Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
- Isn’t a one-race civil service a form of apartheid?
- What were you saying again, YB Datuk Zulkifli Noordin?
- FELDA Ada Potensi Besar Jatuh Bangkrap, Pinjam Wang KWSP RM6 Billion
| Isn’t a one-race civil service a form of apartheid? Posted: 17 Jun 2011 02:28 PM PDT I remember once as a young medical officer, I was boycotted by operating theatre staff when I wanted stern action taken against a staff nurse who went for a kenduri when she was supposed to scrub for a surgery. An assistant nurse had to cover up for her delinquent senior. Both the nurses – the one who had absented herself and the one suddenly forced to relieve her duty – were Malay. The young patient lying on my operating table waiting to deliver her baby was Malay too. And also Malay, the anaesthesist and other operating theatre staff who gave me the cold shoulder after I remonstrated with the matron. I had informed Matron right away after I found the young nurse shivering in fear because she was thrown into the deep end and unprepared to assist in a surgery. If I had expected disciplinary action to be taken, I was disappointed. My colleagues who rallied around the race banner sadly failed to see that the patient (someone belonging to their own ethnic community) about to give birth deserved the best medical care. What if it had been an emergency case where a life was at stake? Malays have to be made aware that an incompetent and one-race dominated civil service may not be beneficial to them and as the majority, they would be the ones ultimately most affected. With such experiences, you can understand why I resigned from the public health sector. One of my Malay superiors urged me to "think about the service" but then again, if only the Malays themselves could think about how racism among civil servants has hindered their own progress. 1Malay first and foremost Malaysia has a "huge and largely ethnic Malay civil service, completely loyal to Umno, but increasingly incompetent" that is the biggest obstacle to Prime Minister Najib Razak's 1Malaysia. This was the view of former Economic Planning Unit deputy director-general K. Govindan, according to a leaked United States diplomatic cable. The WikiLeaks that appeared in Malaysia Today on June 6 had the cable further quoting Govindan's opinion that our civil service adopts "a very narrow worldview and will oppose, even refuse to implement, reforms perceived as damaging ethnic Malay interests, even if convinced of the long-run gains for Malaysia". Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has referred to the service as a "Malay administration". He did not even bother to pass it off as a "bumiputera administration" in which case it can be claimed by the non-Muslim natives of East Malaysia. Alas, the Orang Asli indigenous to the peninsula do not even figure in the equation. Non Malays have been gradually cleansed from the public sector with only a few remaining now in crucial and inevitable sectors such as teaching in vernacular schools. The Orang Asli have been totally excluded. Umno ultra nationalists defend majority-race dominance as justifiable opposed to the minority-race dominance previously in South Africa under apartheid. They're pretending their systemic racism is not discernible to the rest of the world even if the minorities in Malaysia are resigned to this supremacist order of public affairs. The public sector should reflect the country's plural society or in other words, set the example and no longer display the same 'ethnic imbalances' blamed on the divide-and-rule policy under British colonial rule. Not a 'reasonable' apportioning Mahathir and his ultras claim their affirmative action differs from apartheid. Yet the end result of the affirmative or rather discriminative action is the monopoly of all aspects of socio-economic life by a single politically dominant ethnic majority. One example of the 1Malay administration at work is the annual Public Service Department (JPA) scholarship disbursement where top non-Malay students appear to have been systematically sidelined. Even though Article 8 (2) of the Federal Constitution states that all citizens are eligible if suitably qualified by educational standards to enter any branch of the public service, and there can be no discrimination on grounds of race, religion and the like, in reality, the Malay ultras have ignored this constitutional provision. The public sector can declare that it is devoid of racial discrimination only if its staff composition reasonably reflects the ethnic composition of the country and its intake based primarily on merit. The competence, integrity