Reviving our winning ways

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Reflecting On The Law By Shad Saleem Faruqi

 As a nation, we will be celebrating our 54 years of independence. But, regrettably, the enslavement of our mind still continues despite the colonizer having long gone back home.

HARI Raya is approaching and so is National Day. It is time to seek solace in prayer and renew our resolve to overcome some persistent problems that are straining the social fabric.

Among these are the deterioration of inter-ethnic relations and the ascendancy of some shrill voices of discord that trumpet all that divides us as well as trivialise much that unites us.

However, on a positive note, this is the season to count our blessings, which indeed are many.

First, is the area of constitutionalism.

Though the cup is not full to the brim, it is not empty.There is enough in it to relish, cherish, protect and preserve.

The Constitution has survived the vicissitudes of race and religious politics. Despite many political and economic crises that could have torn other societies asunder, our Constitution has endured.

It has provided a firm foundation for political stability, social harmony and economic prosperity.

Second is the wondrous durabi-lity of political cooperation among the country’s racial and religious groups.

The coalition of 14 disparate political parties under a sometimes shaky, but nevertheless enduring, political alliance is perhaps the world’s longest surviving political arrangement.

In 1955, two years before Merdeka, it was built on a spirit of accommodation, a moderation of spirit, an absence of the kind of passions, zeal and ideological convictions that in other plural societies have left a heritage of bitterness and violence.

A similar rainbow coalition is emerging on the other side of the political fence and this raises hope for the eventual emergence of issue-based rather than race-based politics.

Third is the success of our economy and development plans.

These have positive implications for the realisation of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Consti­tution and for the success of socially ameliorative programmes.

Fourth, Malaysia has successfully used the economy to unite its disparate racial groups.

By encouraging entrepreneurship and tapping the genius of the minority communities to supply leadership on the economic front, the Government achieved twin objectives. It succeeded in developing the country and also gave every community a stake in the nation.

The fifth sterling achievement is that despite periodic tensions and racist and religious rhetoric, the country’s enduring and endearing inter-ethnic harmony has few parallels in the world.

Instead of creating a melting pot, Malaysia painstakingly weaved a rich cultural mosaic and an extraordinarily multi-faceted society.

The sixth outstanding feature of Malaysia is the peaceful and cooperative manner in which social engineering is being accomplished.

Unlike some other societies with a similar problem of identification of race with economic function and the concentration of wealth in the hands of powerful minorities, the Government did not expropriate the wealth of one community to bestow it on another.

It embarked on a pragmatic expansion of opportunities to give to every community its share of the economic pie.

Many aspects of this policy of social engineering have succeeded, though there is much scope for improvement.

A seventh remarkable feature of the country is the emancipation of women.

In the work place, in schools and in universities, women are easily outnumbering men.

In the professions, they are making their mark and increasingly moving into leadership positions.

Recently, the Constitution was amended to outlaw gender discrimination in the public sector.

Eighth, Malaysia is an exemplar of a moderate and progressive society that embraces modernity and democracy and yet accommodates the spiritual view of life.

The imperatives of modernity and the aspirations of religion mingle together.

This not to deny, however, that there are strong cross-currents of obscurantism in the last two decades that are posing a challenge to social harmony.

Ninth, Malaysia has successfully kept the armed forces under civilian control.

There has been no attempted coup d’etat and no “stern warnings” from military generals to the political executive.

Even in 1969, when law and order broke down in the Klang Valley, the National Operations Council was headed by Deputy Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak who called the shots with the army and police representatives in attendance.

Another remarkable phenomenon is that the extra-constitutional military-industrial complex, that behind the scenes dictates policy in many democratic countries like the US, has not been able to displace civilian control over military and industrial decisions in Malaysia.

Tenth, Malaysia has successfully used education as a tool of social engineering and upward social mobility.
Primary and secondary education is free and open to all irrespective of race or religion. Tertiary education is highly subsidised.

Though the Government is unable to meet the aspirations of all who seek higher education, the opportunities for upward mobility through higher education are exhilarating.



However, how far our tertiary educational system emancipates us from servile dependence on and mental slavery to Western education is another question.

As we celebrate National Day it must be remembered that the stains of cultural and intellectual imperialism do not end with the attainment of political freedom.

Freedom is a state of the mind and, regrettably, the enslavement of our mind still continues long after the coloniser had gone back home.

Most of our universities blindly ape European curricula and European paradigms.

We ignore the knowledge systems and traditions of the East.

Our books, syllabi and intellectual icons are mostly from the West. Our list of experts, external examiners and guest speakers are mostly European.

Towering personalities of our own region are shunned. Decades have passed, but our servile minds have not woken up to the damage done to our psyche.

