MORE than a month has passed since the world saw a remarkable revolution in Malaysia. Late last year, 10,000 ethnic Indians demonstrated against government-based racial discrimination in the nation's capital -- the biggest ethnic riots since 1969. The protesters challenged their undemocratic nation's apartheid policy that provides unfair privileges for majority Muslim Malays, thereby exacerbating inter-racial economic inequality and undermining religious freedom.
The government's response was characteristic of tyrannical regimes. Police met assertions of free speech with water cannons and tear gas. They detained protest leaders without trial. The government even considered restricting the entry of Indian workers into Malaysia. Ethnic Indian activists listed their demands, but even minor proposals like setting up a non-Muslim affairs department to address grievances were rejected because it questioned Islam's dominance over all aspects of life.
The revolution demonstrated just how stuck Malaysia is in the politics of yesterday. When the United States demanded due process for detained protest leaders, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak responded immaturely, "Can they first of all give a fair trial to detainees in Guantanamo Bay?" Would Razak care to extend the comparison across the board to religious freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, equality before the law and meritocracy -- all of which are non-existent in Malaysia?
The government also continued to recast the issue as a matter of sovereignty. But we are far past the era of intractable sovereignty and well into the age of humanitarian intervention. International bodies value, or ought to value, state sovereignty as much as they value the right of all people to life free from tyranny. A state's moral legitimacy is increasingly viewed as being derived from protecting its citizens, so when a state tramples individual rights, it forfeits this legitimacy, and no outside nation need respect such versions of sovereignty. As one State Department official put it politely, "Malaysian authorities are obligated, like any sovereign country's government, to balance the need for public order with the equally important need for free debate."
The Malaysian government has lost its right to assert its sovereignty on the issue of ethnic discrimination against Malaysian Indians. Its New Economic Policy (NEP), is an apartheid law that provides preferential treatment for Malays in a bid to narrow the income gap between wealthy Chinese and poor Malays, who are known as "sons of the soil." Businesses are required to have Malay partners, and universities have Malay quotas.
The NEP is a policy of denial. The Malaysian government refuses to acknowledge the fact that Malays were not disadvantaged by Chinese or Indians during the British colonization of Malaysia. Anyone who has read Malaysian history (at least a version not sponsored by the Malaysian government) knows that Chinese and Indians were brought to Malaysia as workers because the British regarded Malays as lazy. Malay's, they reported, took long naps in the afternoon and refused to participate in wage labor.
The NEP is also a policy that neglects Malaysia's other ethnic groups. Indian employment in the public sector is only at three percent, and mostly at the lower levels. This grave situation is mostly due to the government's neglect of ethnic Indians in pursuit of the NEP. The Malaysian Indian Congress, led by Samy Vellu, has been criticized for corruption, ineffectiveness and lackluster performance in addressing ethnic Indian needs.
But the NEP is only part of the Malaysian government's racist and Islamic fundamentalist record. In Malaysia, anyone born to Muslim parents is automatically considered Muslim, and converting from Islam to another religion is illegal. Freedom of religion, a constitutional right, is a pipe dream. Indian temples have been bulldozed, some while worshippers were praying, at rate some allege is as high as one every three weeks. Malaysia even passed a law recently that forbade ethnic minorities to use the word "Allah" to describe the god of their faiths. In the last two years, Malay government officials have held up the Malay keris, a sword signifying Malay hegemony, during official general assemblies.
Malaysia's governing system is archaic and destructive. Its race-based politics only serve to fuel existing racial discord. Its economic future looks dim as its traditional strengths are being challenged by rising Southeast Asian economies like Vietnam, while its non-Malay talent flocks to other countries that thrive on meritocracy and freedom.
The contradictions between a modern economy and backward society are becoming increasingly clear as its fraying ethnic fabric unravels. As the economic pie shrinks and discord increases in the next few decades, I can only hope that the country's tyrants will be swept by the same revolutions that overthrew dictatorial regimes in the past. Only then will I be proud enough to call myself Malaysian.
Prashanth Parameswaran's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at pparameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
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