and efficiency of personnel must take precedence over one's skin colour and ancestral status. In 1967, the Malays accounted for 68 percent of all civil servants (Supian Ali and Mohd Zainuddin: p.162). Chinese accounted for 16 percent and Indians 15 percent. In 1968, Malays outnumbered non-Malays only in two (administrative services and legal services) out of nine public service areas, and accounted about half of the uniformed services manpower (Mohamed Suffian: p.297). Nonetheless, many top administrative jobs, legal officer and technical posts were held by the Chinese and Indians. Under clause (2) of article 153 in the constitution, it is the responsibility of the Yang Dipertuan Agong acting on Cabinet advice to ensure the reservation for Malays and natives of Borneo a "reasonable proportion" of positions in the federal public service. The constitution also prohibits any deprivation of a person of any public office held by him; and public servants all races of all levels must be treated impartially (Mohamed Suffian: p.294). The constitution compels that any preferential treatment must still be reasonable to all ethnic groups and merit take precedence. The implementation of preferential policies has to be transparent. In 1978, the American court ruled in Regents of University of California v. Bakke that merit must take precedence over ethnicity in the implementation of affirmative action, and reverse racism as well as racial quotas are strictly forbidden. Strictly speaking, racial quotas have been found by the courts to be unconstitutional and not regarded as affirmative action in the United States. Instead racial quotas were the main feature of apartheid in South Africa.
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| What were you saying again, YB Datuk Zulkifli Noordin? Posted: 16 Jun 2011 04:08 PM PDT By the way, I did not know that the YB had been bestowed a Datukship. I am sure he deserves it. Congratulations YB Datuk. YBDZN (short for Yang Berhormat Datuk Zulkifli Noordin – I learn to shorten things from PEMANDU), for the uninitiated, stood in the 2008 GE in Kulim under the PKR banner. His political tagline was, "it is time to change, new hope."
During the campaign, he repeatedly reminded the voters to use their vote wisely. He implored them to use their "sacred hands" to choose a candidate who was commanding and not to chose a devil masked as an angel. This was what he wrote on his blog on 27th Februuary 2008: "Undilah calon yang berwibawa, bukan jerangkung bertopeng dewa." I admire his tenacity and conviction, I must say. He asked the people to vote someone who was clean, someone who was not corrupted or corruptible. He wanted a stronger opposition to fight abuse of power; to fight against corruption and to fight for a better Malaysia. He asked the people to vote for a responsible representative who would fight for the people's rights and whatever things which are closed to the people's heart. Love this!
However, unfortunately, perhaps while suffering a momentary lapse of refinement, he was also prone to a bit of theatrical indulgence such as displayed by this, which appeared on his blog on 5th March 2008 titled "Orang kata KJ macam beruk…":
That was most unfortunate. But hey, the man has his opinion. As he was feeling the heat of the election campaign – which was understandable, as he was a rookie of sorts – he developed a dislike against the then Suruhanjaya Pilihanraya (SPR). It looked like the "macam beruk" blog post was not the last showing of his penchant for name calling. This was evident in his post, titled, almost inevitably, "SPR Barua BN." Wow. For a person who describes himself as the "servant of Allah" and who always fight for Islam, he was very Islam in his language. But hey, the man has an opinion, right? In that post, YBDZN berated SPR for cancelling the usage of the indelible ink in the 2008 GE. He wrote: "Memang kita sedia maklum mengharapkan ketelusan daripada SPR samalah seperti mengharap gajah dapat melepasi mata jarum." Then in April 2008, he advocated freedom of expression by speaking, not once, but three times, about a planned gathering called "Black 14" as a show of support for Anwar Ibrahim. His three posts on that subject appeared here, here and here.
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| FELDA Ada Potensi Besar Jatuh Bangkrap, Pinjam Wang KWSP RM6 Billion Posted: 16 Jun 2011 01:41 AM PDT Timbalan Menteri Di Jabatan Perdana Menteri Ahmad Maslan memberitahu Parlimen, Felda mencatat keuntungan RM1.197 bilion tahun lalu dan dan nilai keseluruhan syarikat itu adalah RM19.18 bilion.
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