Friday, June 01, 2007

Bumiputera Discriminated ?

I saw this article in Malaysia Alternative Voices ,

Referring to the letter from Malaysian Truly Asian, the most obscene double standard is that all of the influential opinion leaders, both in the mainstream and alternative media, from the non-bumiputera community are discouraging more bumiputeras from standing up and speaking up for a just Malaysia. These people quickly brush off allegations of discriminatory practices by non-bumiputera controlled companies as if these injustices were ‘justifiable’ retaliation for the NEP’s ‘discrimination’ towards the non-bumiputeras.I have heard a story of an ambitious bumiputera entrepreneur who can’t survive in KL’s most popular IT retail plaza due to his suppliers’ price discrimination and price fixing and artificial barriers to entry. Or of a competent, highly respected professor of a very specialised field, groomed in one of the highest learning institutions in the US, whose prospective employment with private colleges was made arduous and even impossible because he is Malay and the leading interviewers were Chinese. Or of a hard-working Malay stockist of a large, long-established direct marketing company whose waitlisted, high-demanded items were diverted to the Chinese stockists without any concrete reasons. One does not have to be an economist to acknowledge that companies in the private sector, big or small, tend to employ people of a certain race with an undisclosed quota. The GLCs ultimately score better when compared to the non-GLCs in that they nearly have a work force that reflects the racial composition of the country at the macro and micro level. (Malaysia Blogger : Is this TRUE? Interesting FACTS to find out? Anyone?)Almost all of the employment ads that I have seen in a popular Johor Baru shopping complex explicitly seek Chinese-only candidates (with some of the ads appearing only in Chinese) when most of the customers do not speak Chinese (or even appear Chinese). The products have nothing to do with the Chinese culture and such ads freely appear in the classified advertisements section of so-called ‘pluralistic’ newspapers.The voices of the discriminated bumis are unheard of in both Malay-controlled and non- Malay-controlled media, with the former treating such issues as the ‘little things’ that the Malays have to bear in return for the secured opportunities that the NEP provides, and the latter ignoring the problems as if they were totally unheard of before the introduction of the NEP. Cartels and unhealthy business practices, after all, existed in the colonial period and the early years of Merdeka. It takes more than rants and slogans to institutionalise equal opportunity in its truest sense. Boycotts will only exacerbate the problem.

Posted byPetronas Staff in Malaysiakini
May 21, 07 2:03pm
http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/67500

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You discriminate us. We discriminate you. It'll be neverending vicious cycle that can be ended with another round of May 13. If both side relent, we can have law of discrimination. We can sue everyone even government for any discrimination. Since government now practice open discrimination for billion ringgit project, how to compare that with small company discrimination? To stop all this, please ask Kerismuddin to stop asking for Chinese blood. Then stop all NEP crap. This is modern world. Don't have Jahiliah policy.

Anonymous said...

The Petronas writer is correct in theobservation. Its everywhere to be seen. I have in fact commented to Malaysiakini but was not posted. Anyway, the point is people like to see them as victims not when they are the victim creator. People talk about equality, respect for Constitution, but how many those non-muslims really respect Islam as the Official Rreligion of this country? I bet it will be hard to find a surau in non-muslim offices/institutions. If there was, it would probably be hidden somewhere out of sight and out of mind. Just see how many peole respect Bahasa Melayu as the National Language. But all said and done nothing much can be done since they controlled everything. Even worst they are also ably supported by the so called Liberal Muslims!