What’s graft got to do with race?

WHILE kids these days are racing around on motorcycles when they are as young as 12 and flouting the law, I was a slow starter. It was only in my early 20s when I started riding a bike.

But I ran afoul of the law quickly enough. After a Sunday morning game of football, a younger colleague and I decided to cool off at the pool near Youth Park in Penang.

The problem was, both of us had learner licences and only one bike – mine. With the recklessness of youth, we set off, with him riding pillion. We were promptly stopped by a policeman.

Neither of us had money in the pocket and the younger colleague offered his fake “Rayban” glasses to the policeman to “settle” the matter.

The cop would have none of it. Instead, he asked us where we worked and then ordered us to buy him tea and nasi lemak at a stall near The Star office in Penang that night – and sent us on our way.

That night, he got his tea and nasi lemak at Kassim’s stall in Market Lane. And we became friends, well... sort of.

My brother has a better tale. He too had a learner’s licence when he gave a friend a lift to the thosai shop. They got stopped, the friend passed his last RM10 to the cop, and they were let off.

When my brother learnt what his friend had done, they both got on their own bikes – complete with their respective “L” plates – and chased down the policeman. My brother demanded that the policeman return at least RM5 as the friend was flat broke.

The cop – flustered, I am sure – quickly coughed up the RM5.

The first cop was Malay, the second Indian. Corruption isn’t about race. Only racism is.

Both are major problems we face in this country. Racism divides us and, very often, makes us turn a blind eye to corruption when it involves “one of us”.

We can see it in PAS president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang’s statements. He obviously has a blind eye, or at least a short-sighted one.

He thinks corruption in the country is largely due to the non-Malays and non-bumiputras. That’s not just stupid, it’s also racist.

Coming from Hadi, it’s rich too. He is the one who once said bribery and corruption are not offences, not under Islamic penal law – or hudud – anyway.

The fact is, race has nothing to do with corruption. It’s about greed. And greed sees no creed. From Russia to Brazil and India to Africa, it can be found everywhere.

It can bring a nation to its knees – we are seeing it even now in Sri Lanka.

It has also been around for a long, long time. “Coffee money” is a term almost as old as coffee itself.

Yes, my brother and I would be guilty too. That nasi lemak and RM10 bribe now seem like silly misdemeanours to be laughed about, but they are also signs of a corruption culture that runs deep.

Malaysia is now ranked 62nd in the Transparency International corruption index among 180 countries, falling five rungs from 57th in 2020, and from 51st in 2019.

Singapore, meanwhile, is fourth in the rankings and Brunei 35th.

According to research, most Malaysians seem to think that corruption is the greatest in high places – in Parliament and among politicians, government officials and, invariably, policemen.

It’s quite true. Many companies complain that they need to pay millions in under-the-table money to government officials before they can actually do business in the country. And let’s not get started on the politicians.

But it happens elsewhere too.

We hear of driving schools offering “guaranteed passes” in their courses. That usually means an additional RM500 or so, apparently to grease the palms of testers.

A friend in freight forwarding tells of how he used to have a separate item in his books, called “additional handling charges”. That’s a euphemism for the packets of money that need to be passed to some Customs or port officials.

They too were from all religions, colours and races. And that’s the point. It’s not confined to any one community.

Even today, we have several top Umno leaders, including its president Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, facing corruption charges.

But then, so is the DAP’s Lim Guan Eng over the Penang tunnel issue. And two similar sounding Datuks – L. Ragu Raman and B. Reghu.

L. Ragu Raman is facing RM5.18mil CBT charges while B. Reghu is charged with making RM625,000 false claims, both involving Mitra (Malaysian Indian Community Transformation Unit) funds.

Race, as you can see, has nothing to do with corruption. In Malaysia, however, the “R” word has to be in almost every conversation.

A data portal has even ranked the country as second most racist in the world, although that’s probably an exaggeration. The 11th rank given by US-based survey organisation World Population Review might be a little more accurate.

Still, it’s not something to be proud of.

After 65 years of nation-building, we still see racism in all aspects of our lives – from matriculation places and scholarships in education to business licences and tenders for government projects.

We need to grow out of it.

With the 65th National Day around the corner, it is time to truly bury these two scourges – corruption and racism.

Somehow, the recent court decision against former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak seems fitting.

The RM42mil SRC International case was touted as one of the country’s biggest corruption cases. On the panel of Federal Court judges were three women – the Malay Chief Justice, a Chinese and an Indian – and two men, one from Borneo Island and the other a veteran from the peninsula.

It was a truly Malaysian bench deciding on one of the country’s most shameful events. No racism there, only the raising of hopes for a cleaner, more united country.

Selamat Hari Kebangsaan.