Elementary, my dear Watson

Why can’t we build more universities? We spent RM100 million to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Merdeka last August. That is one university complete with equipment, fittings, libraries, and whatnot. We spend RM300 million a year on the Terengganu Monsoon Cup. That would be another three universities a year.


Raja Petra Kamarudin

More than 50 years or so ago, when I was still a baby, my mother weaned me off my bottle in quite a shattering manner, literally-speaking of course. After I finished drinking my milk, I would hurl the bottle over the cot and it would go crashing to the floor and shatter into a million pieces. In those days, milk bottles were made of glass, not of plastic like nowadays. Plastic technology, then, was not as advanced as today so bottles were made of glass -- and tins from tin, tyres from rubber, car dashboards from wood, and so on. Today, of course, nothing is original any longer and most products are manufactured from synthetic materials. Even ‘wooden’ car dashboards and faces of certain Menteri Besar are made from plastic.

The cost to replace my bottles was certainly pretty exorbitant and eventually it became cheaper to carpet the entire room to cushion the bottles when they came crashing to the floor. One day, however, my mother removed the carpet and when I threw my bottle out of my cot it hit the floor and smashed into smithereens. My mother stormed into the room and raised quite a ruckus. “That’s it,” she said, “now you have no more bottle. You will have to drink from a cup from now on.”

When it came time for my next milk routine, my mother brought my drink in a cup and I of course refused to drink it out of a cup. I wanted my bottle. My mother then reminded me that I had just smashed my bottle that very morning so I would now have to drink out of a cup or else no milk for me. It was either a cup or no milk so I reluctantly agreed to the cup. It was I, after all, who had smashed my bottle so I really had no one else to blame except myself. Eventually the cup became second nature until I discovered that there are certain drinks that are best drunk straight from a bottle. But that would be another story for another time though.

When my wife and I got our first baby, the deal was: she had carried our daughter for nine long months so it was now my turn to suffer -- I had to wake up at 3.00am to feed the baby. The first week was very tiring and I went to office the following day feeling very groggy. The second week, however, I filled the bottle with plain water and after three days or so my daughter no longer woke up in the middle of the night. She probably did not find it remunerating enough to wake up just for a drink of plain water.

There is currently quite a bit of brouhaha about the continuation of the New Economic Policy or NEP. Even ‘progressive’ Malays like Shahrir Samad, surprisingly, are of the opinion that the NEP must be retained because the Malays are not yet ready for the removal of their ‘security blanket’. I suppose, as long as you still bottle-feed the Malays, they would continue to demand it. But once the bottle is smashed or you feed them plain water, they may decide to move on and not keep clinging to their baby ways.

There are two things about the NEP. One concerns education and the other business opportunities. The education part is actually not as complex as what some make it out to be. Sure, there are certain quotas allocated to Malays while non-Malays are given a token quota. And because of the limited places in local universities, the non-Malays have to pay for their own education, in particular at overseas universities.

But does this need to be so? China has more than 1,000 universities with more than 100 in Beijing alone. Malaysia, which has only twice the population of Beijing, does not even come close to the number of Beijing universities. Based on the Beijing population to number of universities ratio, Malaysia should have at least 250 universities as opposed to less than 10% that at the present moment.

Why can’t we build more universities? We spent RM100 million to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Merdeka last August. That is one university complete with equipment, fittings, libraries, and whatnot. We spend RM300 million a year on the Terengganu Monsoon Cup. That would be another three universities a year. We are spending more than RM3 billion on the second Penang bridge. That would be about 35 universities. With savings from this, that and the other, we could have 100 new universities built over 10 years.

Yes, we do have money. It is only that the money is spent on the wrong things. According to Umno circles, Daim Zainuddin has transferred RM42 billion of our taxpayers’ money out of the country and has sunk this colossal amount into about ten banks that he owns in Africa and Eastern Europe. That RM42 billion plus all the other money that has disappeared into the pockets of Umno cronies could have built 1,000 universities, as many as they have in China though our population is just twice that of Beijing.

If our money had been well-managed and better-spent, today we would have more universities than students. We would be begging Malaysians to go to university because most of the lecture halls would be empty. Who would need the NEP? There would be no need for racial quotas. Our problem would not be about limiting places in universities so that these places could be reserved for Malays. Our problem would be about how to convince non-Malays to stop going overseas and instead go to local universities because there are just not enough students for the too many universities.

