.
Sidang akhbar tersebut, yang berlangsung di ibupejabat Umno Pulau Pinang petang tadi berakhir dengan laungan ‘Hidup Melayu' oleh kira-kira 50 pemimpin Umno.
Sebaik sahaja sidang akhbar itu tamat, bekas ahli badan perhubungan Umno negeri, Zainol Abidin Hashim, dengan bantuan rakan-rakannya telah menurunkan gambar Dr Koh dari dinding ibupejabat Umno tersebut.
Zainol kemudiannya mengeluarkan gambar Dr Koh dari bingkai gambar dan mengoyaknya.
Jumaat lalu, Ahmad telah mengadakan sidang akhbar di mana beliau menegaskan tidak akan memohon atas atas kenyataannya itu.
Pendirian beliau itu disokong oleh kesemua 13 ketua bahagian Umno Pulau Pinang.
Sementara itu, dalam reaksinya, AbduIlah dan Timbalannya, Datuk Seri Najib Razak dijangka mengadakan pertemuan dengan Ahmad esok. Dipercayai tindakan akan diambil terhadap ketua Umno Bukit Bendera itu.
Read the following report by Malaysiakini, on how he handled his press conference today.
Ahmad: Saya sanggup hadapi risiko
Demi martabat Melayu, ketua Umno Bukit Bendera, Datuk Ahmad Ismail berkata beliau tidak akan memohon maaf dan sanggup menghadapi risikonya.
Bercakap dalam sidang akhbar hari ini, beliau berkata, ini bukan soal parti tetapi adalah soal maruah dan martabat Melayu serta agama Islam.
"Kami bersyukur YAB Pak Lah (Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) faham tentang isu tersebut dan ini boleh kita nilai sendiri dari kenyataan akhbar yang dibuat oleh beliau sebaik sahaja selesai mesyuarat Badan Perhubungan Umno Negeri Pulau Pinang.
"Pak Lah telah meminta saya untuk membuat satu lagi sidang akhbar - maka inilah kita adakan sidang akhbar pada hari ini," kata Ahmad.
Beliau juga berterima kasih kepada badan perhubungan Umno negeri yang telah membuat keputusan melantik peguam bagi mengkaji dan seterusnya mengambil tindakan menyaman wartawan yang didakwa telah sengaja menjadikan isu tersebut begitu sensasi dan kontroversi.
Katanya, tindakan itu juga akan turut diambil terhadap akhbar Sin Chew Daily yang didakwanya sengaja menerbitkan laporan yang berbau perkauman.
"Saya telah difahamkan juga bahawa ada akhbar yang telah melaporkan bahawa kononnya saya, di dalam sidang akhbar saya pada 5 September yang lalu, kononnya saya telah menafikan yang saya ada menyatakan bahawa "orang-orang Cina adalah menumpang di negara ini".
"Ini adalah satu permainan jahat yang mahu merosakkan kredibiliti saya," katanya.
Ahmad juga mendakwa bahawa beberapa pemimpin Gerakan sengaja mengambil kesempatan dan telah mengembar-gemburkan fakta menjadi isu-isu tersebut lebih nampak perkauman.
Beliau mendakwa, mereka berbuat demikian "untuk menyembunyikan kelemahan diri sendiri dan cuba menjadikan isu ini sebagai "kambing hitam" dan telah "cuba lari dari hakikat bahawa orang Cina sudah tidak lagi menyokong mereka".
Dakwanya lagi, keadan menjadi gawat lagi bila pemangku Presiden Gerakan, Tan Sri Koo Tsu Koon dan beberapa pemimpin Gerakan serta pemimpin Cina sengaja membuat kenyataan-kenyataan yang melambangkan perkauman.
Sidang akhbar tersebut, yang berlangsung di ibupejabat Umno Pulau Pinang petang tadi berakhir dengan laungan ‘Hidup Melayu' oleh kira-kira 50 pemimpin Umno.
Sebaik sahaja sidang akhbar itu tamat, bekas ahli badan perhubungan Umno negeri, Zainol Abidin Hashim, dengan bantuan rakan-rakannya telah menurunkan gambar Dr Koh dari dinding ibupejabat Umno tersebut.
Zainol kemudiannya mengeluarkan gambar Dr Koh dari bingkai gambar dan mengoyaknya.
