Re-looking an old policy

FINALLY, it seems like we are talking openly about that elephant in the room.

Is the New Economic Policy outdated? Does it need to be phased out or at least reviewed?

For long, many have discussed this in coffee shops, get-togethers and private meetings, but former Umno information chief Shahril Hamdan, now estranged from the party, has got the conversation going in public.

While talking to student leaders a few days ago, he said an honest national dialogue is needed on bumiputra policies as current approaches have bred resentment among both non-bumiputras and, strangely enough, the bumiputras themselves.

He seems to have support from across the spectrum.

Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, now a former PKR minister, agrees with him. And so does Wan Ahmad Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal of Bersatu.

Wan Ahmad Fayhsal has even called for renegotiation of the social contract through political discussion.

Let’s get one thing straight first. The New Economic Policy (NEP), when it was first mooted, was a sound idea. The problem is: how many people today actually know what it was all about?

The NEP, you see, had two major prongs. The first was the eradication of poverty regardless of race, the key word here being “regardless of race”.

The second prong was the restructuring of society to reduce the identification of race with economic function.

Have we really worked on eradicating poverty “regardless of race”? Or have we made race the key factor in all policies? It’s something the government has to wake up to.

The NEP, which first introduced the word bumiputra – the Constitution only mentioned Malays – was drawn up at a time when the Chinese were in business, the Indians were either government servants or rubber tappers, while the Malays were farmers or fishermen in the rural areas.

The idea was to bring more Malays, who had been left out of economic activity by the British colonialists, back into the mainstream.

The question now is: how much has changed? Or have we just swapped places?

Let’s talk about identification of race with economic function. The government service is almost all Malay, as are many government-linked companies, most banks and utility companies.

Meanwhile, the private sector seems to offset that by hiring mostly non-Malays, especially the Chinese. And many Malays are left complaining that they cannot get jobs in the private sector.

Indians, meanwhile, are neither here nor there. And the Orang Asli and many from Sabah and Sarawak fare even worse.

The NEP has failed miserably in that prong. There has been progress in the other prong, though.

Malaysia has done a good job in eradicating poverty. But despite 55 years of work, the Malays – and other indigenous people – somehow still remain the most poverty-stricken community.

In 2019, the bumiputra poverty rate was 7.2%, compared to 4.8% for Indians and 1.4% for Chinese. It hasn’t changed much since.

The thing is, the poverty rate covers a community as a whole, and aid is provided to the community and not necessarily the needy.

And the gap between the rich and the poor in each community is getting wider with the rich getting richer – or staying there – while the poor continue to struggle.

The Malays are probably the worst off here with the inequality between the rich and poor bumiputra being very wide.

Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli, when he was Economy Minister, has admitted that progress on reducing inequality in Malaysia has stalled with wealth disparity now surpassing that of high-income nations.

So, it comes as good news that the 13th Malaysia Plan is about to change things. It will not be about race anymore.

Instead, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the government will shift to a needs-based approach to achieve social justice and equitable opportunities.

It’s heartening. For too long, we have continued a policy that does not seem to work.

Nik Nazmi agrees. He said affirmative action must also consider other factors beyond race.

“We need to look at gender, look at communities and race in terms of how you push people to participate in the country,” he reportedly said.

Current policies, he said, place excessive focus on race alone, which undermines the broader goals of equitable development.

But it is easier said than done. For more than half a century now, Malaysians have lived under a policy of preferential treatment. And more than 60% of Malaysians today were born after the NEP was formulated.

Change will be difficult. So, how do we tell the beneficiaries that the policy that favours them is being phased out? It will take some doing.

Wan Ahmad Fayhsal says it has to be through political discussion.

“There has to be a lot of engagements done by political parties and governments. It’s a national dialogue to begin with.”

He is right. I was a young boy back in 1969 when the NEP was first mooted.

I remember government officers visiting many areas, convincing the people, especially the non-Malays, that the policy was needed.

It would only be for 30 years, they said.

“And then, we will all be together as equals again,” I remember one officer saying at Penang’s Hindu Sabha. I had been there for additional classes – and the sweets from the old uncle who used to sit by the side of the building.

More officers will have to do it all over again if we are to see change.

It’s now been 55 years. Of course, we cannot expect an immediate change of policy. Even the two-thirds majority needed in the Dewan Rakyat may be impossible.

But at least we can start talking about it. And who knows, the lyrics of Datuk Siti Nurhaliza’s Malaysia Madani Rakyat Disantuni will someday ring true.

It goes: “Kita semua sama Malaysia.”