Malaysia is a multi-ethnic country, with a predominantly Muslim population. Racial discrimination is embodied within the social and economic policies of the Malaysian government, favouring the Malays and in principle, the natives of Sabah and Sarawak. However, in practice, the natives of Sabah and Sarawak do not benefit much from these policies, with natives of Sabah and Sarawak composing the bulk of bottom 40% income cohort of Malaysia. Rather, it is the Malays that obtain heavily subsidised education in local universities and make up the bulk of these universities, including in terms of employment. In fact, the resources of Sarawak have been exploited for decades, with the Malaysian government enriching governmental officials and their associates.[1] The concept of Ketuanan Melayu or Malay supremacy is accepted by the Malay-majority political sphere.

While 179 countries have ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), Malaysia is not one of them. The Pakatan Harapan government that replaced Barisan Nasional in 2018 had indicated a readiness to ratify ICERD, but has yet to do so due to the convention's conflict with the Malaysian constitution and the race and religious norms in Malaysia established since its independence.[2][3]

Demographics

Malays make up the majority — according to the 2010 census figures, over 50% of the 28.3 million population (including non-citizens) are Malays. About 22.6% of the population is Chinese Malaysians (Malaysians of Chinese descent) and Indian Malaysians (Malaysians of Indian descent) comprise about 6.6% of the population.[4][5] People of Indians descent are derogatorily called Keling in Malaysia.[6] There are also a very small minority of aborigines whose ancestors or Orang Asli arrived in what is today Malaysia well over 7,000 years before the Malays arrived from what is today Taiwan roughly 3,000 years ago. These ancient people also split with some heading to Sulawesi and others progressing into Java, and Sumatra. The final migration was to the Malay Peninsula roughly 3,000 years ago. A sub-group from Borneo moved to Champa in Vietnam roughly 4,500 years ago. The Champa group eventually moved to present day Kelantan in Malaysia. There are also traces of the Dong Song and HoaBinh migration from Vietnam and Cambodia. There was also the Southern Thai migration, from what we know as Patani (Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala, South Songkhla) today. All these groups share DNA and linguistic origins traceable to Taiwan, if not to southern China. Yet the Malay and Chinese (and also Indian) communities in Malaysia today appear at times at odds with each other given the polarisation caused by various policies under the Bumiputera policy.

The British, who had colonised what is now the Malaysian Peninsula starting in 1876, had recognized the Malay states, as recorded by numerous literature by Frank Swettenham, Hugh Clifford and many more of their scholars. Historians have noted that Western imperialism in Asia, including Malaysia, led to the importation of racial theories from Europe, contributing to a fundamental shift in the perception of race among Asians.[7] During the colonial era, Chinese Malaysians remained mostly isolated in the mining regions where they worked. In addition, some Chinese Malaysians were settled around the major towns while the Malays, had established their own villages. In 2017, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad insinuated Prime Minister Najib Razak was a robber due to his Buginese racial background.[8] During the lead-up to the 2018 elections in Malaysia, an election Mahathir won, he fanned anti-Chinese sentiments in the country by warning of an influx of foreign Chinese property owners.[9] Such exploitation of race and religion for power has shattered the concept of a "Malaysian Malaysia" proposed by Lee Kuan Yew, with talent being lost to foreign countries due to exclusive job opportunities for the Malays.

Presently, Malay is the national language of Malaysia. While it is unique that more than four languages are spoken widely in Malaysia today (English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil), the ethnic languages are mainly used by the ethnic groups respectively. The divide is quite prominent, especially in west Malaysia, since the Malays mostly attend the Malaysian national schools but the Chinese and also the Indians, have created their own vernacular schools, placing importance on their respective languages.

Tools of persecution

Human rights of religious and ethnic minorities in Malaysia, including Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Indians and Malaysian Chinese, are systematically, officially and legally violated regularly in an institutionalised manner.

