This country that we love belongs to all of us...
Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on CNN Talk Asia
'This country that we love belongs to all of us...'
Chinese in Malaysia are better off than Malays. And they are successful because there are opportunities for them to do well in the country, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
As such, it was baseless for Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew to say that Chinese here were marginalised.
Abdullah was asked to comment on Lee's statement during an interview on CNN's Talk Asia segment yesterday.
He was interviewed on a range of issues, including the testy relationship with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and the perception of Islam post-9/11.
Last month, Lee told an international forum that the attitude of Malaysia and Indonesia towards Singapore was shaped by the way they treated their own ethnic Chinese minorities.
Lee's statement angered Malaysians, prompting Abdullah to write to him seeking an explanation.
The PM said that Lee had no reason to raise the issue. "The Chinese here are better off than the indigenous people, the Malays," he said.
When the interviewer pointed out that Lee had suggested the Chinese were marginalised because they were successful, Abdullah replied: "No, they are successful because we give them opportunities.
"We allow their children to go to Chinese schools, vocational schools, to learn Mandarin. And they practise their culture.
"Chinese New Year is celebrated not only by them, but also by the Malays, the Indians — the Muslims and the Hindus. We have mutual respect."
During the interview, he made it clear that Malaysia belonged to all races.
"Differences between the communities do exist because of the cultural diversity. But we celebrate these differences.
"What we all desire is to be together, to live a life that is peaceful.
"We want to respect others who don’t belong to our ethnic group, who’s not of the same religion. (We have) a desire to be friendly and to do things together. And, most importantly, this country that we love belongs to all of us, that is Malaysia."
During the interview, Abdullah said that the Quran does not condone violence. And those who resorted to violence had clearly misinterpreted the Holy Book.
"There are specific commandments by God that one should not create or cause violence, especially when it destroys something you’ve already achieved."
But he admitted it was difficult to persuade the rest of the world that Islam was a religion of peace after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks and the Bali bombings.
"Of course, when incidents like that happen, it is going to be very, very difficult for us to explain. Especially if those involved say ‘we have done it in the name of Islam’. That becomes a real problem."
He said there should be more dialogue between Islam and the West.
"Sept 11, 2001 caused a lot of sadness and the views of the non-Muslims towards Islam has changed dramatically since.
"Today, there doesn’t seem to be any mutual understanding to create better rapport between the two.
"To me that is the cause of what we are seeing today. There should be more discussions of how to bring us together, rather than talking about terrorism."
Abdullah said the West failed to understand that religion was very important to a Muslim.
"To a Muslim, religion is very important. Religion to the Muslim is not kept at home. It is not a matter for the relatives.
"In the corporate sector, in his business, in the government, in whatever he does, he is very much dictated by the teachings of Islam."
(Abdullah Ahmad Badawi became the Prime Minister of Malaysia in 2003. Since picking up the reins from his predecessor, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad who was in power for 22 years, he has faced challenges within his multi-ethnic country and a prolonged global war on terror. Prime Minister Abdullah speaks to Anjali Rao about Islamic extremism, his current spat with Dr. Mahathir and racial tensions in multi-ethnic Malaysia-CNN 'Talk Asia)
COMING UP NEXT WEEK : Dr Mahathir
Dr. Mahathir Mohamad was one of Asia's longest serving leaders. In his 22 years as Prime Minister of Malaysia, he firmly pushed the country towards modernization by shifting it from an agricultural nation into a developed industrial economy. Despite retiring in 2003, Dr Mahathir remains an outspoken figure in Asian politics. He joins Talk Asia to reveal his thoughts on current Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and explain his polemic views on Judaism and the War on Terror.
Who Is Really Being Marginalised? The Chinese in Malaysia, or The Malays in Singapore?
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.
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.
(Source:Far Eastern Economic Reviews-The Charade Of Meritocracy by Michael D. Barr)
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).
How strong are they?
Singapore bloggers say they're too weak to survive Lee Kuan Yew. "They appear strong only because LKY is around to make sure of things." Young PAP Forum.
Posted by sphinx
I have had occasion to be very disappointed with the Singapore system lately. From what I can observe, the NKF saga is not a one off thing. The NKF debacle is a sign of a deeper systemic malaise. People are not held accountable for their actions and power is assumed to be absolute.