Jumaat lalu, Ahmad telah mengadakan sidang akhbar di mana beliau menegaskan tidak akan memohon atas atas kenyataannya itu.
Pendirian beliau itu disokong oleh kesemua 13 ketua bahagian Umno Pulau Pinang.
Sementara itu, dalam reaksinya, AbduIlah dan Timbalannya, Datuk Seri Najib Razak dijangka mengadakan pertemuan dengan Ahmad esok. Dipercayai tindakan akan diambil terhadap ketua Umno Bukit Bendera itu.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
What a day!
I'm sure the Malaysian newspaper editors wish they have a bigger front page for tomorrow's (Friday) edition. There are too many interesting news for them to report on, and all of them are worthy candidate for the main headline!
1. News on P. Balasubramaniam statutory declaration, in which the Deputy Prime Minister is implicated in the Altantuya case. Najib has strongly denied the accusation. So, it is Najib's words against Balasubramaniam's words. Who's right?
2. News on Najib admitting that Saiful Bukhari had actually met him before he went to report the sodomy case to the police. A few days ago, he mentioned that Saiful had met his aide, Khairil Anas, for scholarship. How did he fail to mention that Saiful had actually met him too??
3. News on the Bursa Malaysia shutdown. How did this happen? In today's advanced market, they should have a back-up system which could be use whenever the main system failed. This shutdown has led to numerous rumours, including one that says the government purposely shut the market in order to stop foreign investors from fleeing the country.
4. News on the joint police and military exercise. What is the best way to calm the rakyat on this political instability? The government feels the best way is to put the military on the street. Instead of giving comfort, the opposite happens. The rakyat are quite agitated. Some even feel that the government is preparing for a darurat, which is a very very bad news for Malaysia.
Which one would be your headline??
1. News on P. Balasubramaniam statutory declaration, in which the Deputy Prime Minister is implicated in the Altantuya case. Najib has strongly denied the accusation. So, it is Najib's words against Balasubramaniam's words. Who's right?
2. News on Najib admitting that Saiful Bukhari had actually met him before he went to report the sodomy case to the police. A few days ago, he mentioned that Saiful had met his aide, Khairil Anas, for scholarship. How did he fail to mention that Saiful had actually met him too??
3. News on the Bursa Malaysia shutdown. How did this happen? In today's advanced market, they should have a back-up system which could be use whenever the main system failed. This shutdown has led to numerous rumours, including one that says the government purposely shut the market in order to stop foreign investors from fleeing the country.
4. News on the joint police and military exercise. What is the best way to calm the rakyat on this political instability? The government feels the best way is to put the military on the street. Instead of giving comfort, the opposite happens. The rakyat are quite agitated. Some even feel that the government is preparing for a darurat, which is a very very bad news for Malaysia.
Which one would be your headline??
Saturday, June 28, 2008
1998 again??
Few minutes ago, I received a text from a very reliable person within PKR.
It says:
"Polis telah menahan pembantu khas DSAI Saiful Bahari ptg ini dan memaksa beliau membuat pengakuan diliwat. Polis dijangka menahan DSAI hari ini. Sebarkan. "
Malaysia is heading down the drain. After the 1998 sodomy episode, I think this one will have a bigger impact on Malaysians. The sentiment at the moment is very much against the government of the day. This new sodomy allegation, no matter whether it is true or not, will divide the nation further than it is now. I'm sure the rakyat will march on the street in droves. For them, they will see this as a tactic by the government to suppress the opposition.
The allegation might be true, or it might not. One thing that is certain: Malaysia will suffer.
It says:
"Polis telah menahan pembantu khas DSAI Saiful Bahari ptg ini dan memaksa beliau membuat pengakuan diliwat. Polis dijangka menahan DSAI hari ini. Sebarkan. "
Malaysia is heading down the drain. After the 1998 sodomy episode, I think this one will have a bigger impact on Malaysians. The sentiment at the moment is very much against the government of the day. This new sodomy allegation, no matter whether it is true or not, will divide the nation further than it is now. I'm sure the rakyat will march on the street in droves. For them, they will see this as a tactic by the government to suppress the opposition.
The allegation might be true, or it might not. One thing that is certain: Malaysia will suffer.
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