While parochialism and narrow chauvinism are not called for, we have to take pride in our own heritage and draw sustenance from it before supplementing it with wisdom from elsewhere.

Nevertheless, as the commemoration day of our independence draws nigh, we must count our many blessings.

There is much in Malaysia’s struggles and successes that is worthy of emulation by friends and foes alike.

This is not to say that we should be complacent. As we celebrate 54 years of independence, our laws and institutions, our values and our views cannot remain impervious to the changes and challenges all around us.

In the realm of law and politics, there are always new challenges and opportunities that beckon the human spirit.

> Shad Saleem Faruqi is Emeritus Professor of Law at UiTM and Visiting Professor at USM. 

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Malaysia still in pursuit of full independence 

Malaysia still in pursuit of full independence

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Still in pursuit of full independence

Global Trends By MARTIN KHOR

Fifty-four years after Merdeka, Malaysia, like other developing countries, is still fighting for full independence in a globalised world which has grown more complex and crisis-laden.

THE Merdeka season is a good time to ponder over what independence means to Malaysia and the other developing countries that are still battling to overcome the disadvantages that the colonial era brought.
The problems of governance in a developing country, 54 years after independence, are still as complex or even more so when compared with the immediate post-colonial days.

In that first phase of independence, the developing countries were preoccupied with domestic battles – how to install domestic political processes and how to chart new economic strategies to get out of the shadow of colonial influence.

Most countries tried to shake loose from the control of foreign-owned mining and plantation companies, banks and retailers, by boosting their domestic public and private enterprises.

However, they were over-dependent on a few export commodities for a long time.

In the social sphere, there was the monumental battle to provide jobs, build up housing, schools and health systems, besides reducing poverty.

Today, many developing countries like Malaysia have succeeded, to a significant extent, to break the foreign-ownership grip on the economy and to diversify from commodities to resource-based processing, boosting manufacturing and property development.



While some countries remain poor and dependent on foreign aid, other middle-income countries have broken through into the development sphere.

Indeed, countries like Malaysia are now worried about being stuck in the “middle-income trap”.

They are no longer so competitive in the labour-intensive industries like textiles and electronics assembly because lower-wage countries have entered the scene, yet they find it difficult to break through into higher value-added sectors and activities, in order to upgrade their economic status.

While the colonial grip on their economies has loosened, the middle developing countries are now caught in the complex web of global inter-dependence, in which they have become significant players but are still not able to call the shots, nor equitably participate in decision-making.

The dependence of immediate post-colonialism is now replaced with the inter-dependence that comes with globalisation. In good times, the country soars with the world economy.

But in bad times, the domestic economy is at the mercy of rapidly falling exports and foreign-capital outflows, as the 1998-99 Asian crisis and the 2008-09 “global great recession” showed.

With the United States and Europe caught in a deflationary situation, the next few years will be another great challenge.

Will the middle developing countries sink with the major players, or break free to chart their own course?
The answer will probably be in between.

But “decoupling” from the crisis in the rich countries can properly be achieved only if there are vision and action plans, including national economic restructuring and greater regional collaboration.

Intense inter-dependence is also evident in the physical world, where the environment worldwide is collapsing because the pursuit for economic growth did not take into account resource depletion and pollution.

The science of climate change and the recent radiation from damaged nuclear plants both reveal that emissions in one part of the world affect health and life in other parts.

Global solutions are thus necessary, but negotiations to find them are bogged down by basic issues of North-South equity and the need for balance between the imperative for environmental protection and the immediate needs for development.

International negotiations are also stuck in the area of economics.

The World Trade Organisation’s Doha talks have stalled because of the unreasonable demands made by major developed countries on the big developing countries.

Despite the G20 Summits, the world is further away today from global solutions to the financial crisis than in 2008-09 when concerted actions were agreed upon to stimulate a recovery.

It appears that the US, Europe and Japan, all former colonial countries, are now afraid that their mastery over the global economy is being challenged by China, India and some other developing countries – Asean included.

The middle developing countries like Malaysia are no longer one-sidedly dependent on their former colonial masters.

But in the web of an inter-dependent and globalised world, they are still in the mode of responding to initiatives and policies of the major developed countries, or to the unfolding situation.

They do not yet have the power or confidence to initiate and coordinate their policies and take the initiative to put forward solutions to global problems.

But they now have the growing capacity to do

Fifty-four years after Merdeka, the world is still an imbalanced one, and our country is building more stepping stones towards full independence.

It must join other developing countries to get a full voice and a fair share in the benefits of the global economy.

In this complex globalised economy, the developing countries’ battle for independence continues.

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 The true meaning of independence
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