This is the reason why Durai felt so confident in doing his dirty deeds. To safeguard their own interests, everyone strives to build his own private fiefdom and be a little prince in his own right.
Once you are in control, it is possible to think that you answer to no one but yourself. Despite the laws, there seems to be no rules that really govern how people ought to behave.
Rules and values that are tightly held and deeply cherished. In its place, we find the arbitrary rule of man.
Do you agree with me?
Why are things like that?
What happened to truth and justice? Such lofty and abstract ideals seem irrelevant when interest is brought to the fore. It is all the more puzzling because Lee Kuan Yew and his PAP rode to power on the wings of social justice. Forty years in power and they are beginning to assume that power is a birthright. Just because Lee Hsien Loong, the son, was made Prime Minister, everyone else starts to believe that only relevant consideration is the connection they possess to the men in power.
Is it corruption? No.
Is it nepotism? No.
Is it cronyism? That gets closer to what it is but not quite. It is not a case of incompetent men and women who are appointed by the powers that be and who exist only to serve those powers; rather, you have a thousand petty tyrants who are seeking to emulate the example of Lee Kuan Yew. They will rule by fiat and seek to disregard anything that is inconvenient. The problem is that these Harry Lee wannabes do not possess the moral sense that the grand old man has. Their instincts are wrong but the power that they acquire is real. These people are kept in check only because Lee Kuan Yew exists. When he goes, then the norms and values of absolute power remain but the excellent moral instincts disappear. Our Republic would then be imperiled by the very guardians Lee Kuan Yew had entrusted its care to.
What do you think?
JJ
The Nicoll Highway is a case in point.
LTA was the developer who commissioned the tunneling work.
They were also the state regulator on such matters.
Sounds like conflict of interest to me.
And when it all went wrong, I recall one LTA Engineer taking the rap for it.
And the structural engineer and construction company took a lot more blame than just the negligence and incompetence of one employee.
As a member of the public, I cannot imagine how one man can be responsible for everything that went wrong at LTA's end.
With all the checks and counter-checks you normally find at govt. institutions, I wonder how this could ever have escaped the eye of more senior officials at LTA.
How can one LTA guy can be responsible and held to account for such a catastrophe?
If no other more senior officials knew about it, should there not be an inquiry on the workings of LTA such that senior officials can be kept in the dark for so long on major matters like this?
Can someone enlighten me?
Pardon my ignorance but the logic of the legal proceedings is just beyond me.
sphinx
Judge, jury and prosecutor all rolled into one. I did not believe that Singapore's institutions could be so weak until my personal experience with institutional dysfunction. Has the system spawned a self-perpetuating class of mandarins whose sole interest is in self preservation?
The LTA saga is an interesting one to examine. You are right; it is odd that a lowly engineer would be the only person to suffer any consequences as a result of the negligence.
The argument goes that if you punish everyone, there will be no one left to man the station. The weakness of such arguments is that it gives non-performing groups the excuse to band together; that way, no one ever has to take responsibility for the failings.
It becomes an example of informal white-collar unionisation. Except this is not a case of powerless workers finding voice and strength in numbers, but a way for white-collar workers to victimize and oppress all others.
Do you not wonder who was the person who was let go at the LTA? My bet is that it was probably someone who was not very popular and who was made a scapegoat for that reason.
Alfred
It's usually such... problems in a mammoth bureaucracy.
Can't help shaking my head.
We're too little to do anything.
sphinx
Are we too little to do anything? Let me declare that I am a fool and that I believe in the moral majority of one. The faith that we should all have is that we are all reasoning and reasonable creatures. If we cannot possibly appeal to the conscience of our fellow men, then there is no hope. Why write and post unless you believe that someone will listen?
The great danger that confronts our country is that Singapore's institutions are simply too weak to survive Lee Kuan Yew. They appear strong only because LKY is around to make sure of things. When he passes, much that is wrong will be brought to the fore as injustice is perpetrated and justified solely on personal grounds.
The men and women who now govern these institutions believe that LKY's example ought to be emulated. Power should be absolute, and the people must simply obey. In so doing, they seek to create the personal authority that LKY possesses without realizing that such authority is really LKY's special prerogative. He is a founding father of this country, he built it, sweated blood for it, and not surprisingly, the people stand with him.
