opinion

At the foot of the gleaming Twin Towers a thatch-roof kampung shack, a sarong-clad figure walking a nose-leashed buffalo, two coconut trees.

The skyward shot of Kuala Lumpur's rockety columns dominates the front cover of M Bakri Musa's book The Malay Dilemma Revisited: Race Dynamics in Modern Malaysia ; the rustic scene is sketched at the base of the cover, minimal but noticeable.

This non-fictional imagery offers a little facial acquaintance with the book. The main cover item is a familiar national sight; it's (they're) Malaysia's Prime Monument(s). The kampung snap-sketch is also familiar, but it piques interest by being imported into the urban setting.

This rural scenario alludes to the humble agrarian domains from which Malays have ascended. The wooden, stilted house before the Towers is a vivid image, at once, of change and heritage. Of dilemmas and dynamics.

Bakri's opinion of the Twin Towers, however, differs from the triumphalism and maudlin of officially-sanctioned choruses. The title of one chapter reveals the dilution of rabid nationalism in his veins: Twin Towers, Twin Crises.

So, the cover exudes tones of irony. Perhaps it is symbolic of one ongoing conflict: megalomania versus enterprise. To some, a national treasure and pride; to others, a monumental waste and shame.

Social restructuring

But read not too much into the cover. This is a book not of pictures but of words, sometimes sharp sometimes blunt - but always straightforward. Occasionally, written with vigour and passion, but rarely yielding to the figurative business of imagery.

This is a punchy, forthright assessment of the Malay condition to date - their economic, social and political position and performance. Thirty years after the New Economic Policy, ten years after the National Development Policy, and now, at the onset of the National Vision Policy.

Still, one should keep in the background pictures of heritage, change, progress and stasis. The Malay Dilemma Revisited is as much about perception and personal story as it is about fact and analysis.

What is the re-visitation? In a phrase, it is seeing the NEP through today's lenses. If Mahathir wrote a prospective, at about the same time the NEP was being formulated, Bakri has written a retrospective, at a time of reckoning with the successes and failures of economic growth and social restructuring.

It is not just the time period that has passed; fundamental conditions and world views have also moved. The challenges of the tide called globalisation, in particular, lay the groundwork for current analysis.

Bakri is deeply concerned about the lack of Malay competitiveness, productivity and efficiency - requisites of the globalised economy. Understandably so, for the NEP record in cultivating entrepreneurs is a listless one.

Doctor-doctor links

The book tackles tough issues head-on, in a rare display of un-syruped honesty. Government subsidies have been abused, education standards stay low, action has not been as affirmative as intended, and so on.

The author is steeply anti-feudal, lambasting what he calls the 'Sultan syndrome' and the obsession of many Malay officials for counter-productive, self-enthroning ceremony.

The writing betrays a pragmatic and materialist stance. Reading further - again, trying not to go too far - we may note that these are doctoral traits. One can observe the doctor-doctor links between Bakri and Mahathir embodied in their tone of voice.

A doctor wants to be very sure of their diagnoses. He speaks with authority. Bakri also speaks in highly normative sentences, saying what should be, not just what is. And he is highly prescriptive, with the assertive tone of a physician who knows what's best.

But temperamental closeness between author and national leader soon comes to an academic clash. Bakri takes Mahathir's schlock genetics in The Malay Dilemma to task. He dismisses the case for genetic inferiority.

He further laments that Malays may have been disheartened through belief in this sort of genetic determinacy theory: if it's in the genes, nothing can change it. Mahathir's 'rash assertion' on genetics is 'bunk'.

In this instance, as in many other passages, Bakri tells it straight. Sometimes, too straight. In the quest for linear prognoses, remedies sometimes turn out too simplistic or uni-dimensional.

Hurried solutions

Mahathir's population ambitions of the 1980s, for instance, gets a beating. The plan to procreate to 70 million by 2040 was undue and ill-informed. But Bakri concludes with a strange logic: if population had grown more slowly since Independence, income would have been distributed among a smaller number of people, so we would all now be richer.

Among other factors, this fails to account for the contribution of growth in the labour force to economic growth. Present incomes would be higher only if productivity per worker increased rapidly to compensate for slower growth in the number of workers - which the rest of the book says did not happen.

In spite of such hurried solutions, credit is due to the author for not playing with communal fire, on population and other matters. The esteem of a community is grounded not so much in number as in achievement.

Still, the nationalist issue demands some specification, for it is not absent, but varied from more fanatical strains. Better put, The Malay Dilemma Revisited attempts to forge a different strand of nationalism, one that is more economically charged.

This thrust is reflected in a high regard for the Jews in the United States. Bakri lauds the achievements of the Jewish community there, invoking their spirit of enterprise and endurance as examples.

He also decries foreign bogey-smacking: 'Malaysia would be more successful in resolving its present economic problems if it begins by critically analysing its policies first, and refraining from the visceral tendency to blame others'.

Two icons

Autobiography, in large part, explains his outlook. The author has experienced some hazards of back-firing nationalism. We read of his childhood and youth, of growing up in his kampung .

We see that the moulding of his pragmatism and industry began at a young age, when his parents opted to send him to English school, against the grain of parochial kampung folk. He relates being ostracised for not being Malay enough, for knowing the English language.

His burden for two issues, in particular, seems to have flowed from these experiences: education and Islamisation. He presses for the steeply political field of education to be de-politicised and for English to be promoted.

