In the last couple of weeks, Malaysians cannot be faulted for feeling disenchanted with politics and demoralised by new developments in the political landscape. In fact, many have begun to dismiss politics as irrelevant. With eyes fixed on the future, many have one word in their minds: migration.

Is Malaysia in such a bad shape that we have to think about packing up and leaving? One friend explained that things are not that bad. Yes, corruption is a problem and the economy sluggish but the institutions still work and we can still earn a living. That friend is single and does not have a family. Ask a married person with kids and a dramatically different reaction is given.

A Malay couple said that they have made up their minds to migrate ,mostly for the sake of the children. They do not see much hope in the education system and want nothing to do with it. The teachers, they feel, are not of the same quality to the ones who taught them, a generation ago.

The economic prospects of Malaysia are also not positive. They are both foreign-trained professionals who can get jobs elsewhere. Their parents benefited from the NEP but they made it on their own.

Is migrating at this juncture in our nation’s difficult transition to a more knowledge-centric economy a kind of ungratefulness? Not really, most of my friends think that knowledge workers, like foreign capital,are highly mobile. This is why Malaysia is trying hard to be like Dubai, a place that attracts global talent.

If we are attracting talent nurtured and trained in some other country, it would be hypocritical of us to stop our own people from going to foreign countries because of better job opportunities. If we label them ‘ungrateful’ then are we not ‘thieves’ for attracting foreign talent?

Everybody forgets easily

In a globalised world, words like ‘grateful’ have diminished in value.

Dr Mahathir once lamented that the ‘Malays forget easily’.  The reality is that everybody forgets easily. The vital question is whether Malaysia is an attractive place for global talent or are we forgettable?

In terms of food, infrastructure, culture and geography; we are very attractive indeed. But so are many other places. What gives Malaysia the cutting edge?

In the past, when we attracted large amounts of foreign direct investments, investors were more worried about labour unions. They saw Southeast Asia as one place where the governments were strong and as a lace where they could manufacture goods relatively cheaply and ithout hassle from trade unions. We provided the relative lower costs and, if I am not wrong, workers in the electrical and electronics sector are still not allowed to form unions.

Over the years, a lot has been accumulated in the manufacturing sector in the form of skills and factories. Wealth generated lifted an entire segment of Malaysian society – Malay and non-Malay included – and grateful Malaysians voted the BN. We overlooked the excesses of the BN. It was necessary to keep the unions in line. Leftist politics was out of fashion anyway especially in the 1980s.

Today, the game has changed almost completely. Malaysian plantation companies are the new multinationals. We ‘invest’  overseas. Capital flow outwards is higher than FDI coming in. We are at the upper-middle-income level. Some Malaysians are already living the lifestyle equivalent to their ‘developed’ world counterparts. Others, well-trained and much sought after, do not share the same attachment hat their grandparents had for the country.

They grew up watching American movies and eating KFC; they have more in common with youths in London than in Pasir Salak.

Attracting global talent a must

Yet, they are the type of people Malaysia needs to attract if we want to be a more knowledge-centric economy and if we want to become a high-income economy. We have to be attractive to global talent: people who have very specialised skills invaluable to high-level manufacturing and even to a traditionally low-skilled service sector like tourism. Today, visitors demand tourist guides who are well-educated, have specialised knowledge and who speak multiple languages.

But how can we achieve all this when we have groups demanding that nothing must change. Insecurity is so great that some quarters cannot allow their fellow Malaysians from making the leap into the knowledge economy. They are like crabs in a basket, constantly pulling others down to their level.

If one needs evidence of the futility of such policies where we have

to wait for the last man at the back of the train to catch up, we only have to look at the state of Malaysian education. Something like 25 percent of GDP is devoted to education but where are our top thinkers? Why are the MCKK and Penang Free School not the Eton and Harrow of Malaysia?

In the UK, these old schools went through a transformation. They are now part of the UK’s knowledge and service-oriented economy. Both the MCKK and PFS were once the region’s top schools but where are they now?

In short, we cannot blame Malaysians for wanting something better for their children. Yes, the country is not a bad place to live in. For

those whose die is cast, Malaysia is probably a nice place to live out

the sunset years. But for the restless young, Malaysia has to be more than a good place to retire. Malaysia has to be a great place to invest, with great schools for the children and a country on the

cutting edge.

All is not lost although the audacity to hope for that great Malaysian future is fast fading. No doubt, most thinking Malaysians have even less hope in the political leadership; a government unable to keep to its word whether over oil or the control of corruption.

These are the same people who now ask us to trust them with our future.

 

 

NEIL KHOR has recently completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge. He is co-author of ‘Non-Sectarian Politics in Malaysia: The Case of Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia’ (2008).