But the many petty tyrants that LKY has cultivated in his troop of scholar mandarins have never justified their position in any such way. These people simply rode on the coattails of LKY and yet, daringly lay claim to the same authority that the grand old man enjoys. These are the foxes that strut behind the tiger; who cannot seem to understand, that they will never be LKY.
Talking about it is the first step that we take. The next step would be to organise ourselves. There is a need for a coherent opposition that is free from the taint of Chee Soon Juan; one that will actually talk about substantive issues and whose presence will force positive changes on our political landscape. Our Republic must endure.
sphinx
What does it mean for you and me to have weak institutions? Are there more NKFs and TT Durais out there? People who abuse trust and power to further their own selfish interest? The problem of politics in Singapore is that we are used to presuming goodness on the part of our politicians. We have been fortunate to have had good leaders.
LKY may be heavy handed, but no one can deny his impressive achievements. The question that we need to ask ourselves is this - how have we achieved good governance and how can we perpetuate it?
Garfields
Once upon a time in old China, a engineer was digging a well so to provide water supply to the village.
While he was digging halfway, he felt that the well structure was unsafe and reported it to the mayor. Of cos, the mayor submitted his case to the governor. But without further investigation, the report was squashed and thrown out.
So the engineer wanted to retire and leave the job. But he was asked to keep mum and continue to dig in the well.
With lots of stress, the engineer committed sucide. So the deputy engineer took over the job. But after realising the seriousness of the situation, he also wanted to leave the job and decided to migrant to another province.
But luck was not on his side, as only a month to go before his migration, he lost his life in the course of digging.
ITANIMULLI
45 years of PAP rule makes Singapore what is it today - a nation with wealth and respect.
A minority will argue that it could be better.
The proof of the pudding it to eat it.
So pundits of anti-PAP have to ask this question.
Will S'pore be better off in 2026 with a different government than 1958 know what we know now.
It is always right to have 24/24 vision of the PAST.
It is the FUTURE that impact on 4,000,000 souls.
You want to gamble with the lives of 4 million to prove a point?
What is your agenda - or you missed out for 45 years and need change for change sake.
(Young PAP Forum. Singapore)
Malaysia Singapore:Mahathir Adullah Ahmad Badawi MM KY Lee Chinese Malay apology marginalised. politic PAP Forum
'This country that we love belongs to all of us...'
Chinese in Malaysia are better off than Malays. And they are successful because there are opportunities for them to do well in the country, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
As such, it was baseless for Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew to say that Chinese here were marginalised.
Abdullah was asked to comment on Lee's statement during an interview on CNN's Talk Asia segment yesterday.
He was interviewed on a range of issues, including the testy relationship with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and the perception of Islam post-9/11.
Last month, Lee told an international forum that the attitude of Malaysia and Indonesia towards Singapore was shaped by the way they treated their own ethnic Chinese minorities.
Lee's statement angered Malaysians, prompting Abdullah to write to him seeking an explanation.
The PM said that Lee had no reason to raise the issue. "The Chinese here are better off than the indigenous people, the Malays," he said.
When the interviewer pointed out that Lee had suggested the Chinese were marginalised because they were successful, Abdullah replied: "No, they are successful because we give them opportunities.
"We allow their children to go to Chinese schools, vocational schools, to learn Mandarin. And they practise their culture.
"Chinese New Year is celebrated not only by them, but also by the Malays, the Indians — the Muslims and the Hindus. We have mutual respect."
During the interview, he made it clear that Malaysia belonged to all races.
"Differences between the communities do exist because of the cultural diversity. But we celebrate these differences.
"What we all desire is to be together, to live a life that is peaceful.
"We want to respect others who don’t belong to our ethnic group, who’s not of the same religion. (We have) a desire to be friendly and to do things together. And, most importantly, this country that we love belongs to all of us, that is Malaysia."
During the interview, Abdullah said that the Quran does not condone violence. And those who resorted to violence had clearly misinterpreted the Holy Book.
"There are specific commandments by God that one should not create or cause violence, especially when it destroys something you’ve already achieved."
But he admitted it was difficult to persuade the rest of the world that Islam was a religion of peace after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks and the Bali bombings.
"Of course, when incidents like that happen, it is going to be very, very difficult for us to explain. Especially if those involved say ‘we have done it in the name of Islam’. That becomes a real problem."
He said there should be more dialogue between Islam and the West.
