“The Chinese, Indians and the Orang Asli want equal opportunities,” he said, adding that they would continue to avoid joining the military as long as they perceived discrimination in the armed forces.
Last Saturday, the Malaysian Armed Forces (ATM) chief, Gen Raja Mohamed Affandi Mohamed Noor, told the press that the military was targeting a 10% annual enrolment increase and was seeking youths of all races.
Santiago acknowledged that the perception of racial discrimination was not the only factor discouraging non-Malays from joining the forces. Many believed they would get better pay in the private sector, he said.
He added that it was not always true that private companies provided better opportunities and higher wages than the armed forces.
However, he said, ATM might be able to attract non-Malay recruits if it started promoting those already serving with it to higher ranks.
Brig-Gen (Rtd) Mohd Arshad Raji, the president of the National Patriots Association, said it was especially galling for non-Malay officers to see their undeserving Malay subordinates being promoted above them.
He said most would not mind it if the promoted officers were deserving of their new ranks, but would find it demoralising to have to salute former subordinates whom they knew were nowhere equal to them in performance.
Arshad said non-Malays once made up 30% of the military’s total strength, but the figure started dropping in the late 1970s. It is now 5%.
PPBM supreme council member Tariq Ismail agreed with Santiago that some non-Malays probably felt there were better opportunities in the private sector.
He said he had “heard rumours” about racial discrimination in the armed forces. If this was true, he added, the problem could be solved by pushing an anti-discrimination bill through Parliament.
He said such a law would address a host of other problems as well, such as the tendency among some Malay rights groups to make “silly statements” and the recent issue of Muslim hotel workers being barred from wearing the headscarf.
Batu MP Tian Chua tied the issue of lack of non-Malay participation in the armed forces to what he alleged was the general problem of the government’s neglect to muster the political will to resolve “complex issues” plaguing the nation.
One of these issues, he said, was income disparity between the races.
He acknowledged that an objective of the National Transformation Plan was to create opportunities for the nation’s youths, but he questioned whether Prime Minister Najib Razak had the political will to carry out the plan.
Armed Forces wants to see more of the other races in the force
http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2015/03/15/retired-general-not-true-non-malays-wont-serve/