MGG Pillai Commentary View

<< Previous || Next >>

In Malaysia, a non-Malay Muslim is second to a Malay Muslim

THE FORMER SECRETARY GENERAL OF rural development, Dato' Abdul Aziz Mahmud, was found guilty for diverting funds meant for the hardcore poor. The Star reports that he is believed to be the first man of his rank to be found guilty. But civil servants who take orders from politicians face that possibility. The money was missing, but it was transferred to the minister at that time. To save the minister, the secretary general goes to jail. That is the crux of it. He is in charge of the funds, and he dispensed it illegally. So he is guilty. Technically, he committed the offense. The court found him guilty of criminal breach of trust. The judicial system does not allow extenuating circumstances to intrude, as in this case. Dato' Aziz cannot plead he did this at the minister's instructions. But that is what he did. Is he the only secretary-general to break the law at the minister's order? How many secretaries-general are 'protected' by the minister, so that they retire with the highest honours. Dato' Aziz is at fault for believing the minister would protect him, as he would have been told often enough. A civil servant must do what he has to, and that overrides ministerial instructions. in Malaysia, it has reached the stage where it does not. We have a politicised civil service. The civil servant is subordinate to the politician. But that alone is not enough. He must fight off his colleagues, who curry favour from the politician so that he would get the job. The civil servant must be in politics to be in politics. Dato' Aziz would not be convicted if he remembered that when he pandered to politicians.

He is, I am told by Malayalee Muslims, not a likeable figure. I dismissed it as the normal rankling of those who felt they were better than him. You find similar attitudes by Tamil Muslims of a Tamil Muslim who had gone far by being a Malay. But some of his actions after his father visited him a few years ago made me realise that he regarded himself as a Malay and not the Malayalee Muslim that he is. The Malay community will absorb him if he is smart, as he is, but will get jealous of him as he moves up the civil service ladder. He is wrong in assuming that all is well after he changes his race. In Malaysia, the Malay is a constitutional definition. If one follows that he is a Malay. It is not race that determines it. As many non- Malays have found out. Too many non-Malays were becoming Muslim that it was decided that the convert has to be integrate his name, or better still retain, his given name. This is help the civil servant weed out the non-Malay in his calculations. The convert will have to wait for his grandchildren to get the benefits of his conversion. But this is natural when there is a divide between the Malays in power and not. The Malays in power can ignore the constitional definite as they fancy, but the must also ensure they get along with their colleagues as well. A Malay I know retired from government service because he could not stand the politics inherent in his job.

So the tragedy that has struck Dato' Aziz is normal if you are on the outside. In the course of finding out what happened, I was told he was a 'mamak', which is not what he would have described him. In Malaysia, Malay means a Muslim as well. Dato' Aziz's ancestors became a Muslim perhaps a century ago. In Singapore he would be known as an Indian Muslim. By identifying himself as a Malay, he thought he rise up the civil service ladder. He did. But because he was an Indian Muslim, he was identified and regarded as an outsider by the Malays in the civil service. The ancestors of some Chinese became Muslims long before Islam came to the Malaysia. But they are kept aside because they are Chinese. That is why PAS has decided to field Chinese and Indian candidates for elections in their control. PAS realises that they cannot isolate Muslims other than Malay. The spin we hear is that PAS is doing that for political reasons. What does the National Front say about the Malays treating the Muslims as "mamak" and worse? In this rush for racial purity, the Malays are making nonsense of race. The Filipino Malay can be a Christian, a Muslim or any religion. It is so for an Indonesian. Lieut.-Gen. Benedict Loudevik Murdani is surely of the Malay race. But a Malay Christian in Malaysia cannot be. The brother of the former rector of the Inslamic University was an Anglican priest. He was driven out of his residence in Petaling Jaya. Another served time in jail under the Internal Security Act. An English Catholic became a Muslim before he married his wife but retained his name. He spent time under the ISA.

Dato' Aziz's conviction represents what is wrong with people of other races becoming Malay and what their place is in the scheme of things in Malaysia. He is neither fish nor fowl, when pushed to a corner. He thought he was buying protection by doing wrong at the politician's bidding but found out too late that his minister was more important to be in jail than he. In Malaysia, the Muslim takes preference. In the past, it would be the Malay, Chinese and then Indian. Now it lis the Malay Muslim, other Muslims, Chinese and Indian. The recent decision of the authorities to seek an English or Australian to hed MAS was taken to prevent a Chinese or Indian Malaysian to take up the job. It was no so in the past. The change came after the racial riots in 1969. From that time, as part of Malayisation, the Chinese and Indian were weeded out of top posts in civil, government service, or government-linked companies. In the New Straits Times, the editor-in- chief is criticised for bringing in Indians into top positions. The Malays have proved they can't handle the job, and the new man, politically and racially acceptable but an Indian all the same, is blamed for not giving Malays jobs. His family was probably a Muslim years before his attackers among the Malays became Muslims. But that does not matter. It is important Malays must hold all senior positions, it does not matter if they are inefficient. If a non-Malay became a Muslim to rise in his job, he will fall by the wayside as Dato' Aziz has done. The Islamic faith will not protect as it has not Dato' Aziz although he was already a Muslim.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com