Multi-Ethnicity in The Malaysian Workplace: Scratching The Surface

By Max U. Montesino, Ed.D.

Division of Organizational Leadership and Supervision

Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne

Introduction

Multiculturalism is both an asset and a challenge for any society. If one can imagine the perfect laboratory to study multi-ethnicity in the marketplace and see how intercultural relations conduce to both, productive behaviors and potential for conflict at work, that place should be Malaysia. The rest of the world has a lot to learn from the interaction of this rainbow of ethnic groups, classes, regions, languages, religions, worldviews, and styles that is the country born the 31st of August, 1957 out of the colonies, settlements, sultanates and protectorates controlled by the British in the Malay peninsula (previously known as “Malaya”) and the island of Borneo. Any preconceived idea about intercultural relations will be challenged once you go deep into the heart of this amazingly, kaleidoscopic society. Its study becomes more complicated because it has cross-cultural angles, as well as inter and intra-cultural ones. It was estimated that by the year 2000 the Malaysian workforce would be around 9.3 millions people (Abdullah, 2001). The purpose of this paper is to describe the complexity of multi-ethnicity in the Malaysian workplace, hoping that, by scratching its surface, we can begin to learn from this extraordinary human lab located at the southernmost tip of mainland Asia.

Malaysia is one of the most diverse and harmonious countries in the Islamic world. Its heterogeneity is explained by the history of the country, full of migrations in and out, travels, commercial interactions, conquering, intermingling, warfare, cross-breading, and the like. That ethnic diversity has played a pivotal role in the making of the country and the remarkable progress observed in its economy during its 48 years of independence, better than most of its neighboring countries, with the exception of Singapore. Of course, multiculturalism as a social phenomenon has evolved in Malaysia in ways that differ from its evolution in other countries. It has also evolved differently in several regions within the country. That multiculturalism manifests itself in the workplace in ways that represent both a challenge for its management, as well as an opportunity for the future of the country. According to Asma Abdullah (2001), Malaysia “has often been described as a ‘minefield of multicultural sensitivities‘ due to its diverse racial and ethnic composition. Like its population composition, each workplace comprises, in varying proportions, the different races and ethnic groups-Bumiputra (comprising the Malays, Dayaks, Ibans, Kadazans, and Muruts), Chinese, Indian and other smaller racial groups” (p.1).

This paper is aimed at exploring multi-ethnicity in Malaysia, as seen by a foreign observer. I visited the country as part of the Fulbright-Hays Program during the summer of 2005, an educational tour coordinated by the Malaysian-American Commission on Educational Exchange (MCEE). This paper is the result of my extensive observations in the country, interviews with many people, pre-and-post trip reading, and my conversations with national experts in the fields of management, social work, political science, law, history, education, anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines, both inside and outside Malaysia. To have a preliminary idea of the subject matter, I visited schools, factories, universities, police stations, jails, commercial offices, headquarters of political parties, longhouses of indigenous people, non-profit organizations, government offices, museums, farms, research institutes, homes, forest preserves, palm and rubber plantations, cities, towns, villages, hotels, houses of prayer, laboratories, radio and TV stations, libraries, hospitals, community centers, small-medium-and-large business organizations, stores, malls, retail outlets, and many other places. I talked to educators, workers, professionals, students, diplomats, business people, front-line supervisors, men, women, children, politicians, middle-and-upper managers, bureaucrats, technocrats, religious leaders, and common people everywhere in Malaysia and Singapore. Of course, I recognize my extremely limited knowledge of Malaysia before my trip. Reading about Malaysians for three months pre-trip, spending six weeks traveling around the country, talking to people, listening to the experts, and browsing the literature post-trip do not completely equip me to categorically make many statements about the workplace in Malaysia; therefore, I confess that this paper only scratches the surface of multi-ethnicity in the Malaysian work environment. This is a preliminary publication of my work-in-progress.