But the reality of the situation is, our money has been wasted. Billions have disappeared into the pockets of Umno warlords and their cronies. Billions have been spent on the wrong things. I have estimated that, over 30 years, Petronas has earned about RM1 trillion. One Petronas consultant tells me that I am wrong. The figure should be RM2 trillion, he says. RM1 trillion or RM2 trillion what’s the difference? Both figures are equally exorbitant.

If just part of that money had gone into building one new university a year, today Malaysia would have no less than 50 universities. They could have even built 100 universities over 30 years with RM2 trillion. And we would then no longer need to reserve places in these universities. We would no longer require racial quotas. And this means we would no longer need the NEP.

The NEP started in 1970 and has gone on for 38 years now. We started earning petroleum revenue in 1974 and have continued earning for 34 years now. But the petroleum money did not go into addressing what ails this country. And soon this petroleum money will dry up but what ails us will remain. We missed a golden opportunity to resolve our race problems with the income from the black gold. But we did not. And because of that we still need the NEP because, without the NEP, Malays would not have places in local universities.

The NEP is not just about education or places in universities, some would say. It is also about business opportunities. Sure, but is that an excuse not to solve at least half the problem; racial quotas in universities. If we solve one problem then we will have only one problem left to solve. Now, after 38 years, we still have two unresolved problems, and both involve race and racial quotas.

Okay, say that the government had solved the problem of racial quotas in local universities by building so many universities that there are no longer enough students, Malays or otherwise, to fill them up. This would still not solve the second problem of creating more business opportunities for Malays, many would argue. Actually this is not quite true. Malays have been in business since before 1969 and these Malays were actually very successful in their time.

Take Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s ex-father-in-law as one example. Mahmud Ambak was a very successful businessman, as were his peers such as Safuan, Mat Jan, HM Shah, and so on. No doubt there was only a handful of such people and you could count them on your fingers of one hand. But the numbers were beginning to grow and, in the East Coast, the Malays were involved in all types of businesses and were even beating the non-Malays on top of that.

Then came the NEP and with it came the quotas and Umnoputeras. Eventually the rent-seekers and commission agents monopolised the scene. Furthermore, you had to be an Umno warlord to obtain businesses, contracts and quotas -- so eventually your Umno membership and not your business acumen decided whether you got ahead or not. The genuine businessmen soon folded up and the Ali Babas; Umno Malays backed by Chinese towkays; took over. And what we see today are products of the NEP rather than genuine businessmen who made it because they are good in business.

The NEP killed the ‘real’ Malays. In their place emerged the Umnoputeras. Without the NEP and with a level playing field, Malays would have made it -- but only the good Malays, not the commission agents. Granted, without the NEP, there would have been fewer Malays in business. But these few Malays would have been the quality Malays. Now we have the ‘low-class’ Malays who made it only because they are Umnoputeras and for no other reason. Why play the numbers game? Why go for quantity without quality? Would it not have been better to see the birth of the Robert Kuoks, Queks and Tan Chin Tuans of the Malay community, people we could be proud of?

To say that the Malays would never reach the level of the Robert Kuoks, Queks and Tan Chin Tuans without the help of the NEP is an insult to the Malays. I, for one, believe I can make it with or without the NEP. To say I am who I am because of the NEP and that I would be nothing if not for the NEP is a great insult and I take it as an insult. I believe that without the NEP and without the unfair advantage given to the Umnoputeras there would be no ‘ceiling’ above my head and the sky would be my limit.

But alas, I need to be Umno to get ahead and I need to be an Umnoputera to get my hands on quotas, contracts and permits to make it in the business world. It is not a level playing field and unless I am prepared to play the game according to the rules of the game then I had better not bother to play at all.

The NEP is our milk bottle. But eventually we need to grow up and discard the bottle. We are now 38 years old so surely we should stop drinking from the bottle by now. But we are still being given the bottle. And the bottle is in the form of the NEP. And because of that we are still babies even at 38 years old. And our ‘mother’ tells us that we are still going to be given the bottle over the next 50 years. I will not live another 50 years. I may not even live another ten. But I shall still be offered the bottle till the day I go to my grave.

Yes, we Malays are going to die as babies. We shall never be allowed to grow up. We shall never see that bottle go crashing to the ground and getting smashed into a million pieces. And because we have never be weaned out of the bottle we shall know no other way in which to drink our milk. And we will never learn how to eat rice because we do not know how to grow and cook rice. But one day, when the ‘mother’ dies, we shall cry and cry, asking for our milk that will never come. And the baby will die when the mother dies because the baby knows no other way in which to feed itself other than waiting for the mother to bring the bottle.

That is the sad future for the Malays. Do you now know why the baby does not want the mother known as Umno to die? This is because the baby needs its daily dose of milk which only the mother can provide.