Time to end the bumi/non-bumi divide
This is an unfortunate link to establish given that millions of so-called "first-class citizens", i.e. the bumiputera Malaysians have nothing more than the proverbial shirt on their backs while thousands of "second-class" citizens have accumulated wealth, enough to last them several generations to come, and continue to practise a perverse even incestuous form of meritocracy while they accuse the federal government of pledging by mediocrity and nepotism, cronyism, corruption, collusion and Ali Baba-ism.
How does a soldier, even of "first class citizenship", coming from a family hovering below the poverty line and treated like dirt all his life, really feel about defending the land and the properties, factories, businesses, investments and lives of multi-millionaires who constantly whine, moan and groan they are "second class" citizens?
Is it any wonder therefore that the late Prime Minister Tun Hussein Onn once said that he was willing to exchange his "first class" citizenship status any time with those who have millions, but claim they are being treated like "second class" citizens.
Indeed, the moneyed classes who swear by an unofficial caste system are not any more prone to pledge by meritocracy than the ruling elite and the inner circle of fat cats.
Instead of turning every issue in this country, from the status of the English language to national service and the saga of two MCA members abstaining in the Penang assembly, into a racial issue, Malaysians should focus on the core political problem of a tiny elite translating the status and numbers of the bumiputera through the politics of jealousy into the kind of power which can be used to place in perpetuity the yoke of a rigid official caste system on all Malaysians.
Therein lies the real danger that faces us all in Malaysia internally and, externally, vis--visthe Wasp/Anglo-Americans who are doggedly determined to use the war against terrorism as a convenient excuse to seek global hegemony with renewed vigour and have identified the Muslim world, for starters, as ripe for a new round of exploitation.
Back home, as in the United States and abroad, the war on terror undermines and negates hard-won civil liberties, democracy, human rights and the free society, as it continues to be used to clamp down on legitimate dissent and perpetuate existing inequities.
The only "respite" that Malaysians get from the official caste system is during the periodic economic downturns when the powers-that-be go at each other hammer-and-tongs, washing dirty linen in public, and fighting over the shrinking spoils of office.
This in itself translates eventually into misery for the man in the street but not so widespread as when there's a drift, and heaven forbid rift, between the ruling elite and the moneyed class (read wealthy Malaysians of Chinese origin) as during the days preceding the infamous riots of May 13, 1969.
Citizenship, under the Federal Constitution, is classified as either by operation of law, registration or naturalisation. Where citizenship is not an automatic birthright, whether born in Malaysia or overseas, it can only be extended via naturalisation as a privilege.
That said, we have an intractable legal situation where many thousand natives in the country, both in Borneo and the Peninsula, have the dubious privilege of being stateless people in the very land where their forefathers have lived since time immemorial.
Beyond the debate on citizenship we must accept the universal reality that the bumiputera and non-bumiputera distinctions basically stem from the land laws. These laws recognise certain lands in the country as native/Malay reserve. They exist by virtue of their inherent "right of settlement" i.e. pre-dating the establishment of lawful government.
The Orang Asli, being nomadic people, do not enjoy the privilege of owning native land but only access to communal forests for collecting produce and hunting.
Governments all over the world — from 8,000-year-old India to the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Malaysia and many others — have to live with native land laws, failing which, they forfeit the right to be counted among the community of civilised nations. Courts in India, Australia and the United States have in recent years even returned land previously taken from the natives by either the government or non-natives/tribals.
The so-called Hindu-Christian clashes in India, for example, are nothing more than landlords of the Brahminical caste of the Hindu faith violently reacting against court decisions to confiscate from them and re-award land previously taken from tribals. Over the years, these tribals have been getting an education at mission schools, learning their legal rights and getting away from a faith which places them among the lowest of the low under the caste system.
Ownership of native land, under the law, automatically necessitates the definition of "Who is a native?"