New Economic Policy as institutionalised mechanism to persecute non-Muslim minorities

Government policies of positive discrimination favour the Malay majority and the Bumiputera status, particularly in areas such as housing, finance, governance and education. Economic policies designed to favour Bumiputera, including affirmative action in public education, were implemented in the 1970s in order to defuse inter-ethnic tensions following the May 13 Incident in 1969.[10] However, these policies have not been fully effective in eradicating poverty among rural Bumiputeras and have further caused a backlash especially from Chinese and Indian minorities. The policies are enshrined in the Malaysian constitution and questioning them is technically illegal.[11][12]

UMNO, the ruling party since Malaysia's independence from Britain - until May 2018 depended on the majority Malay population for votes by using laws that give Malays priority over other races in areas such as employment, education, finance, and housing. Such policies has been cited in Article 153 of the Constitution of Malaysia.[12] UMNO also promotes ketuanan Melayu, which is the idea that the ethnic Malays (Bumiputeras) should get special privileges in Malaysia.

Pro-Bumiputera Malays claim that The Federation of Malaya Agreement signed on 21 January 1948 at King House by the Malay rulers and by Sir Edward Gent as the representative of the British government lets Malays be the leaders among three races. However, others have claimed that the Agreement promises equality to all three races who made up the population of Malaysia. Those were the original terms of The Federation of Malaya Agreement, which Dato' Onn Jaafar - then heading UMNO - had looked to abide by . However, in 1951 the UMNO began enshrining the rights of Malays over all other races in law. Today, Malays dominate in politics at both national and state levels, in the civil service, military and security forces.[13][14] The Chinese have traditionally dominated in the economy and live in large numbers in urban areas of Malaysia.

The Malay-controlled government ensures that all Bumiputeras of Malay origin are given preferential treatment regardless of merit when it comes to the number of student places in Government universities, where 90% of placements are reserved for the Bumiputera,[15] leaving many Chinese and Indians with no choice but to turn to significantly costlier private universities.[16] Government benefits for Malays include discounts for new houses and preferential treatment in public housing, cheaper burial plots, that all key government positions to be held by Malays including most sporting associations, a minimum of a 30% Malay Bumiputera equity to be held in listed companies, full funding for mosques and Islamic places of worship, special high earning interest trust funds for Bumiputera Malays, special share allocation for new share applications for Bumiputera Malays, and making the Malay language a compulsory examination paper.[17][18][19][20]

While the government has given special provisions and rights to the Malays through documented legal texts, they have also allowed certain practices by the Buddhist, Hindu and other religious minorities to be practised according to their religious beliefs, as is enshrined in Article 3 of the Federal Constitution.

The lack of meritocracy in the Malaysian education system is a valid concern, and this creates even more disparity between various groups in Malaysia. In the tertiary education system, one of the options after taking the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia is the matriculation system. However, matriculation is highly limited for non-Malays, with 90 percent of the available spots going to Malays.[21]

In 1968, Prof. al-Attas, a member of the GERAKAN, engaged in a debate with Lim Kit Siang and the Opposition from the Democratic Action Party (DAP)6 on the subject of Indonesian literature being made as part of the corpus of Malay Language literature, and on the idea of a Malaysian Malaysia. Responding towards Lim Kit Siang's claim that adopting Malay as the national language is racist and chauvinistic, Prof al-Attas argued that Malays cannot be accused as racist because a Chinese who becomes a Muslim and speaks the Malay Language can be considered a Malay; a Malay, however, can never be a Chinese.[22] By this definition, however, a Malay that renounces Islam is no longer a Malay.

In 2010, a Malaysian court sentenced a Malay to just a week in jail and only fined 11 others for a brandishing a cow's head during a protest against the construction of a Hindu temple. Critics said the light sentences would further strain race relations between the majority Malay Muslims and minority Hindu Indians, Chinese as well as Christians of various races who complain of discrimination. The 12 were from a group who had marched in August 2009 with the bloodied head of a cow, to protest a plan to build a Hindu temple in their mainly Muslim neighbourhood. Hindus, who consider the cow to be a sacred animal, were offended and angered.

Examples of Racism in Malaysia

There is a list of statistical data detailing racial discrimination in Malaysia, practiced by the government and its agencies. This list is an open secret. Its existence is best verified by government itself since it keeps the statistics.

This list is not in the order of importance; that means the first one on the list is not the most important and the last one on the list does not mean it's the least important.

This list is a common knowledge to a lot of Malaysians, especially those non-Malays (Chinese, Ibans, Kadazans, Orang Asli, Tamils, etc.) who have been racially discriminated against.

