Malaysiakini (http://www.malaysiakini.com)
Second-class citizen, 8 June 2010
by KJ John
In my last column I explained why I can only be considered a first class citizen of Malaysia and why my parents, the first generation in Malaysia, have given me a history and heritage of which I am very proud.
There is no reason to ever 'reduce' me to a second class citizen, regardless of whoever says I am only a pendatang. I am not. And therefore I can proudly say, 'Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia!' We the ordinary people of Malaysia will continue to speak this truth until some responsible hears it.
This feeling and sense of national identity must become the true experience of every Malaysian who legitimately holds a Malaysian birth certificate, whether as first generation migrants or 10th generation migrants - and especially so for non-migrants like the Orang Asli, Orang Asal and people groups of Sabah and Sarawak.
But, why is it that while the first generation was made to be proud of their new heritage as 'Malayans', the next generation has suddenly been made to feel like second class citizens?
This is my second generation experience of citizenship, as it has unfolded.
When I was 7, I remember my father proudly driving us around town on Merdeka Day in the evening and to the padang where there were celebrations. He had read the Merdeka Day speech on behalf of the Sultan of Kedah as a member of the Board of Governors of the Ibrahim Secondary School in the morning.
I suppose he had many reasons to celebrate the independence in this newfound home. That was my positive memory of Merdeka, without fully understanding all the nuances of what was really happening. I flew the Jalur Gemilang until it lost its shine and I have previously written why I will not fly it any more.
As my father had been elected a councillor for Sungai Petani in 1955, the culture and noise of politics were always in my home and environment. Fortunately it was all good and clean air then.
Then, at the tender age of 14, I earned the privilege - after a very competitive process of interviews - to gain entry into the RMC, then called the FMC. It was the best schooling available then and offered true education that any young Malaysian could only dream to receive. Much like with the MCKK and TKC (the Malay public school equivalents).
Such public school education was designed and developed to prepare young Malaysians to assume roles and positions of leadership. Our founding forefathers knew exactly what they were doing. RMC was multi-ethnic.
After being at the RMC until Upper Six, it was off to the University of Malaya (UM) and my vintage of peers registered our presence on May 12, 1969. I remember Malick Natarajan driving Ariff and me into KL from Sungei Petani on May 12 and we drove right through the post-election DAP Youth victory rally on Jalan Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur.
I saw some posters which read Dato Harun balik kampung! The faces of young DAP members looked quite angry. They wore headbands and raised their fists. They appeared angry but the mood was also reflective of a clear intent on taking leadership of the state, even by force if needed.
Unknowingly and innocently we passed through the rally and we registered in the First Residential College at UM and went about orientation/ragging. In the next few days, we the so-called freshies were lining up to donate blood at University Hospital with third-year medical students taking our blood by learning through mistakes. It took a young intern about five pricks of the needle to finally find my vein.
We the RMC boys in UM organised a security brigade to preserve the security of all in our residential college because we had heard that there was 'trouble' in Kampung Kerinchi next door.
Overlooking 'untruth'
As we consider the meaning of citizenship after 46 years, ought we not the first and second generations seek to kill the unfortunate ghostly experience of May 13? How can we learn to overlook the untruth of much of the public version rhetoric and poor records of history to seek instead to support the current premier as he struggles with his 1Malaysia agenda, or the Bangsa Malaysia agenda of a former prime minister? How do we take our dilapidated very developing country - abused by years of stealing and raping - beyond the most recent global economic crisis when we never really recovered from the previous currency crisis? Legitimised stealing vide renter economics is still theft!
In Malaysia today, there are 40 percent of relatively very poor Malaysians, with about 3 percent in abject poverty. Another 40 percent have their basic level of needs and wants and form the middle class. These are the ones caught in the bind of high dreams but poor salaries.
Then we have the very rich Malaysians who may have not all got there by entirely upright personal means but by corporate wheeling and dealings.
I do not want to begrudge anyone anything, but truths of Malaysia Today (pun intended) cannot be ignored or simply avoided. While Raja Petra Kamarudin may not be right all the time. I'd like to believe that there is some merit most of the time in his revelations. As they say, 'there is no smoke without a fire'.
Allow me to continue my second generation perspective on citizenship. After university, it was into the Administrative and Diplomatic Service, which my classmates with scholarships joined in April 1972. But, I was only allowed to join in September 1972. This was frankly the first time ever I felt the experience of not being treated as an equal citizen.
I did not understand why, when my RMC classmate Azman Rashid and I had attended the same SPA interview on July 6, 1972 and had graduated with the exact same degree and specialisation. His appointment was backdated to April 1972 and mine post-dated to September 1972.
Did the Public Services Commission have authority to backdate appointments to before the interview date?
Or was it the start of the Ketuanan Melayu syndrome and second class citizenship? This worldview or culture of thought was I believe specially developed by the administrative elite after May 1969 to consciously make non-Malay Malayans to feel like they are second class citizens.
This was one of the unintended consequences of the May 13 which we continue to feel until today. Tun Salleh Abas had argued against this syndrome and this, to my mind and heart, was why he had to be dismissed as Lord President. Politics makes for unfriendly allies!
While there was real hurt and anger among those who lost something personal or relational on May 13, the vast majority of us are not direct victims but indirect ones of the secondary effects.
The ghost of May 13 has become the hidden hand role of the public services and public sector agencies to make the non-Malays (the primary target were the Chinese and Indians of the peninsula) to feel like second class citizens and be thankful to their elder migrants -namely the Malays of Persekutuan Tanah Melayu.
Today's victims are also Sabahans and Sarawakians. The Sarawak chief minister can attest to this; that is why he keeps Umno out of the state.
Second class citizenship is a mindset or worldview that denies everyone their God-ordained dignity. It is both unIslamic and unChristian and totally irreligious. Why are we propagating such a fallen and irrelevant worldview even if it was necessary in the past because of the insecurity of the majority of Malays about losing their so-called homeland to non-Malays?
Are we not all first class citizens under the same constitution and under the same flag of the federation, and under the light of the same sun of God's universe?
So, why did a Sibu resident receive his Mykad only after 46 years of Sabah becoming a Malaysian state, having been denied full and comprehensive citizenship rights all these years?
May God bless Malaysia in dealing with truths of history!
・KJ JOHN He was in public service for 29 years. He was director for industrial policy with the International Trade and Industry Ministry and undertook the Second Industrial Master Plan. He then became vice-president for IT Policy Development of the Malaysian Institute of Microelectronic Systems and headed the National IT Council directorate. He holds a doctorate in Organisation and Management Theory from the George Washington University in Washington DC.
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