From Kua Kia Soong
International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed annually on March 21.
On that day, in 1960, South African police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration against the apartheid pass laws in Sharpeville.
Subsequently, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed this day as a date for special observance and called on the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination.
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) was adopted and opened for ratification by the UN General Assembly in 1965.
Ratification of ICERD most elusive
As Malaysians know very well, the ratification of ICERD has proven to be most elusive through successive governments. During the years of Barisan Nasional (BN) rule, with Umno’s de facto dominance, this question was non-negotiable.
When the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition came into office in May 2018, their administration was marked by flip flops on implementing the reforms they had promised voters in their 14th general election (GE14) manifesto.
The PH government decided to back down on their manifesto promise of ratifying ICERD, in the face of falsely framed arguments and threats of a repeat of “May 13”.
This retreat sent a clear message that the PH government lacked the political will to eradicate racism and racial discrimination and that it was prepared to connive with the blatant selective efficiency of the police in keeping law and order.
In my book, “May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969”, I point out that the May 13 incident was not a spontaneous post-election riot between “Malays” and “Chinese”, but rather it had been orchestrated by “hidden hands” in the coup d’état against then prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman.
Today, the opponents of ICERD are so emboldened that they can openly declare that they will unleash May 13 if the government goes ahead with the ratification of ICERD. It reminds us of the prelude to Operation Lalang in 1987 when Umno Youth threatened to hold a rally of 500,000 in Kuala Lumpur against the Chinese educationists protesting the practice of sending unqualified administrators to Chinese schools.
Instead of acting against the organisers of this threat, the authorities opted to arrest and detain without trial civil society activists under the Internal Security Act.
And if these opponents of ICERD were to resort to violence, would the police and the security forces be similarly ineffectual against them?
Such bias in carrying out their duties is a serious admission of double standards by the police and our security forces, who claimed victory over armed insurgents during the Emergency, who today face international terrorists and who only a few years ago, were ruthless against thousands of Reformasi demonstrators during the Kesas Highway demonstration.
Since there is no political will expressed by the new government to ratify ICERD, it looks like we are stuck with the never-ending racially defined economic, social, and cultural policies for some time to come.
For a start, how could there be any political will when the prime minister himself is the leader of a racially based party meant exclusively for Pribumis? Aside from the PM’s race-based party, the other supposedly “democratic” and “multi-ethnic” component parties of the PH coalition have failed the Malaysian people in the same way that MCA and MIC have failed them, by condoning the racial discrimination of the previous BN administration.
By not ratifying ICERD, the new PH government could carry on with all the racially discriminatory policies and measures that we have seen, especially since 1971, notably the approved permits scandal and the crony capitalism all these years, the abuse of the quota system and especially the “Bumis only” policy at UiTM.
Bumiputera congress bursts ‘New Malaysia’ bubble
The shocking pronouncements from the Bumiputera Congress that convened in September 2018 constituted the biggest letdown to date since the Malaysian people voted for a “New Malaysia” with real reforms after 61 years of BN rule.
The PH leaders had promised that affirmative action would be needs-based rather than race-based and concerned rights activists, economists and investors alike had called for the termination of the never-ending New Economic Policy.
Alas, we have all been disappointed. There now seems to be no likelihood that we will see the end of Bumiputera populism for after the Bumiputera Congress, the prime minister started to privatise our national asset, Khazanah, to “Bumiputera entrepreneurs”.
In the first place, this national asset belongs to all of us tax paying citizens, irrespective of ethnicity and, secondly, all Malaysians who care about developing our “collective” national assets should defend it against any privatisation.
Shared Prosperity Vision: A rehash of the NEP
More recently in October 2019, the PH government launched the Shared Prosperity Vision (SPV) 2030, a document that outlines 10-year goals “to restructure Malaysia’s low-skill labour-intensive economy to a knowledge-based economy”. It has been pointed out by various academics that this SPV 2030 is but a rehash of the New Economic Policy (NEP) from the 1970s, with similar emphasis on race-based Bumiputera policies.
Furthermore, they have complained that the government is not being transparent with its data, denying free access to complete and updated data for researchers and failing to address fundamental questions related to the corporate sector and education, among others.
End race-based policies to become an inclusive high-income country
In Malaysia, given that it is now more than 30 years since the NEP deadline in 1990, it makes developmental sense to implement a new socially just affirmative action policy based on need or class or sector.
If we are to attain the high-income country status, experts have pointed out that Malaysia will have to engage in tough reforms, particularly in two areas, namely productivity growth and fostering inclusive development through improving education standards and better governance.
This means wealth redistribution to favour the less privileged through a social safety net and an employment insurance scheme regardless of race.
The cost and consequences of the racially discriminatory policy in Malaysia have been immense especially since the NEP in 1971. This policy has caused a crippling polarisation of Malaysian society and a costly brain drain.
Any policy based on “race” is seriously flawed since every ethnic community has its rich elite and its poorer majority. As a result, without effective checks and balances, Malaysia has been beset by massive scandals like Bank Rakyat, BMF, 1MDB and others since 1971 and no doubt, there will be others.
More potentially dangerous and insidious is the institutionalised effect this widespread racial discrimination has had on ethnic relations in this country. Fostering inclusive post-Covid-19 development can only be promoted, through an affirmative action policy based on need, sector, or class – never on race.
Will Malaysia ever celebrate this International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination? I hope so … when we do, that will be the day for the biggest celebration our country has ever witnessed since Merdeka in 1957!
Kua Kia Soong is the adviser to Suaram.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.