The following is my
answer to a Quora question: “Why is Malaysia lacking compare to
Singapore? Can Malaysia be a developed
country like Singapore if we have a Chinese prime minister?”
The ethnicity of the head of government is not a
factor. One person cannot change a
people. Singapore had Lee Kuan Yew, but
it was not Lee Kuan Yew alone who built Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew’s real skill was finding the best
people to do specific things and get them to do it. He had people like Goh Keng Swee, who was
incidentally born in Malaysia. He
brought in people like Joseph Yuvaraj Pillay, who was also Malaysian. He brought in Chengara Veetil Devan Nair, who
was once the first secretary-general of the DAP, and MP for Bangsar. He recruited Dr. Albert Winsemius, from
Holland, to be our economic advisor.
Singapore was built on the values of meritocracy, and
despite the scepticism now, it lived up to that. It did not matter who you were, or where you
were born. If you had the skills needed,
we took you in and gave you the job. In
a time when the nation had nothing, Lee Kuan Yew and that team gave the people
a vision that they were part of something greater. Enough people believed in that to make the
sacrifices that built this country.
What Malaysia needs is a man who has that vision to
share, that ability to get disparate stakeholders to believe in that vision,
and a generation willing to make the difficult choices needed to succeed. What Malaysia needs is a group of leaders who
see the intrinsic value in each and every Malaysian, regardless of race, of
religion, of country of origin. This
means doing away with the bumiputera policy. The only country that gained from it is
Singapore. The best and brightest
non-Malays that Malaysia discarded, we took in, and we have been better for it.
Then, and only then, will Malaysia start
that climb to developed status. A nation
is not built on the tallest skyscrapers or the longest bridges, but in the
values of the people.
Very well said.
ReplyDeleteMeritocracy alone will not work in Malaysia.
ReplyDeleteI give you an example, a class of 30 students. 25 are lazy Malays (just example) & 5 are hardworking Chinese. Supposed we choose leaders for the class. In the name of meritocracy, we choose all the 5 hardworking Chinese students as the leaders of the class. What will happen is, the class will not work because the remaining 25 Malay students will not give cooperation to their Chinese leaders.
Malaysia is a Malay majority country. On top of that, not like Chinese majority in Singapore, they are more nostalgic to the history, to the country & to the land (you know what i mean right?). No majority want the minority to run the country. Look what happened when the majority afraid of the minority. Look what happened to Rohingya minority in Myanmar, Muslim minority in India & Chinese minority in Indonesia.
Quota system maybe did not bring a great & fast development to Malaysia. You may call it a racist or a backward system. But it did bring stability to Malaysia. That is what LKY failed to understand.
Meritocracy will not work in Malaysia because the system lacks the proper values. Take those students, and put them in the right environment, and this will change. This notion of race is antiquated, and the reason why countries like Malaysia are being left behind.
DeleteI think Lee Kuan Yew understood it quite well, which is why he likely engineered the exit of Singapore, and shed crocodile tears in the Merdeka address. That is why Singapore is wealthy, and Malaysia is struggling. That situation is untenable now. What Malaysia is experiencing is not actually a race struggle, but a class struggle, in which race is used to unite the poor masses against a fabricated bogeyman.