http://www.atimes.com/se-asia/CH11Ae03.html

August 11, 2001

Asia Times

Meritocracy: Love it or leave it

By Anil Netto

PENANG, Malaysia - As political ferment brews in the country, Malaysians are once again grappling with a decades-old debate: Should a nation that has enshrined affirmative action into official policy since 1970 give meritocracy a try?

Under normal circumstances, questioning Malaysia's decades-old quota system, which favors the majority bumiputras (ethnic Malays and other indigenous groups), is a "no-no'"- a sensitive issue in a multi-ethnic country of 22 million people. But on July 27, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad himself proposed that meritocracy should be the basis of university admissions, at least for a spell. He said this would to shock ethnic Malay students out of what he sees as their complacency and their tendency to immerse themselves in politics while neglecting studies. "We will see what happens to them when they don't get an opportunity," he warned.

The premier's remarks came in the wake of growing student activism on campuses against abuse of power and corruption. Once-docile students, mainly Malays, have demonstrated against the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows indefinite detention without trial. Two university student activists were detained under the ISA in July, although both have since been released.

Critics say the meritocracy threat to Malay students is Mahathir's way of warning students to lay off politics and stick to their books. Others point out that it is encouraging to note that students are now becoming politically more enlightened. Threat or challenge, the meritocracy proposal has sparked off debate.

After years of receiving benefits under the affirmation action policy, some Malays feel quotas are their lifeline. "It is our right as Malays," says Johar Zam (not his real name), a low-income Malay factory worker from northern Kedah state. His opinion however appears less to do with any sense of a proud birthright and instead reflects a painful admission that the bumiputra community as a whole, for all its advances, is still lagging behind.

Bumiputras make up some 60 percent of the population, Chinese Malaysians 25 percent with the remainder made up of Indian Malaysians and other groups.

Many poorer Malays feel they still need assistance to compete with others in their society. Pressed on why this is so, Johar pointed out that many Malays come from poor families with parents who are plantation workers and farmers.

"They need scholarships. The cost of living is high. Where are they going to find the money for an education and how are they going to compete with the other communities? If we don't have quotas, what are we going to do?" he argued.

But others may reply that there are also poor Chinese Malaysians, Indians, Ibans and Kadazans and want ethnic blinkers to be discarded when tackling poverty. Indeed, poverty can be found in urban squatter settlements, plantations, farming and fishing communities, the Orang Asli community and indigenous communities in north Borneo.

Opposition politicians have called for affirmative action based on need rather than ethnicity. The education bureau of the opposition Barisan Alternatif (Alternative Front) maintains that merit should be given recognition, regardless of race. "We stress again that all students who have achieved outstanding results need to be given the chance to enter institutions of higher learning," the bureau's chairperson Syed Husin Ali was quoted as saying. At the same time, he warned that if admissions were based only on results and not need, students from poorer families or areas, regardless of ethnicity, would be left out. "The socio-economic divide between the rich and the poor will increase." Many students from poorer families do not even make it to secondary school. Of those that do, many eventually drop out, so university quotas and scholarships are of little help to them.

On the economic front, grass-roots Malays themselves have complained of government assistance that has largely benefited a small coterie of favored bumiputra (as well as non-Malay) businessman - part of the official policy of creating successful Malay billionaire tycoons under the privatization policy. Indeed, when the government recently bought back a stake in ailing Malaysia Airlines at more than double the market price from a debt-ridden firm owned by a bumiputra tycoon, the chief critics of the deal were Malays themselves.

Ethnic-based affirmative action quotas were reinforced as state policy after bloody race riots in 1969 left scores dead. Quotas were the cornerstone of the New Economic Policy, introduced in 1971 to wipe out poverty and to raise the stake of the bumiputras.

Among the NEP's benefits: ethnic-based quotas for university admissions (55:45 in favor of bumiputras), preferential treatment for government contracts and licences, cheaper loans and special share allocations when firms are listed. But after 30 years, the civil service, the army, and the police remain predominantly Malay, while the ethnic Chinese maintain an influential presence in the economy despite Malay inroads.

Still, the bumiputras have made significant advances in the professions and a whole new middle-class has emerged out of the NEP - this is often called the successful part of Malaysia's race-based policies. Other minority groups like the Indians, however, complain that they are now being marginalized.

The NEP itself expired in 1990 with bumiputras still short of its targets. The policy itself initially left many non-bumiputras disgruntled. But with the liberalization in higher education in the 1990s and the setting up of local private colleges offering "twinning programs" with foreign universities, much of their resentment evaporated.

Since 1990, there has been much discussion on policies to succeed the NEP. An increasing number of analysts have called for needs-based - rather than ethnic-based - affirmative action policies.

In 1999, when a group of Chinese associations, Suqiu, proposed an end to race-based quotas, it triggered a political storm from the youth wing of Mahathir's United Malays National Organization. But times have changed and the meritocracy proposal represents an official about-turn. But the political costs of implementation may prove to be too high.

With the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa later this month, activists now have the delicate task of coming up with a position paper on racism in Malaysia. In March, ethnic attacks targeting ethnic Indians in a neglected squatter area near Kuala Lumpur left six dead and scores injured. In all likelihood, the activists will opt for a non-racial line in the final paper.

"People do agree that policies should be based on need rather than along racial lines," added Yap Swee Seng, a secretariat member of the Joint Action Committee against Racism. "There should be affirmative action against poverty and the poor should be assisted regardless of racial background."