He levels biting words at radical Islamists and the stifling impact their religious education agenda can have on young minds. Islam, a 'government within a government', must not have rein on social and political life.

In line with these values, his high regard for Tun Razak and Ungku Aziz is a natural consequence. Here are two icons of success of original and resolute quality. Tun Razak decisively wrested power in the wake of turmoil and got the NEP going; Ungku Aziz conducted radio economics classes to the masses and spearheaded the Tabung Haji.

In the allocation of praise and criticism, we can trace out various consistencies in the book. At the same time, we can also find inconsistencies. These are difficult to avoid in such an ambitious book. In any case, they aid the reader by clarifying the author's biases.

Bakri vehemently chastises Malay Studies graduates for lack of business acumen, but apparently immunises himself, another non-businessman, from such criticism. Obviously, both Malay studies graduates and doctors gain knowledge and understanding of business and finance through experience, not education.

If the author is justified in commenting on economics, why is the input of Malay studies graduates necessarily wrong? While the need for science, engineering, and professional graduates is undoubtedly high, must this relegate the arts and social sciences, as he implies?

Soaring egomania

He also expresses uncompromising condemnation for cronyism, yet displays unflagging support for the political party under which this system of corrupt affairs has birthed. Ultimately, the Barisan Nasional government is responsible for the state of business-government relations and cronyism that prevails, and Umno must be held accountable for the proliferation of cronyism and corruption.

The book displays much awareness of the huge extent to which business and politics mingle, and identifies the common problems of corruption, misallocation of investment and soaring egomania, yet does not lay the blame squarely enough on the Umno-led Barisan Nasional government under Mahathir.

What political vision does the book hold out for Malays, and for Malaysia? The Malay Dilemma Revisited conveys little optimism towards reform within Umno. He jabs, 'Umno now attracts mostly the losers among the young Malays, those who cannot excel on their own merit in the professions or businesses'.

Although Bakri is thrilled to see Anwar vanquished, he laments the dearth, even vacuum, of able and trustworthy successors to Mahathir. Indeed, he remarks that the uncertainty of the hand-over of leadership may be Mahathir's 'greatest failure'.

This audacity to speak of Mahathir's failure radiates. Most writers would not dare deploy such speech. The tension of affinity and repulsion between author and national leader plays out right till the last page.

Affinity has the upper hand in the end. It is telling that a near to closing sentence says that 'Malaysia's future depends very much on [Mahathir's] success'.

The face and scope of this success are broad and complex, and are not spelled out. Of course, we may infer that local benchmarks would include a self-sufficient Malay community, and within it a dynamic commercial and industrial class.

National Art Gallery

Global benchmarks for success also draw attention, and it appears that the United States is par. This is not spelled out as such, yet constant references to superiority of the American system - in education, innovation, privatisation, etc. - reflect Bakri's inclination to judge Malaysia's performance against that of the US.

He makes sweeping statements about government-market roles, basically imputing as large a role as possible to the private sector. He takes this stance to a sometimes puzzling extreme. Why should 'the government have no business running a National Art gallery'? Is the problem government involvement, or misguided government?

The book, in many ways, indicates that we should import more of the American economy and polity into Malaysia. The process (adopting more things American) is often deemed more important than the product or side effect (becoming more American, or discovering it doesn't fit or doesn't help us), and can be detrimental.

Perhaps an indication of ignorance toward side effects is Bakri's comment that Harvard and Wharton-trained cronies are more acceptable than locally trained ones, even if they amass more questionable wealth.

Another major shortcoming of The Malay Dilemma Revisited is thus exposed: there is no questioning of globalising Anglo-American capitalist system, the values it propagates, its internal hollowness and limitations in delivering well-being.

To be fair, Bakri does not go against his word. He asserts that 'forming a powerful National Economic Action Council (NEAC) empowered to chart a new course is sensible only if it brings in individuals with fresh views and who are prepared to challenge the official orthodoxy'.

Bakri goes beyond the official orthodoxy in some ways. However, he shelters within safe dominant dogmas - some which are worth questioning. The Malay Dilemma Revisited does not face down globalisation and its homogenising pressures and social penalties.

Denial and inertia

Nonetheless, this work makes a substantial contribution to a languid book industry. It breaks new ground, more in its reach and thrust than in its depth and content. There is a sense that Bakri's ideas are the stuff that many have wanted to say but dared not, or did not have the words.

At least, few have articulated these aspirations and concerns outside of the academic and teh tarik stall orbits.

Yet his work is sufficiently original to merit a more unique name than The Malay Dilemma Revisited: Race Dynamics in Modern Malaysia . It is rather surprising, and disappointing, that the author chose a derivative title, albeit the choice does draw from the influence of Mahathir's polemic.

An original title, with The Malay Dilemma Revisited as a subtitle, would be more suitable, and could have greater impact. The book broaches a wider range of issues than race dynamics.

Besides, isn't it time we move on from dilemma talk? 'Dilemma' connotes an uncertainty about the way forward. It has become clearer and clearer that the NEP has brought about more dependency than self-sufficiency, and racial politics more disunity than harmony.

The more appropriate words for now are denial and inertia. To move forward, indeed, requires more a re-visioning of the future better than the present, not so much a revisiting of things past.

One hopes for other writers to wholly thrash out key issues of the 'way forward': does the Umno-BN brand of racial and crony politics and economics still work, and what are the costs of the Anglo-American brand of global capitalism?

The Malay Dilemma Revisited throws many punches, but pulls some key punches.

HA LEE lectures political economy at a local university.