The most non-restrictive definition of a native is "an issue of either parent who is a native" and defining the language groups which are considered indigenous. The more restrictive definitions either accord native rights only through the father, irrespective of who the mother is, or through both parents who are either native or a mixture derived exclusively from native groups.
Hence, non-bumiputera who frequently clamour for recognition as bumiputera are asking for the politically and legally impossible. Also, Muslims and Christians of non-bumiputera origin who claim to be Malays and natives, and enjoy any privileges reserved for indigenous groups, are in fact fraudulently enjoying something they are not entitled to under the law.
The law is clear in the sense that if you are inadvertently given or take something that you are not in fact entitled to under the law, then the onus is on you to admit the error, pledge not to resort to the courts for a long drawn-out battle, make due amends, promise never to repeat the same error again and thereby rectify the situation.
This applies as well to illegals and others who fraudulently obtain Malaysian identity cards and permanent resident status and apparently have their newly-obtained status even recorded in the national database before losing themselves in the bumiputera pool.
The definition of who is a native in Malaysia is legally complicated by the fact that as recently as 100 years ago, according to Prof William Roff's Origins of Malay Nationalism, colonial British records held that three-quarters of the Malay population in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore were either immigrants or descendents of immigrants from the various islands in the Malay archipelago.
This is one reason why many Malays in Peninsular Malaysia neither own any Malay reserve land nor can prove any close blood ties with those who do. In Borneo, it is extremely difficult for one to claim native status if one does not own any native land or make a link by blood with others who own such land. Strictly speaking, in a legal sense, any "Malay" or "bumiputera" who does not own Malay reserve/native land, or cannot establish the right to own such land, is not a Malay, native, bumiputera, pribumi or indigenous.
Statistically, it is impossible for the number of bumiputera in Peninsular Malaysia, for example, to exceed 40 per cent of the current mainland population, and may even be as low as 15 per cent given Malay transmigrations to their lands in the Thai south.
Governments can and do by law acquire land, including native land which can even be re-classified/ declassified, but only for public purposes. At the same time, no government in the world can create newnative land because of the absence of legal justification.
Malaysians should put aside the non-bumi/bumi divide and learn to work, play and live together. That, in essence, is the hope expressed by national service. The apparent lack of goodwill among Malaysians today is the very pits. No people are going to go anywhere for long if they continue to fight among themselves and indeed they even risk all that has been gained so far if the explosive and worsening situation on racial polarisation doesn't begin to reverse itself and soon.
Already, the prospects of concepts like National Service being implemented, as one way of combating growing racial polarisation, are rather bleak given the stiff opposition from Malaysians in general and the non-bumiputera in particular. Every issue in Malaysia, as said before, turns into a racial issue.
Hence, many non-bumiputera prefer to be left alone and want to have nothing to with the government and, if possible, even the bumiputera for that matter even as PAS leaders warn Muslims to keep away from the kaffir (infidels).
Patriotism and nationalism are outmoded concepts for the non-bumiputera in this era of globalisation. World citizenry is their new mindset and having relatively fewer hang-ups, they are willing to make the immediate transition from even Kepong and Jinjang to New York, for example, without any hesitation whatsoever. Here today, gone tomorrow, forever.
National service, in the eyes of many non-bumiputera, is a government attempt to get them more committed to Malaysia, a commitment which will in the process help prolong the lifespan of the ruling elite.
Malaysians are coming across as an increasingly impossible people to govern as the country races from being the most advanced among the developing to developed nation status. Malaysia may have broken away from the British Empire and emerged as an independent nation but our past has caught up with us in the present to haunt the future and indeed in many ways wecontinue to remain a microcosm of that long-buried empire, still traumatised by that devil of a past, and now facing the deep blue sea of globalisation.
An inability to maintain a proper perspective on our sense of alienation, or feeling of being under perpetual siege and repression, can eventually generate a reservoir of latent hate and manifest through individuals and organisations in abominable acts.