"Sept 11, 2001 caused a lot of sadness and the views of the non-Muslims towards Islam has changed dramatically since.
"Today, there doesn’t seem to be any mutual understanding to create better rapport between the two.
"To me that is the cause of what we are seeing today. There should be more discussions of how to bring us together, rather than talking about terrorism."
Abdullah said the West failed to understand that religion was very important to a Muslim.
"To a Muslim, religion is very important. Religion to the Muslim is not kept at home. It is not a matter for the relatives.
"In the corporate sector, in his business, in the government, in whatever he does, he is very much dictated by the teachings of Islam."
(Abdullah Ahmad Badawi became the Prime Minister of Malaysia in 2003. Since picking up the reins from his predecessor, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad who was in power for 22 years, he has faced challenges within his multi-ethnic country and a prolonged global war on terror. Prime Minister Abdullah speaks to Anjali Rao about Islamic extremism, his current spat with Dr. Mahathir and racial tensions in multi-ethnic Malaysia-CNN 'Talk Asia)
COMING UP NEXT WEEK : Dr Mahathir
Dr. Mahathir Mohamad was one of Asia's longest serving leaders. In his 22 years as Prime Minister of Malaysia, he firmly pushed the country towards modernization by shifting it from an agricultural nation into a developed industrial economy. Despite retiring in 2003, Dr Mahathir remains an outspoken figure in Asian politics. He joins Talk Asia to reveal his thoughts on current Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and explain his polemic views on Judaism and the War on Terror.
**********
Who Is Really Being Marginalised? The Chinese in Malaysia, or The Malays in Singapore?
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.
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.
(Source:Far Eastern Economic Reviews-The Charade Of Meritocracy by Michael D. Barr)
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).
How strong are they?
Singapore bloggers say they're too weak to survive Lee Kuan Yew. "They appear strong only because LKY is around to make sure of things." Young PAP Forum.
Posted by sphinx
I have had occasion to be very disappointed with the Singapore system lately. From what I can observe, the NKF saga is not a one off thing. The NKF debacle is a sign of a deeper systemic malaise. People are not held accountable for their actions and power is assumed to be absolute.
This is the reason why Durai felt so confident in doing his dirty deeds. To safeguard their own interests, everyone strives to build his own private fiefdom and be a little prince in his own right.
Once you are in control, it is possible to think that you answer to no one but yourself. Despite the laws, there seems to be no rules that really govern how people ought to behave.
Rules and values that are tightly held and deeply cherished. In its place, we find the arbitrary rule of man.
Do you agree with me?
Why are things like that?
What happened to truth and justice? Such lofty and abstract ideals seem irrelevant when interest is brought to the fore. It is all the more puzzling because Lee Kuan Yew and his PAP rode to power on the wings of social justice. Forty years in power and they are beginning to assume that power is a birthright. Just because Lee Hsien Loong, the son, was made Prime Minister, everyone else starts to believe that only relevant consideration is the connection they possess to the men in power.
Is it corruption? No.
Is it nepotism? No.
Is it cronyism? That gets closer to what it is but not quite. It is not a case of incompetent men and women who are appointed by the powers that be and who exist only to serve those powers; rather, you have a thousand petty tyrants who are seeking to emulate the example of Lee Kuan Yew. They will rule by fiat and seek to disregard anything that is inconvenient. The problem is that these Harry Lee wannabes do not possess the moral sense that the grand old man has. Their instincts are wrong but the power that they acquire is real. These people are kept in check only because Lee Kuan Yew exists. When he goes, then the norms and values of absolute power remain but the excellent moral instincts disappear. Our Republic would then be imperiled by the very guardians Lee Kuan Yew had entrusted its care to.
What do you think?
JJ
The Nicoll Highway is a case in point.
LTA was the developer who commissioned the tunneling work.
They were also the state regulator on such matters.
Sounds like conflict of interest to me.
And when it all went wrong, I recall one LTA Engineer taking the rap for it.
And the structural engineer and construction company took a lot more blame than just the negligence and incompetence of one employee.
As a member of the public, I cannot imagine how one man can be responsible for everything that went wrong at LTA's end.
With all the checks and counter-checks you normally find at govt. institutions, I wonder how this could ever have escaped the eye of more senior officials at LTA.
How can one LTA guy can be responsible and held to account for such a catastrophe?
