This
propaganda is thrown at the faces of non-Malays every time this issue
is brought up. It ignores the decades of politicisation and Islamisation
of the civil and armed services, not to mention the agendas of the
political apparatus to ensure a reliable vote bank for the Umno/BN
hegemon.
All of this is institutional. Government agencies paid by
our tax ringgit propagandise a narrative that these institutions are
the provinces of the Malays. Remember Biro Tata Negara (National Civics
Bureau)? The newly minted ambassador to the United States of America,
Nazri Abdul Aziz, took the old maverick Dr Mahathir Mohamad to task when
the former prime minister said that there was nothing to reform in this
agency. Well, Nazri called him a racist.
"If
they have a problem with that, I want to know what their problem is. Do
they want to say that Malaysia belongs only to the Malays and the
government is only a Malay government? Should only the Malays be given
the spirit of patriotism?
"Other races are not patriotic about their country? So I want them to
point out to me where is it that I have gone wrong if I disagree with
the past syllabus," Nazri said.
To understand the low enrolment of
non-Malays in the state security apparatus, for instance, people should
read Persatuan Patriot Kebangsaanās (to which I used to belong) letter.
One
paragraph from the letter: āThe governmentās affirmative policies of
the 1980s had seeped into the military administration. Strange sayings
like āorang kitaā (our people) have crept into the minds of
military commanders. Slowly and surely, the commanders saw some of those
under their command as half-brothers or stepsons, unlike the 'all are
equal' mindset of previous years.ā
The above quote from the letter
is just a primer on why non-Malays are reluctant ā unlike before ā to
join the state security apparatus. The reality is much worse.
By
corrupting the racial and religious make-up of these public
institutions, these institutions then became Malay institutions, beloved
by Malay political operatives who not only use them as a reliable vote
bank but also as a cudgel to bash non-Malay political operatives.
Systemic racial dysfunction
Ramasamy,
in confronting the big racial lie head-on via a Facebook posting urging
this reform government to confront the reality that the civil service
has become a racial bastion, is of course in the crosshairs of not only the ketuanan (supremacist) types but also the ādonāt spook the Malaysā crowd, which unfortunately make up this unity government.
As
always, non-Malay political operatives, activists and citizens who
point to the racial and religious dysfunction of this country are
labelled āracistsā or racial provocateurs, while those who support the
system are engaging in the social contract.
The civil service which Umno political operatives refer to as āMalay institutionsā is now a political battlefield for the ketuanan types, after Umno fell from its lofty height of power.
Religious
zealots and racial supremacists attempt to use the civil service not
only for their pecuniary corruption but also to spread propaganda and
sustain animus among people of different races.
In 2017, former Treasury secretary-general Mohd Sheriff Mohd Kassim opined that the government of the day should cut down on the oversized civil service.
As
reported in the press, he said the country's bloated civil service has
created inefficiencies in the economy and failures in the financial
disciplines of ministries and government departments.
Non-Malay
political operatives who head portfolios linked to the civil service
have to be mindful of āsabotagingā the agendas of their Malay comrades.
This is why this Amanah operative is in conniption because, ultimately
in the Malay game, non-Malays have to be āpak turutā (yes men).
The
systemic racial dysfunction of the civil service is of course not
something that is unheard of in the political and social discourse.
Just
last year, the always provocative professor, Mohd Tajuddin Rasdi, wrote
an extremely interesting piece titled āFrom a Melayu Civil Service to a
Malaysian Perkhidmatan Rakyatā which included a quota system but also a
draft to fulfil said quota system. Like I said, provocative.
Personal
anecdote time. Back in the day when I was part of the state security
apparatus, I was involved in a flood relief operation which was a joint
effort between the civilian and military branches of government. The
divisional head of the emergency department was a Chinese man who later
became a close friend.
Those days flood relief was hampered by the
fact that communications and logistic aspects of operations were
technologically rudimentary.
But there he was, waist deep in it,
rescuing and providing support ā which was his job ā to rural Malay
villagers and something a head of division would not even attempt to do
now. He was there with his āmenā because, as he said, he needed to be
there. I understood him. Those days, there were no āorang kitaā.
If
you think that the good professor is wrong to bring this up now, then
this country is really lost. There will never be a good time to confront
this because there will never be a time when political operatives will
say the Malays are no longer spooked. The flawed electoral system is
predicated on the don't spook the Malays narrative.
Eventually, if
no reforms are carried out, the non-Malays will become an insignificant
polity as they will continue to seek their fortunes elsewhere. The
country will go through a period of balkanisation before the dominant
polity will be warring with themselves, proxies to regional powers.
Now for the big racial truth. The fact is that non-Malays have never stopped loving this country. The country stopped loving us.