Figures in this list are merely estimates, so please take it as a guide only. The government of Malaysia has the most correct figures. Is government of Malaysia too ashamed to publish their racist acts by publishing racial statistics?

This list covers a period of about 48 years since independence (1957).

List of racial discriminations (Malaysia):

(1) Of the five major banks, only one is multi-racial, the rest are controlled by Malays.

(2) 99% of Petronas directors are Malays.

(3) 3% of Petronas employees are Chinese.

(4) 99% of 2000 Petronas gasoline stations are owned by Malays.

(5) 100% all contractors working under Petronas projects must be of Bumis status.

(6) 0% of non-Malay staff are legally required in Malay companies. But there must be 30% Malay staffs in Chinese companies.

(7) 5% of all new intake for government police, nurses, army, are non-Malays.

(8) 2% is the present Chinese staff in Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF), a drop from 40% in 1960.

(9) 2% is the percentage of non-Malay government servants in Putrajaya, but Malays make up 98%.

(10) 7% is the percentage of Chinese government servants in the entire government (in 2004); a drop from 30% in 1960.

(11) 95% of government contracts are given to Malays.

(12) 100% all business licensees are controlled by Malay government, e.g. Taxi permits, Approved permits, etc.

(13) 80% of the Chinese rice millers in Kedah had to be sold to Malay controlled Bernas in 1980s. Otherwise, life is made difficult for Chinese rice millers.

(14) 100 big companies set up, owned and managed by Chinese Malaysians were taken over by government, and later managed by Malays since 1970s, e.g. UTC, UMBC, MISC, etc.

(15) At least 10 Chinese owned bus companies (throughout Malaysia in the past 40 years) had to be sold to MARA or other Malay transport companies due to rejection by Malay authorities to Chinese applications for bus routes and rejection for their applications for new buses.

(16) Two Chinese taxi drivers were barred from driving in Johor Larkin bus station. There are about 30 taxi drivers and three were Chinese in Oct. 2004. Spoiling taxi club properties was the reason given.

(17) 0 non-Malays are allowed to get shop lots in the new Muar bus station (Nov. 2004).

(18) 8000 billion ringgit is the total amount the government channeled to Malay pockets through ASB, ASN, MARA, privatization of government agencies, Tabung Haji etc, through NEP over a 34 years period.

(19) 48 Chinese primary schools closed down from 1968 - 2000.

(20) 144 Indian primary schools closed down from 1968 - 2000.

(21) 2637 Malay primary schools built from 1968 - 2000.

(22) 2.5% is government budget for Chinese primary schools. Indian schools got only 1%, Malay schools got 96.5%.

(23) While a Chinese parent with RM1000 salary (monthly) cannot get school textbook loan, a Malay parent with RM2000 salary is eligible.

(24) All 10 public university vice chancellors are Malays.

(25) 5% of the government universities' lecturers are of non-Malay origins. This percentage has been reduced from about 70% in 1965 to only 5% in 2004.

(26) Only 5% has been given to non-Malays for government scholarships in over 40 years.

(27) 0 Chinese or Indians were sent to Japan and Korea under the "Look East Policy."

(28) 128 STPM Chinese top students could not get into the course to which they aspired, i.e. Medicine (in 2004).

(29) 10% quotas are in place for non-Bumi students for MARA science schools beginning in 2003, but only 7% are filled. Before that it was 100% Malays.

(30) 50 cases in which Chinese and Indian Malaysians are beaten up in the National Service program in 2003.

(31) 25% of the Malaysian population was Chinese in 2004, a drop from 45% in 1957.

(32) 7% of the Malaysian population is Indian (2004), a drop from 12% in 1957.

(33) 2 million Chinese Malaysians have emigrated in the past 40 years.

(34) 0.5 million Indian Malaysians have emigrated overseas.

(35) 3 millions Indonesians have migrated to Malaysia and become Malaysian citizens with Bumis status.

(36) 600,000 Chinese and Indian Malaysians with red IC were rejected repeatedly when applying for citizenship in the past 40 years. Perhaps 60% of them had already passed away due to old age. This shows racism, based on how easily Indonesians got their citizenships compared with the Chinese and Indians.

(37) 5% - 15% discount for a Malay to buy a house, regardless whether the Malay is rich or poor.

