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“National unity in Malaysia remains elusive despite 62 years (now 63 years) of liberty… Slogans and rhetorics in the name of race and religion with extreme pitches and increasingly echoing need to be stopped quickly, because they are akin to embers, which will inflame the configuration of hostility and subsequently bring destruction to the nation. ” 

– Sultan Nazrin Shah, The Sultan of Perak. 

Preface 

The wisdom of Sultan Nazrin’s should not be overlooked. Malaysia has seen many successes over its years; be it economic successes, increasing degrees of social cohesion, establishing ourselves in the global stage, and at times even in our political roadmap. But perhaps a great challenge of our storied history still is, and remains to be, a successful implementation of the spirit of national unity among all Malaysians. 

Scholars defined national unity as a process that unites people of all different ethnic, culture, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds for reciprocally beneficial goals. A process that encourages citizens to be empathetic and willing to sacrifice their individual interest for the nation. Such was the very basis, although not explicitly defined, of the New Economic Policy, established in 1971.

Guided by the principles of the Rukunegara (proclaimed on the 31st of August 1970, a year after the race riots of the 13th of May 1969) the NEP was implemented as a means to achieve national unity, which the Second Economic Plan of Malaysia declares as the “overriding objective of the country.” 49 years on, it still remains. And as Sultan Nazrin described it, “elusive” and as such, still our utmost priority in 2020 and for the new decade to follow.

Before Malaysia, there was Malaya. 

13th of May, 1969. The darkest day in Malaysia. Race riots were not uncommon before this date, with records indicating that escalations of racial tensions occurred in areas like Penang in 1957 &1967, and even in Singapore in 1964, which triggered the separation of Singapore from Malaysia in 1965. 

But Malaysia was not destined for this. In fact, racial tensions has always been a Westernised concept, where Manickam in her paper published in the 2009 Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, remarked that,

1. Race was an “unfortunate hand-me-down from Malaysia’s British Colonial past.
2. In general, in colonial situations, colonial powers engaged in the usage of race to show that the colonies were oppressed and they had come to ‘liberate’ them.

The concept of race and hence the tensions between the distinct groupings are not inherent among us as Malaysians – but inherited. 

British colonisers deploy the “divide and rule” strategy to maintain control over their colonies, with examples of this being evident in India – on the basis of religion, and in Malaysia (then Malaya) – on the basis of race. The distinct division of economic activities within the three races led to occupations being closely associated with race, where the Chinese “dominated most of commerce, construction and industrial employment”, the Malays “largely confined to farming, and after independence, to the civil service, security and uninformed services (e.g. police and the military)”, and the Indians as “labour for the plantations.” 

This was coupled with the shortage of labour in tin and rubber industries, where the academic Teh Yik Koon remarks in her book entitled “From BMF to 1MDB” that the majority of the “Malay peasants owning land, making it difficult to induce them to work for any employer.” This shortage was filled by the introduction of Southern-Chinese and Southern-Indian immigrants, resulting in the ‘dominance’ in agriculture and mining of the years. As Malaysia’s economic growth at that time was (and to some extent still is today) dependent on the growth of her primary industry, the association of the Chinese within the industry extrapolated to the association of the Chinese with economic activity. 

The economic divide continued post-independence, where such divide was cited to be one of the many influencing factors of the Race Riots of 1969, which resulted in the official reporting of 196 deaths and the resignation of then Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman.

To fight fire with fire 

In 1970, the Bumiputeras (Malays, Orang Asli, and/or indigeneous peoples) controlled only 1.9% of the Malaysian economy, the non-Malays 37.4% and the rest by foreign entities. This resulted in the vast income and wealth inequalities within the races, as evident in the analysis into the ownership of share capital of limited companies in West Malaysia at that time. One research estimates that Malays – and Malay interest – based residents only controlled around 1.5% of incorporated companies across all industries, where the Chinese controlled 22.8% and the Indians 0.9%. At this point of time, ethnic prejudices and discontentment were worsened by such economic inequalities. 

Such was the basis of the “New Economic Policy (NEP)”, where the Second Malaysia Plan states in it’s opening that “greater emphasis must be placed on social integration and more equitable distribution of income and opportunities for national unity and progress.” The plan continues to state that “National Unity is unattainable without greater equity and balance among Malaysia’s social and ethnic groups in their participation in the development of the country… National unity cannot be fostered if vast sections of the population remain poor…” 

In 1970, per capita income of the Chinese and Indians were reported to be 129% and 76% more than those of the Malays. Conventional wisdom would lead one to conclude that from this information, if we are to reduce relative poverty and interracial inequalities, policies have to be developed that targeted the race who is most ‘disadvantaged’, which are in this case, the Malays. This also made a lot of political sense for the government at that time, where if you aim to capture the maximum amount of voters you can get during a period of time, you target the largest demographic within the most disadvantaged within your community. 

The plan looked to strengthen the economic position of the Malays by taking a two-pronged approach, with the first being the focus on “reducing and eventually eradicating poverty for all Malaysians” whilst “accelerating the process of restructuring Malaysian society, to reduce and eventually eliminate the identification of race with economic function.” The latter sought to be achieved by the “creation of a Malay and commercial and industrial community”, with the success of the policy measured by the ratio of economic ownership in Malaysia from, at that time, a 2.4:33:63 ratio of Bumiputera:Other Malaysian:Foreign Ownership to a 30:40:30 ratio. It is worth noting that the 30% equity was a proposed target by then Deputy Prime Minister, Ismail Abdul Rahman as a suggestion to break the deadlock within the government, who allegedly “could not decide on an agreed target”.

In summary, the government looked to implement an affirmative-action policy that was rooted in the acceleration of the development of a single race, to solve a racially-rooted problem. They looked to fight fire with fire.