Malays’ Dilemmas - Malays’ Special Rights
admin June 13th, 2007
As I have promised before, I will write about Malays’ Dilemmas as we have discussed during “Projek Alif Ba Ta: Kebangkitan Generasi Pewaris Agama, Bangsa dan Tanah Air”.
As the country is stepping up to be more recognized throughout the world, there are many dilemmas the Malays are going through. Before I continue, you might be wondering what the meaning of dilemma is. The easiest definition of dilemma that I like is from the Malaysian Minister of Finance during the “Sambutan Keputeraan Agong” in New York. He defined ‘dilemma’ as making choices and decisions.
Levels & List of Dilemmas as classified by Dr. Azly Rahman in his talk:
- Politics
- Economics
- Social
- Education
- Religion
- Family
- Individual
There is an open discussion among the students in Stevens Institute of Technology and one of the dilemmas that came up during the discussion was about Malay Special Rights. Therefore, I would like to discuss with you about Malay Special Rights in this post. I will write about other dilemmas in future posts.
Hak Keistimewaan Melayu - Malay Special Rights
Historically, Malay special rights existed is to help the Malay to strive and be on par with other races especially Chinese and Indians. During the colonization, Chinese and Indians were brought into Malaya and have had their economic stands while Malays were the ones behind, working in farms producing food.
However, now that Malays have already improved a lot and could be seen as on the same level as other races, many had talked about how the government should take away these rights so that Malays could be more independent and Malaysia will be a 100% free country. Who works hard, will get it. This will also reduce the number of Malays who always depend on government.
On the other hand, there are also people who opposed this suggestion. From their point of view, IF Malaysia were to be in war, Chinese and Indians will fled back to their “homecountry” and left Malays and Bumiputeras to fend for themselves. These people think that Malays and Bumiputera deserves the special rights due to their higher responsibility for the country.
There are also those who believes that the Malays’ Special Rights were actually created to help the poor. Since Malays’ economic stands have become stronger nowadays, they suggested that the Special Rights to be given to Indians since Indians are relatively poor and undereducated when compared to Chinese and Malays.
Other dilemmas
There are also some interesting points some of the readers commented on my other posts which include the degradation of Malays morality by Dani while ZZ talked about Malay entrepreneur dilemma that is being lazy in doing marketing and from MrQ’s point of view, Malay’s lack of courage to talk in front of people. I will write more about these in my next posts.
So, what do you think of Malays’ Dilemmas especially about Malays’ Special Rights or just about anything you think are a part of Malays’ dilemmas? Talk about this topic on your blog if you have one and post the link on the comment field below. If you don’t, or just want to share a bit, just write your opinions in the comment field below. Even if you are non-Malays, you are welcome to write about your opinion on this matter. It would be a very good input to know everyone’s opinion.
- My College Life
- Comments(6)
malaysia boleh or melayu boleh. if u want the answers try seeing these issues
1- lina joys case or azlina-the race n religion prob.
2- the chinesee imigrant prob.bout the suggestion of bringing chinese people as maids in malaysia.if ur up to date to current issues ull know how many chinesse people or tourist dissappear in malaysia..aint it weird that if u go to some places in kl.i f u want to talk to some chinese.they even dont know how to speak in english or malay.thats weird.
3- issue on bahasa melayu or bahasa malaysia. if u read the star. ull know that the bumiputra’s are demanding rights as same as bumiputras.
bit conclusion.try to see whats happen in singapore and ull know what will happen to malaysia in 20 years more.if malays dont have special rights.day by day the privalege of malays are decreasing.
We have also discussed about lina joy’s case during the event and we found out that one of the main reason behind this is a contradiction between people’s understanding of what “malay” is how “malay” is defined in perlembagaan.
According to perlembagaan, Malay is defined as:
1) Beragama Islam
2) Fluent in Bahasa Melayu
3) Practice Malays culture
And the problem that we are facing now is that if these people are Malays, how can they change religion and still be considered as Malay? Isn’t this is a contradictory between law and perlembagaan? Since we are not allowed to change race, doesn’t it mean that we are not allowed to change religion too?
Besides, when a Chinese or Indians or just any other races becomes Muslims and practice all those 3 things that would define them as Malays, why aren’t they be considered as Malays and be given the special rights?
I just found that these things contradict each other. Hopefully someone with better knowledge could shed some light on this.
if ur up to date.KIMMA or persatuan india muslim are asking rights or demanding rights from the government to be classifies as bumiputera.,more over nowadays if u see there are many mamak’s. k for example. if a mamak marries a malay girl.what race do u call their child.indian or malay??in addition what is ur stand actually kak long? are u demanding that chinsse and indian should be given the same rights as malays?if u know or have a chinesse friend thats father is involve in politics. ull know that DAP and MCA actually have their own agenda.eventhough they seem like their like enemies.actually the chinesse socieyies have one big society that does not count on what political party u are. compared to malays. ucan see that UMNO are willing to argue with PAS and put prirority to other races.
ok, i agree that i’m not that up-to-date with this stuff. thank you for pointing about the KIMMA. I haven’t heard about that yet.
about inter-race marriage, i guess, that happens all the time. I don’t think there exists pure Malay anyway. Somehow or another, there must be some foreign blood in any Malay’s vein. I am one of those mixed blood too.
I wasn’t really interested in this topic before the Projek Alif Ba Ta which shed a light on this subject. So, you could call myself a newbie. Regarding whether or not I agree on giving the rights to the other races - that is one of the things I am still thinking about. That’s why I write this blog in a neutral tone. I want to know other people’s opinions besides me and my friends’.
For now, I agree that Malays should be given the rights but there is a number of Malays who misused this special rights - and ALWAYS depend on the government to give them everything. I found that this is why many Malays are still lazy.
I feel that way since I have met many Malays in the United States. Since US is a free country - you work, you get - I found that Malays who live here are totally different from those living in Malaysia. They work real hard instead of always waiting for “subsidi kerajaan”. Please don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t pointing to all the Malays in Malaysia. Just a percentage of them. Whether it’s large or small, you decide.
And yes, I agree one thing. Malays don’t like to see other Malays being the best. I wonder whether this is a culture or just plain stupidity.
easy thing- kerana nila setitik susu rosak sebelanga. and one more thing.dunno if its genetically or what.but most malays have sifat busuk hati.or dengki.hoho.ull know if u live in malaysia..
i believe we should look at the malay rights in a positive way.it’s a deal done long way before which implies that it’s an AGREEMENT between all malaysians.so personally i dun think there shud be any effort to dissolve the malay rights.
i cud conclude from ur post that the main prob with malays are their attitude.so why shud we risk abandoning the malay special rights,when attitude could be improved by other ways.why shud malays move forward without the special rights when they can move forward with it.
it cud be too much a risk to take away these rights.it isn’t an issue of inconfidence, but more of an issue of obtaining a wiser solution, especially in our country’s phase of today.
and regarding a number of malaysians to misuse these rights,personally, i cud not disaggree.but still, we can’t build a decision based on SOME malays.