A History that Explains the Diversity of Today‘s Workforce

Malaysia has always been a place for migrants to stop, do commerce, leave, come back, or establish roots among the natives. The indigenous people of the peninsula traded with the newcomers, allowing for the emergence of a highly diverse mixture of cultures to flourish. Trade created openness to diverse people, languages and cultures since ancient times. According to Hirschman (1985), early settlements established 500 to 1,500 years ago were small and concentrated in a few towns along the seacoast. Farther inland in the uplands and mountains were small aboriginal populations who were pushed to the interior when the Malay population settled the lowlands about 1,000 to 2,000 years ago. The Malay population, which is thought to have originated in South-Central Asia, migrated southward in prehistory and populated the Malay Peninsula, the Malay Archipelago, and much of the rest of Southeast Asia.

The presence of foreigners has always been a constitutive part of Malaysian history. At the History Museum of the city of Malacca I saw a display that traces the origin of the city (and for that matter, the history of the country) to its beginnings when Parameswara, a refugee prince from what is today Indonesia, founded the city and the Sultanate. A long list of foreign occupations followed, beginning with the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the Japanese, and the British again; until the nationalists forced the British imperial power to grant Malaysia‘s independence half a century ago. Except for the brief Japanese occupation during World War II (due to the fact that it happened during war time and many people suffered harsh treatment by the Japanese, mostly the ethnic Chinese), all other foreign occupiers over the years left some type of legacy that contributed to what Malaysia is today.

An influential flow of foreigners to the peninsula began with the arrival of the Portuguese in Melaka in 1511, coming from Goa, India. The Portuguese began an interesting trend in the region: Instead of pillaging the conquered city and leaving for the next target (as was the tradition of conquerors in the past), they stayed and set roots in the subjugated land. By the time the Dutch arrived and expelled them in 1641, the Portuguese had built settlements and married the locals, initiating the emergence of a minority population that the British (who negotiated the Dutch out of the straits settlements and the rest of the Malay peninsula between 1798 and 1874) later called “Eurasians.” Since then, the colonial domination of Southeast Asia became the domain of the Dutch in today‘s Indonesia, the British in today‘s Malaysia, and the French in mainland Indochina. The Kerajaan form of government (a fusion of royalty and church) that existed since ancient times in Malaysia was replaced by the British who took out the religious component of it and instituted a system in which they took over the governmental function and left the Sultans in charge of religion.

The history of contemporary Malaysia began in the 18th century. Of all the foreign occupiers since the early 1500s, British colonial policy was the major formative influence on Malaysia, according to The Economist (2004). As Hirschman (1985) pointed out, colonial penetration and the development of the export economy in the nineteenth century set the stage for the emergence of the plural society of the twentieth century. In the 19th century the country‘s economy took off with the production of tin and rubber. The tin boom was responsible for the important capitalist development that followed, with the construction of the main transportation arteries and the growth of urban centers along the western region of the peninsula. Tin was used for canned food and other industrial products, and rubber was used by the automotive industry in the west. According to Hirschman (1985), the shortage of labor was a major constraint on economic development, and few Malay peasants were willing to assume the role of cheap labor. The terrible working conditions, low remuneration, and authoritarian environment in the early mines and plantations did not present attractive economic opportunities to the Malay peasantry. The result was an extraordinary wave of immigration from China and India and from Sumatra, Java, and other islands of the Malay archipelago (Hirschman, 1985).

