Quora Answer: Will Malays be Discriminated Against, Like in Singapore, if Lee Kuan Yew Ruled Malaysia?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Will the Malays be discriminated and sidelined like what happened in Singapore, if Lee Kuan Yew rules Malaysia?” 

We are assuming an alternate reality where Lee Kuan Yew, and the PAP’s coalition won the election in 1964, on the “Malaysian Malaysia” platform, as opposed to the Malay Malaysia, platform.  Firstly, Malays cannot be discriminated against because the Constitution guarantees their rights as the natives, and the position of Islam.  In fact, Malaysia would have likely carried on for the first few years just as it did in this reality.  What would never arise would be the underlying ground sentiment that lead to the prime ministership of Abdul Razak bin Hussein, the father of disgraced former Malaysian Prime Minister, Mohammad Najib bin Abdul Razak. 

Abdul Razak bin Hussein was a Malay supremacist, an extreme nationalist.  He was one of the architects of the New Economic Policy, and the one who implemented the Ketuanan Melayu doctrine.  He was the one who made it an accepted practice to brand Chinese and Indians as “pendatang”, “immigrants”.  This implies that these minorities are tolerated in Malaysia, not embraced as fellow citizens. 

We must not forget that it was the rhetoric of people such as Abdul Razak which lead to incidents such as the 13^th May 1969 racial riots.  These racial riots took the lives of mostly ethnic Chinese.  Many hundreds died according to external observers, although the official death toll is less than 200.  Abdul Razak’s faction used this as a pretext to overthrow Tunku Abdul Rahman bin Abdul Hamid Halim Shah, and declare a state of emergency, ruling by decree.  This meant reversing the gains of the non-Malay opposition parties, using the Internal Security Act to remove important leaders in these minorities, and reconstituting UMNO as an apartheid party of Malay patronage.  In 1970, he became Malaysia’s second Prime Minister since independence. 

If Lee Kuan Yew were the Prime Minister, he would be a savvier political operator than Tunku Abdul Rahman, and not have allowed this cancer to grow.  This is the point where the history of Malaysia and Singapore truly diverged.  Singapore chose to embrace secularism, multiculturalism and meritocracy.  Malaysia chose to be an apartheid state, and that has hamstrung its development ever since. 

Choosing a path where every citizen, regardless of race, language or religion is not discrimination against Malays.  I do not subscribe to this idea that simply having longer ancestry in a place makes one special.  Malaysian Malays cannot criticise Israel for their Jewish right of return, when they advocate what is essentially the same for the Malays.