If no other more senior officials knew about it, should there not be an inquiry on the workings of LTA such that senior officials can be kept in the dark for so long on major matters like this?
Can someone enlighten me?
Pardon my ignorance but the logic of the legal proceedings is just beyond me.
sphinx
Judge, jury and prosecutor all rolled into one. I did not believe that Singapore's institutions could be so weak until my personal experience with institutional dysfunction. Has the system spawned a self-perpetuating class of mandarins whose sole interest is in self preservation?
The LTA saga is an interesting one to examine. You are right; it is odd that a lowly engineer would be the only person to suffer any consequences as a result of the negligence.
The argument goes that if you punish everyone, there will be no one left to man the station. The weakness of such arguments is that it gives non-performing groups the excuse to band together; that way, no one ever has to take responsibility for the failings.
It becomes an example of informal white-collar unionisation. Except this is not a case of powerless workers finding voice and strength in numbers, but a way for white-collar workers to victimize and oppress all others.
Do you not wonder who was the person who was let go at the LTA? My bet is that it was probably someone who was not very popular and who was made a scapegoat for that reason.
Alfred
It's usually such... problems in a mammoth bureaucracy.
Can't help shaking my head.
We're too little to do anything.
sphinx
Are we too little to do anything? Let me declare that I am a fool and that I believe in the moral majority of one. The faith that we should all have is that we are all reasoning and reasonable creatures. If we cannot possibly appeal to the conscience of our fellow men, then there is no hope. Why write and post unless you believe that someone will listen?
The great danger that confronts our country is that Singapore's institutions are simply too weak to survive Lee Kuan Yew. They appear strong only because LKY is around to make sure of things. When he passes, much that is wrong will be brought to the fore as injustice is perpetrated and justified solely on personal grounds.
The men and women who now govern these institutions believe that LKY's example ought to be emulated. Power should be absolute, and the people must simply obey. In so doing, they seek to create the personal authority that LKY possesses without realizing that such authority is really LKY's special prerogative. He is a founding father of this country, he built it, sweated blood for it, and not surprisingly, the people stand with him.
But the many petty tyrants that LKY has cultivated in his troop of scholar mandarins have never justified their position in any such way. These people simply rode on the coattails of LKY and yet, daringly lay claim to the same authority that the grand old man enjoys. These are the foxes that strut behind the tiger; who cannot seem to understand, that they will never be LKY.
Talking about it is the first step that we take. The next step would be to organise ourselves. There is a need for a coherent opposition that is free from the taint of Chee Soon Juan; one that will actually talk about substantive issues and whose presence will force positive changes on our political landscape. Our Republic must endure.
sphinx
What does it mean for you and me to have weak institutions? Are there more NKFs and TT Durais out there? People who abuse trust and power to further their own selfish interest? The problem of politics in Singapore is that we are used to presuming goodness on the part of our politicians. We have been fortunate to have had good leaders.
LKY may be heavy handed, but no one can deny his impressive achievements. The question that we need to ask ourselves is this - how have we achieved good governance and how can we perpetuate it?
Garfields
Once upon a time in old China, a engineer was digging a well so to provide water supply to the village.
While he was digging halfway, he felt that the well structure was unsafe and reported it to the mayor. Of cos, the mayor submitted his case to the governor. But without further investigation, the report was squashed and thrown out.
So the engineer wanted to retire and leave the job. But he was asked to keep mum and continue to dig in the well.
With lots of stress, the engineer committed sucide. So the deputy engineer took over the job. But after realising the seriousness of the situation, he also wanted to leave the job and decided to migrant to another province.
But luck was not on his side, as only a month to go before his migration, he lost his life in the course of digging.
ITANIMULLI
45 years of PAP rule makes Singapore what is it today - a nation with wealth and respect.
A minority will argue that it could be better.
The proof of the pudding it to eat it.
So pundits of anti-PAP have to ask this question.
Will S'pore be better off in 2026 with a different government than 1958 know what we know now.
It is always right to have 24/24 vision of the PAST.
It is the FUTURE that impact on 4,000,000 souls.
You want to gamble with the lives of 4 million to prove a point?
What is your agenda - or you missed out for 45 years and need change for change sake.
(Young PAP Forum. Singapore)
Malaysia Singapore:Mahathir Adullah Ahmad Badawi MM KY Lee Chinese Malay apology marginalised. politic PAP Forum
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