From the colonial times, a clear division of labor among the main ethnic groups began in Malaysia. Malays and other natives lived in the hinterland, producing food as farmers, peasants, hunters and fishermen; but detached from the marketplace, except for their contacts with merchants to buy goods they needed. In essence, the Malays were for a long time buyers, not sellers, according to an expatriate political scientist I interviewed. This expert told me that, for the Malays, the bazaar was a place outside the town, where you did not want your daughter to go. The market was, in essence, the domain of immigrants skillful in the art of sales. Chinese were brought by the British to work in tin mining. Their own arrival to the country was an enterprise itself. That enterprising fame has continued until today. With their expansion from tin mining to commerce in urban centers, the Chinese emerged as the first middle class in the 20th century in Malaysia, eventually controlling the marketplace. Indians were brought after 1890s to work in rubber plantations, railroad construction, civil service, and security. They came mostly from south India and Sri Lanka; and were mostly Tamil. With time, the Indians moved up to the professional disciplines (law, medicine, engineering, etc.). This division of labor served as mechanism of the British to keep the three main ethnic groups divided (and facilitated the imperial domination with fewer armed forces). It also formed the basis for the growth and development of the modern Malaysian marketplace, as an amalgamation of races, languages, cultures, and unique practices that amazes any foreigner observer.

Ethnic tensions in Malaysia preceded the process of independence. A historian in the northern region of the country told me that the British established a system of coexistence among the different ethnic groups, and that no major problems happened because everyone was interested in making money during the tin and rubber boom. According to this local historian in northern Perak, ethnic tensions raised as a result of actions of gangsters and secret societies among Chinese clans. When the police (made up of mostly Malays and Sikhs) was forced to intervene, the officers became the victims of the violence and the tensions became ethnic.

An unfamiliar reader may get confused with the nomenclature of Malaysia. What we now know as the country of Malaysia, by 1930s “consisted of the Straits Settlements (Penang, Malacca, and Singapore), the Federated Malay States (Selangor, Perak, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang), and the unfederated states (Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, Terengganu and Johor), as well as North Borneo (Sabah) and Sarawak,” according to The Economist (2004, p.4). Malaya (“Straits Settlements” minus Singapore, plus Federated Malay States, and nonfederated states) achieved independence from the British Empire in 1957. In 1963, Britain ended her rule in Sarawak and Sabah by allowing them to join with Malaya and Singapore to form the Federation of Malaysia (Kheng, 2003). In 1965, Singapore left Malaysia and became an independent sovereign state.

Malaysia is Diverse in Any Way Imaginable; Which Translates to the Market Place and Complicates its Management

Malaysia is, from any point of view, a fascinating, complex, and diverse country of 329,758 sq. km. Its diversity covers any imaginable scenario: Geography, biology, ethnicity, religion, politics, economics, history, language, law, and so forth. As the history of the country demonstrates, immigration accounts for most aspects of Malaysia‘s diversity. Even in terms of the country‘s cash crops, immigration played a crucial role in the emergence and development of Malaysia‘s most important plantations: Rubber was imported from Brazil and palm oil from West Africa. Economic diversity is evident since the plane touches downs: Wealth showing economic prosperity all over is mixed with pockets of poverty here and there, found in big cities, rural areas and among indigenous and immigrant populations in west Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak. Manufacturing constitutes the largest single component of Malaysia‘s economy. Tourism and primary commodities such as petroleum, palm oil, natural rubber and timber are major contributors to its economy.

In terms of ethnicity, Malaysia has been called “Asia in a microcosm.” The country‘s population is around 26 millions, distributed roughly as follows: Malay 57%, Chinese 27%, Indians 9%, others 7% (includes indigenous people, Eurasians, etc.). In all aspects of life in Malaysia, a crucial distinction is made between natives to the land (Malays and other indigenous groups) and immigrants (Chinese, Indians, Eurasians, and others). The term “Bumiputra” applies to the first group. According to Mason and Omar (2003), the term “first came into currency during the 1950s, during the course of the negotiation with British colonial authorities for the independence of Malaya. The word is from the Malay language, meaning ‘indigene.‘ Bumi means ‘soil;‘ putera means ‘son.” Literally translated, bumiputera means ‘son of the soil.‘ In Peninsula Malaysia, the Bumiputeras are essentially the Malays; and in the east Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah, the Bumiputeras include all the indigenous groups, both Muslims and non-Muslims: Malay, Melanau, Dayak (essentially non-Muslim natives, including the Iban, Bidayu, and the Orang Ulu), Kadazan-Dusun, Bajau and other native ethnic groups, as listed in Article 161 A of the Federal Constitution. The term excludes the Chinese and Indians, even those locally born, as they are regarded as migrant communities. The Bumiputera rubric does, however, include the Sam-Sams, the Malaysian Thai community found largely in the northern Malayan states bordering Thailand; and also the small Portuguese community, found largely in Melaka. Strictly speaking, therefore, the Bumiputera in Peninsula Malaysia refer to those indigenous ethnic groups who have come to make Malaya their home before the arrival of the British and the subsequent attendant ‘en mass‘ migration of the Chinese and Indian communities” (p.2).

