YOURSAY 'Our success is really our coming together as one to create this nation. Our strength is not our separateness but our togetherness.'

What do the Chinese really want?

your say Swipenter: A few years ago, former World Bank senior social scientist Lim Teck Ghee had put forward his study that the Malays were controlling more than 40% of the national economy.

His paper had far-reaching and earth-shaking implications for the country and the ‘Never Ending Policy' (NEP). There was a huge hue and cry from Umno that the Malay share was only about 19%.

Lim challenged his detractors to prove him wrong. They promised do to so. Until today, we are still waiting for them to debunk Lim's paper and come out with their calculations on how they arrived at the 19% figure.

Is their silence an admission that Lim was correct?

Indeed, many things that Malaysiakini columnist Sim Kwang Yang wrote is out of date and not applicable to the new generations anymore. The guilds and associations based according to professions, dialects and place of origin (clans) were necessary for our forefathers to survive in a new land.

But how many of the new generations care to be a member of this clan or dialect association these days? This is not to say they should deliberately deny or suppress their ethnic and cultural identity, like some fake Malays. A Chinese in Malaysia is not the same as the Chinese in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, United States, etc. There are subtle differences.

Chinese Malaysians want equal opportunity, equal justice, equal treatment, no corruption, transparent governance, rule of law and to freely practice their chosen way of life be it Islamic, Christian and what not.

Manjit Bhatia: Mr Sim, I have several questions. You say: "The Chinese in Malaysia are a unique community, and want to remain so: they want to be Chinese."

And you add: "The maintenance of their ethnic identity, their cultural rights, and their linguistic uniqueness is of foremost importance to them, within the context of a multi-racial Malaysia."

One is an assertion; the other appears to hold a loose caveat.

Which leaves me wondering about the rest of your article, raising a hundred and one other questions along the way. For example, don't you think 'Malays', 'Indians', 'Seranis', 'indigenous Malaysians' and 'others' are just as "unique" as the 'Chinese'?

You can't be playing the devil's advocate here. Of this I'm sure. So are you playing the Chinese 'apologist'? Isn't yours an old argument being recycled or rehashed?

And is the 'Malaysian society' so fundamentally changing as you claim?

RA 1: The Chinese own this country with their economic might. With their economic might, they control Umno. That is what most ordinary or kampong Malay think, and I believe that there is much truth in it.

Retnam: The success of the Chinese in business is attributable to a single trait, and that is, entrepreneurial ‘inclination'. I emphasise ‘inclination' to differentiate it from ‘skills'.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad saw this and tried to instill entrepreneurial ‘skills' in Malays. To his utter frustration, he learnt that without ‘inclination', any effort towards instilling ‘skills' will come to naught, as we can see today.

Will the Malays ever have the ‘inclination'?

World citizen: The Chinese in Malaysia do not ‘want' to be Chinese, they ‘are' Chinese. They want to be Malaysian. Unfortunately, certain political elements amongst the Malays put obstacles in their path. Chinese Malaysians want to be included, not excluded.

Thinking: As a Malaysian Chinese, I view this is my country. All I want is to be treated equally, in education, in purchasing a house, in government positions and promotions based on merit, not based on race.

And in terms of religion, not to be discriminated against and have have Islamic laws imposed on me against my will but to respect the Federal Constitution on the matter.

In business, when government tenders and development, I want the laws not "relaxed and exclusive " based on race but on the merits of the company.

Is that so difficult to understand?

Garrulous Gary: In short, what the Chinese here want is fairness in our everyday dealings with the government.

That old dinosaur of a former PM who complained of our inscrutability has merely discovered we are not affected by his blandishments nor scared by his threats of racial strife.

Onyourtoes: Sim said so many things about the Chinese in Malaysia but I am not sure everybody would agree with him.

Like Sim, I also would like to say one thing about the Chinese in Malaysia today. I think the Chinese just wanted to be left alone so long as they are free to do business and make a good living.

The Chinese have since realised it is not possible to sustain a good life if the government is moronic and inept.

Hence, it is not farfetched to note that the Chinese now want to participate in government administration in a meaningful and substantive way - not to dominate others but to help better govern this country for the good of everybody.

Obviously, after more than 50 years of single-race domination, the government is not working as effective as it should be, given our resources and the enterprise of our people.

My THOR: It is not what the Chinese want, but what Malaysians want after living and experiencing all types of scandals, forcing them to opt for the two-party system.

Generation after generation, Malaysians have tolerated the BN government abusing their power, leading to a mass exodus, especially the Chinese, in seeking a fairer and level-playing ground.

Everybody knows what Malaysians want, except for the Umnoputras, who choose not to know.

David Dass: "They ask for no quarters and give none in return." This statement is made after Sim states quite unequivocally that Malaysia without the enterprise and business acumen of the Chinese would be unthinkable.

After posing the question what do the Chinese in Malaysia want - he answers it by saying they simply want to be Chinese. They 'yearn for freedom' and all they want is fairness and transparency.

I really had little problem with his description of the Chinese, his enumeration of their attributes and of their contribution to the business life of the federation. And yet something about the article bothered me.

And perhaps the sentence that I have extracted at the start of this comment contains the seed of my discomfort. Our success is really our coming together as one to create this nation. Our strength is our diversity.

Our strength is not our separateness but our togetherness. Our strength is our ability to come together to each contribute our resources and strengths as Malaysians.

 

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