(38) 2% is what new Chinese villages get, compared with 98% - what Malay villages got for rural development budget.

(39) 50 road names (at least) had been changed from Chinese names to other names.

(40) 1 Dewan Gan Boon Leong (in Malacca) was altered to another name (e.g. Dewan Serbaguna or something like that) when it was only officially used for a few days. The government tries to shun Chinese names. This example of racism occurred around 2000.

(41) 0 temples/churches were built for each housing estate. But every housing estate got at least one mosque/surau built.

(42) 3000 mosques/surau were built in all housing estates throughout Malaysia since 1970. No temples or churches are required to be built in housing estates.

(43) 1 Catholic church in Shah Alam took 20 years to apply to have a building constructed. But they were told by Malay authority that it must look like a factory and not like a church. As of 2004 the application still have not been approved.

(44) 1 publishing of Bible in Iban language banned (in 2002).

(45) 0 of the major TV stations (RTM1, RTM2, TV3) are directors of non-Malay origin.

(46) 30 government produced TV dramas and films always showed that the bad guys had Chinese faces, and the good guys had Malay faces. You can check it out since 1970s. Recent years, this has become less of a tendency.

(47) 10 times, at least, Malays (especially Umno) had threatened to massacre the Chinese Malaysians using May 13, since 1969.

(48) 20 constituencies won by DAP would not get funds from the government to develop. These Chinese majority constituencies would be the last to be developed.

(49) 100 constituencies (parliaments and states) had been racially re-delineated so Chinese votes were diluted for Chinese candidates. This is one of the main reasons why DAP candidates have consistently lost in elections since the 1970s.

(50) Only 3 out of 12 human rights items are ratified by the Malaysian government since 1960.

(51) 0 - elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (UN Human Rights) has not been ratified by Malaysian government since 1960s.

(52) 20 reported cases whereby Malay ambulance attendances treated Chinese patients inhumanely, and Malay government hospital staffs purposely delayed attending to Chinese patients in 2003. Unreported cases may be 200.

(53) 50 cases each year whereby Chinese, especially Chinese youths, are being beaten up by Malay youths in public places. Police reports may be checked to verify this, provided the police took the report, otherwise there will be no record.

(54) 20 cases every year whereby Chinese drivers who accidentally knocked down Malays were seriously assaulted or killed by Malays.

(55) 12% is what ASB/ASN got per annum while banks fixed deposits are only about 3.5% per annum.[23][24]

Racism in the Job Environment

A study by the Centre for Governance and Political Studies (Cent-GPS) made an experiment Study on 7 fictitious candidates by sending a small sample size of 7 fictitious resumes representing 7 candidates: male and female Malay, Indian and Chinese candidates, 3,829 times in total to over 500 job vacancies across the Klang Valley. No fictitious Sabahan nor Sarawakians were involved in this study. Out of these 7 fictitious candidates, the study concluded that employers in the business sector are actively looking for Chinese candidates.

The study had 3 hypothesis, first ethnic Malay applicants will be discriminated against in Malaysia's business sector compared to their non-bumiputera peers. The study found out that the fictitious Chinese candidates dominated the callbacks by a huge margin. The two male and female Chinese candidates obtained more job callbacks than their Malay and Indian counterparts combined. No details regarding whether it was a Malay management company, an Indian management company or Chinese management company were included in the study, a confound that would likely lead to a skew in the results given the racial tensions and linguistic barriers in Malaysia due to the lack of a communal lingua franca that is neutral and which does not favour any one race.

The second hypothesis was Mandarin is a key factor in helping or boosting a candidate's chance of securing a job interview. The study finds that when companies list “Mandarin required” in their advertisement, it is actually a filter to hire Chinese candidates. Their third hypothesis was the hijab plays a crucial factor in determining a candidate's successfully job application. The study found out that a Malay girl without a hijab gets more callbacks than a Malay girl who wears a hijab.

The study concluded that even as candidates had the same qualifications, education and experience, the ethnicity of a candidate still plays a vital role in the success of a job application for a business graduate. Only business graduates were studied in this study, with other fields of study being suitable for an attempt for replication of this study.