Being the predominant group in the Bumiputera community, the Malays include the Javanese, Bugis, and Minangkabau. In Peninsula Malaysia, besides the aforementioned major groups, there is an ancient minority group called “Orang Asli.” According to Mason and Omar (2003), “the Orang Asli, literally the ‘original people‘ presents a unique situation in the interior of Malaya and are also referred as the ‘peribumi‘ to contradistinguish them from the Malays, who by comparison are more recent migrants vis-à-vis the Orang Asli” (p.2). According to Rahman (2005, p.25), the Orang Asli have been subdivided into three main groups: the Negritos (with 4 further subdivisions among themselves), the Senoi (with 6 further subdivisions among themselves), and the Proto-Malays (with 7 further subdivisions among themselves).

The ethnic make up of Sabah and Sarawak (on the island of Borneo) is more diverse than in the peninsula. According to Faruqi (2003, pp.53-54), in Sarawak, the ethnic groups are: the Bukitans, Bisayahs, Dusuns, Sea Dayaks (or Ibans), Land Dayaks (or Bidayuh), Kadayans, Kelabits, Kayans, Kenyahs (including Sabups and Sipengs), Kajangs (including Sekapans, Kejamans, Lahanans, Punans, Tanjongs and Kanowits), Lugats, Lisums, Malays, Melanos, Muruts (or Lun Bawang), Penans, Sians, Tagals, Tabuns, and Ukits. According to Faruqi (2003, p.54) the General Report of the Population Census, Vol. 1 issued by the Department of Statististics, Kuala Lumpur, 1995, lists the tribes in Sarawak as follows: Iban (29.8%), Chinese (28%), Malay (21.2%), Bidayuh (8.3%), Melanau (5.7%), other indigenous groups (6.1%), and others (0.9%). Regarding the ethnic composition of Sabah, Faruqi (2003, p.55) citing other sources said, “it is believed that there are 39 different indigenous ethnic communities in Sabah. The Kadazans form the single largest group representing nine linguistic subgroups. Other important groups include the Abai, Bajau, Baukan, Bisaya, Dumpas, Dusun, Gana, Coastal Kadazan, Kalakaban, Kimarangang, Kolod/Okolo, Kujian, Lingkabau, Lotud, Murut, Nabay, Rumanau, Rungus, Sebangkung, Serudung, Sinabu, Sumumbu, Tatana, Tambanua, Tagal, Tengara, and Timogun.

Some intermingling of ethnic groups has historically occurred in Malaysia. Three examples are the Peranakans (or Baba Nyonyas), Chittys, and the Portuguese-Eurasians. The Baba-Nyonyas or Peranacans are Straits-born Chinese descendants of Chinese-Malay intermarriages in the Straits Settlements. Currently, Peranacans live in Malaysia (mostly in Penang and Malacca), Singapore, and Thailand (Khor, 2004). They have adopted much of the Malay culture and the fusion of cultures has produced distinctive styles of architecture, language, furniture, clothing and cuisine (New Straits Times, 2004). The Chittys are Malacca Straits-born Indians, descendants of traders from the Coromandel Coast in South India, who have undergone an almost complete socio-cultural assimilation into the Malay community, except for religion (New Straits Times, 2004). The Portuguese-Eurasians, often referred to as ‘sons of the sea,‘ are descendants of the Portuguese conquistadors and speak a distinct Portuguese dialect (Christang), who have kept their mixed Lucitanian-Malaysian identity for hundreds of years in Malacca (New Straits Times, 2004).

Inter-ethnic divisions tend to run very deep in the country, but intra-ethnic divisions also exist. Malays tend to differ among themselves in term of classes, degree of devotion to their religious beliefs, and regions of the country. Actually, in terms of geography, the Malay world is highly divided; in that there are Malay populations in Thailand (mostly in the south), Indonesia (mostly in Java, Sumatra, and Kalimantan), Brunei, Singapore, the Philippines, and other countries, which put together tend to be numerically bigger than the Malay population currently in Malaysia. The Chinese and Indian Malaysians also show great intra-cultural diversity. The Chinese tend to differ in terms of spoken language, clan affiliation, religious affiliation, education level, and region of origin in China. Likewise, the Indians differ in terms of cast membership, level of education, language groups, and also region of origin in India. To add to the enormous diversity described thus far, other foreigners have migrated to work in Malaysia lately (both documented and undocumented workers). This includes migrant workers from Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and other countries of South and Southeast Asia.

Linguistically speaking, Malaysia is as diverse as it is in any other respects. Bahasa Melayu is the official language of the country and the one spoken by most Malays. Ethnic Chinese speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew and other smaller dialects such as Foochow, Henghua, Kwongsai, Hokchia and Hokchui. Indians speak mostly Tamil, Punjabi, Hindi-Hurdu, and several other languages and dialects spoken in the regions of India from where they migrated to Malaysia for hundreds of years. However, many Chinese and Indian dialects in Malaysia have been increasingly dying out in favor of the respective predominant languages, Mandarin and Tamil; phenomenon reinforced by the country‘s educational system. Javanese is widely spoken among the Malay inhabitants of the southern regions of the peninsula, and Thai towards the north. Most indigenous groups speak their own languages and dialects.

Linguistic diversity has been a historical feature of the country. It has even been a constitutive part of the official language itself: Bahasa Melayu has taken words and expressions from every language it has been in contact with through the years, enriching itself with every linguistic encounter. That is, embedded in the official language of Malaysia you will find words that come from Arabic, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese languages, Hindi, English, and so forth. Although there has been a push to make Bahasa Melayu the language of education, government, and day-to-day use, because of a noticeable cultural segregation explained later, it is still ethnically confined, the same way that are Mandarin and Tamil. In primary schools the languages used are Bahasa Melayu, Mandarin, Tamil, Arabic, and English. In secondary schools the Tamil language is dropped, and at college level, Mandarin is also dropped. In conclusion, the only language that is used at all levels of schooling and is not ethnically confined in Malaysia is English.

Malaysians, in general, are very religious people. The early Malays were animists. Through trade with India, they were exposed to Hinduism and Buddhism. Islam arrived in the region via Arab, India and Chinese traders who were Muslims and served as missionaries in the mid-7th century AD. When the second Malaccan king became Muslim, the spread of Islam was rapid. According to Ismail (2003), the gradual spread of Islam amongst the Malay populace in the Peninsula resulted in its adoption of state religion beginning early in the fourteen century. Although Islam is the official religion of the state, other religious beliefs are practiced without much government restriction. During my stay in Malaysia, I visited Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, and other temples, pagodas, mosques, Christian churches, and all sort of religious houses of prayer that exist close to each other in any neighborhood of any city across the country. Religion in Malaysia is ethnically determined: the Malays must be Muslim, speak Bahasa Melayu, and practice Malay culture (as established by the law); most Chinese tend to be Buddhists, Confucionists, Taoists, and Christians; most Indians tend to be Hinduists and Buddhists; many indigenous groups have their own religious beliefs and practices.