Other ethnic groups

Rohingya people

Following COVID-19 outbreaks in 2020, Rohingya people have been accused for spreading the disease. Hateful messages against the ethnic group on social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, are also common. Users also demanded for refoulement of Rohingya people to Myanmar and threatened prominent Rohingya activists and their supporters with physical attacks, murder, and sexual violence.[25] Some comments compared the ethnic group with dogs, parasites, and pigs.[26]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Report, Sarawak. "The Thief Of Sarawak Has No Right To Talk of Rights". Sarawak Report. Retrieved 28 September 2022.
  2. ↑ Norshahril Saat (16 December 2018). "Commentary: Malaysia's anti-ICERD rally a reality check for Pakatan Harapan". Channel NewsAsia.
  3. ↑ Bernama (11 November 2018). "Muhyiddin: No constitutional breach with Icerd ratification". malaysiakini.
  4. ↑ "2010 Population and Housing Census of Malaysia" (PDF). Department of Statistics, Malaysia. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 May 2014. Retrieved 17 June 2012. p. 15
  5. ↑ Chinese in Malaysia
  6. ↑ M. Veera Pandiyan (10 August 2016). "'Keling' and proud of it". The Star online.
  7. ↑ Hirschman, Charles (Spring 1986). "The Making of Race in Colonial Malaya: Political Economy and Racial Ideology" (PDF). Sociological Forum. 1 (2): 330–333. doi:10.1007/BF01115742. S2CID 53659419.
  8. ↑ "Malaysia Racial Discrimination Report, 2017" (PDF). International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Selangor, Malaysia: Pusat Komas: 30. 2018.
  9. ↑ Reeves, Holly (28 January 2017). "Mahathir hits new low: blaming the Chinese for poor politics is a coward's way". ASEAN Today.
  10. ↑ Brant, Robin. "Malaysia questions ethnic preferences". BBC. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
  11. ↑ Kua, Kia Soong (2007). May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969. ISBN 978-9834136765.
  12. 1 2 Joseph R. Rudolph Jr., ed. (7 December 2015). Encyclopedia of Modern Ethnic Conflicts, 2nd Edition. ABC-CLIO. pp. 376–377. ISBN 9781610695534.
  13. ↑ Hong-Hai Lim (2007). "Ethnic Representation in the Malaysian Bureaucracy: The Development and Effects of Malay Domination". International Journal of Public Administration. 30 (12–14: Comparative Asian Public Administration): 1503–1524. doi:10.1080/01900690701229731. S2CID 154855816.
  14. ↑ Muthiah Alagappa (1 September 2002). Coercion and Governance: The Declining Political Role of the Military in Asia. Stanford University Press. p. 259. ISBN 978-0804742276.
  15. ↑ Jennifer Pak (2 September 2013). "Is Malaysia university entry a level playing field?". BBC.
  16. ↑ "Malaysia's system of racial preferences should be scrapped". The Economist. 18 May 2017.
  17. ↑ Dimitrina Petrova (22 November 2012). "Affirmative Action versus Equality in Malaysia". Oxford Human Rights Hub.
  18. ↑ Boo Su-Lyn (11 April 2014). "Even in death, no escape from rising prices". The Malay Mail.
  19. ↑ "Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM)".
  20. ↑ "Race-based affirmative action is failing poor Malaysians". The Economist. 18 May 2017.
  21. ↑ "Regressive Matriculation Policy Perpetuates Discrimination". 25 April 2019.
  22. ↑ ""The Malay Language and its role in nation building"- Summary of Saturday Night Lecture 14th September 2013". UTM. 24 September 2013.
  23. ↑ "Department of Statistics Malaysia". www.dosm.gov.my. Archived from the original on 12 August 2023. Retrieved 14 August 2023.
  24. ↑ "Racial Discrimination in Malaysia". www.worldpress.org. 29 March 2006. Archived from the original on 12 August 2023. Retrieved 13 August 2023.
  25. ↑ "Malaysia: End Violent Threats and Anti-Rohingya Campaign". fortifyrights.org. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
  26. ↑ "Anti-migrant sentiment fanned on Facebook in Malaysia". reuters.com. Retrieved 11 December 2023.

Articles

James Chin, The Malaysian Chinese Dilemma: The Never Ending Policy (NEP), Chinese Southern Studies (2008)

James Chin, Racism towards the Chinese Minority in Malaysia: Political Islam and Institutional Barriers, The Political Quarterly (2022)

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