Ethnicity and politics cannot be separated in the Malaysian context. During colonial times, the British kept ethnic groups divided to control them more effectively, and after independence in1957, ethnicity in politics has been institutionalized: The major political parties represent the interests of specific ethnic groups. For instance, the current ruling coalition (Barisan Nasional) is made up of UMNO (United Malay National Organization), MCA (Malaysian Chinese Association), and MIC (Malaysian Indian Congress). The opposition is likewise ethnic-based. One of the main opposition parties is the Malaysian Islamic Party, whose membership is mostly Malay. The same tendency is observed among the minority parties. For instance, the membership of the Socialist Party of Malaysia is predominantly Tamil Indian.

The basic political arrangement in Malaysia is federalism imported from the U.S. via U.K. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy with a bi-cameral parliament, made up of 13 states, and the federal territories of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya. Although it sounds strange, the monarchy is also diverse. While the rest of the world knows of royal families that pass the throne from one generation to another, in Malaysia the throne rotates every five years among the sultans. This is a very unique arrangement of monarchical rotation not practiced anywhere else. Even the legal system in Malaysia is diverse to accommodate the different segments of the society. The Common Civil Law developed during the British occupation applies to anyone in the country. Shyariah Law, steaming from the Quran, applies to the Muslims, and Native & Customary Law applies to natives, non-Muslim groups.

Diversity: Crucial in the Building of the Nation and its Marketplace

As I said before, ethnicity permeates every facet of the Malaysian society. It has been a crucial factor in the process of nation building. As Yacob (2005, p.4) stressed, “the nature of Malaysian society being multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-cultural, as well as multi-religious, presents considerable challenge to the task of successful nation building, and the need to build a new political culture is therefore an essential part of the process.” Uneven development, economic disparities, and social divisions characterized the later years of the British rule in Malaya. Yacob (2005) characterizes the political culture of the colonial period as a fragmented one. The vast majority traditional Malays were kept away from the emerging export-oriented marketplace and almost exclusively devoted to food production to sustain themselves and supply the non-agrarian segments of the society, while the Malay aristocracy joined the British to enjoy the privilege of symbolically controlling the government. According to Omar (2003), while paternalistic toward the Malays, British colonial authorities made only token attempts to rectify the widening gap between the Malay natives and the migrant communities. Although the Chinese and Indians initially came to Malaysia to get rich and go back to China and India, they stayed in the country for years in a legal limbo regarding citizenship. ‘Divide and rule‘ was the British norm in colonial times; ethnic bargaining started after independence. Citizenship was granted to those foreigners born after 1957 or who have lived enough time in the country. As a result of this compromise, the Malays would retain political supremacy, but with good pre-independence networking and hard work, the Chinese and Indians prospered; to the extent that the Chinese quickly became the most important economic stakeholders in the country.

The challenge of ethnic tensions has existed in Malaysia for many years. It has gotten to the point of confrontation at several junctures of the country‘s history: 1913, 1945, 1957, 1963, 1964, and 1969. The ethnic-based riots of May 13, 1969 in Kuala Lumpur between Malays and Chinese became a turning point in Malaysian history. According to Mason and Omar (2003), “the alleged fundamental cause of the racial tension between the Chinese and the Malays was the unequal socio-economic standing of the two ethnic groups” (p.3). As a result of it, the National Economic Policy (NEP) was enacted to try to correct economic imbalances and reduce poverty, to the advantage of the Bumiputra population that had been historically lagging behind in terms of income generation (no Bumiputra middle class existed before 1969, according to experts I interviewed). A similar initiative (National Cultural Policy-NCP) was also enacted. New laws were introduced to curb politicking and to promote national unity. “Rukunegara” became known as the pillar of national unity. It was the first attempt at creating a post-independence national ideology for the country.

Economic disparities characterized the early post-independence period in Malaysia. The National Economic Policy (NEP) was enacted under the promise that most Malays had not benefited from post independence (1957-1969) economic growth and became frustrated. Therefore, there was a need for some type of economic strategy to help uplift the Bumiputras. The positive discrimination initiatives contained in NEP included ethnic quotas in higher education, regulation of access to state assistance, provision of business opportunities for the protected groups, ethnic-based quotas in civil service recruitment, the goal for Bumiputra to acquire 30% of the equity in private business, and more. The goals were to restructure the economy so that Bumiputras got involved in the modern sectors of the economy, and to eradicate poverty regardless of ethnicity. According to Gomez (2003), NEP targeted to increase Bumiputera corporate equity ownership from 2% in 1971 to 30% by 1990. From colonial times and prior to the enactment of NEP, the prevailing practice was for the Chinese to own the business, the Indians would be their lawyers, advisors (and providers of other types of professional services) and the majority of Malays would be somehow detached from the marketplace except for their participation in the agricultural sector. According to Faruqi (2003), the policy of favoring Malays had its origins in the colonial period and was written into law in the constitution of the Federation of Malaya in 1957 and the subsequent Malaysian constitution in 1963. The position of the natives of Sarawak and Sabah were put on par with the Malays in Peninsula Malaysia following the amendment to the Federal constitution in 1971.

The NEP implementation period from 1971 to 1990 produced a net effect of transforming Malaysia from its pre-riots economic characteristics. During that period, there was a cooptation of the opposition to curb politics; provided for greater Malay pre-eminence in political, cultural, and national ideology; transformed the colonial division of labor; and propelled the state to move from laissez-faire to actively intervene in the economy. The division of labor imposed by the British during the colonial time was transformed radically as a direct result of NEP implementation: Now civil service, police, armed forces, and Foreign Service are dominated by Malays; non-Malays have been forced to the private sector. NEP also strengthened the state as an important economic stakeholder. From 1971 on, the state played the roles of creator of opportunities, regulator of business, and major investor in many sectors of the economy. For instance, the state owned only 22 public enterprises in 1966; that number climbed to 1,149 in 1992. The National Development Policy (1991-2000) that followed NEP, continued with NEP‘s twin objectives. The National Vision Policy (NVP), also known on the Malaysian streets as “Vision 2020,” still carries some of the original economic goals of uplifting the socio-economic standing of the Malays and other ethnic native groups.

After the ethnic-based riots of May 13, 1969, the National Cultural Policy (NCP) was enacted. The objective was to strengthen the Malay identity of the nation, and “Rukunegara” was devised to give meaning to the purpose of racial harmony in Malaysia. Although the basic ingredients of the Malaysian political culture were essentially Malay prior to May 13, 1969 (the traditional symbols from the feudal system, the institution of monarchy, Islam as the official religion, Bahasa Melayu as the national language [Yacob, 2005]), the NCP came to reconfirm it and reinforce it. The NCP consisted of three pillars: a) Malaysian culture must be based on traditional Malay culture; b) other cultures can be included in the national culture; c) a and b must not go against the teaching of Islam. “Rukunegara” contained the five principles of nationhood, in an attempt to base the national philosophy on unity. These principles can be summarized as: a) belief in God, b) loyalty to king and country, c) supremacy of the constitution, d) the rule of law, and e) mutual respect and morality. All these principles were devised in order to accommodate the different ethnic groups that make up the country.

As we see, ethnic diversity has always been at the forefront in the process of building the Malaysian nation. It has played a pivotal role in all historical developments after the country‘s independence, and is bound to be a determinant factor in its future.

Multiculturalism in Malaysia‘s Workforce: Differences With Other Countries and Internally

Multiculturalism in Malaysia has evolved in unique ways that differ from other countries. As a crossroad in Asia, Malaysia has benefited from commerce and exchanges from the four cardinal points (Indonesia to the south, India to the west, Thailand and the rest of mainland Indochina to the north, China and the Philippines to the east). The differences are visible not only between countries, but also within Malaysia itself. For instance, here I explain the contrast between the United States and Malaysia, Singapore and Malaysia; but also the stark contrast between west (peninsular) and east Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak); and even the differences between west peninsular Malaysia (toward the Straits of Malacca) and east peninsular Malaysia (toward the South China sea). Due to the limitations of my trip, I could not observe in depth the differences between Sabah and Sarawak in east Malaysia (which could be a project for the future). I also noticed a lot of influences from neighboring countries, such as from Singapore and Indonesia in Johor Baru (southernmost tip of mainland Asia), from Thailand in Penang and other northern sites, from Kalimantan (Indonesian part of southern Borneo) and Brunei in Sarawak, and from the Philippines and the Celebes Islands in Sabah.

I visited the country as part of a group of educators from the United States trying to understand multicultural Malaysia. Therefore, the first temptation (and also the first mistake) one makes is to compare the host country with the homeland. For historical reasons, multiculturalism in the U.S.A. and in Malaysia evolved under different circumstances, and show distinct characteristics. While the U.S.A. prides itself in the notion of a “melting pot” (E Pluribus Unum), Malaysia consciously has become a “stew pot” (multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and multi-religious). Americans tend to be, generally speaking, individualistic people; Malaysians are collectivistic and hierarchical in nature. While “affirmative action” policies in the U.S.A. were implemented to cater to minorities; in Malaysia, “positive discrimination” policies were put in place to uplift the numerical majority (Bumiputras, roughly 62 % of the population), which are politically dominant but economically disadvantaged communities. While employers in the U.S.A. would violate the law if they advertise a position asking for a particular ethnic group to apply to the exclusion of other ethnic groups, in Malaysia it is perfectly legal to actively recruit to the exclusion of certain ethnic groups. According to Guan (2005), “another unique feature of Malaysian affirmative action is that preferential treatment for the Malays and other indigenous groups was written into the Malaysian Constitution, under Article 153. In other words, affirmative action in Malaysia is a constitutionally sanctioned and exclusively ethnic-based policy where only Malays and other native groups are entitled to receive preferential treatment” (p.211).

Malaysia and Singapore share many things in common, but are different in many respects. Ever since the Sultan of Johor gave the island of Singapore to the British in 1819, these two countries have been connected through geography, culture, and economics. Although these two nations have been intimately related since ancient times (and were from 1963 to 1965 part of the same country again), they differ with respect to the ways in which they evolved as multi-ethnic societies, and the ways they manage ethnic relations and equilibrium. Although the major ethnic and linguistic groups are the same in both countries (Malays, Chinese, and Indian), Malays are majority in Malaysia and Chinese are majority in Singapore. Bahasa Melayu is the official language of Malaysia, while English, Mandarin, Bahasa Melayu, and Tamil are the four official languages of Singapore. Although politics in both countries is linked to ethnic lines, and the policies for homeland security followed a very similar path, ethnic tensions in Singapore seem to be less intense than in Malaysia. While in Malaysia there is not state-induced policy for keeping population proportions along ethnic lines, in Singapore the government makes conscious effort to keep the ethnic proportions of the population the way they currently are; based on the notion that the current proportions (roughly 75% Chinese, 15% Malay, 8% Indians, 2% Eurasians and others) have worked well to reduce racial tensions to a minimum. This fascination with proportionality in Singapore translates to the schools, the housing projects, and many other facets of the country‘s life. While the school system in Malaysia very seldom includes in the curriculum discussions about the culture of each ethnic group, the school system in Singapore prides itself in having a fully developed program of national education to teach school children about racial harmony the moment they enter school. While Islam is the official religion of Malaysia, Singapore is a secular state with no official religion. At the level of the workplace, Malaysia and Singapore share a lot of similarities: A strong emphasis on productivity, an educational system that supports the corporative character of their economies, the dynamism of being a cross-road between the east-west commercial routes, and an awareness of the importance of work efficiency and straightforwardness. Affirmative action policies tend to be a bit different, in that in Singapore the government makes a clear effort at keeping the same proportions of employees in government as the ethnic groups that make up the population. As a university professor in Singapore told me, besides this careful consideration of proportionality, the civil service in Singapore tends to practice more meritocracy than in Malaysia.

Even for the least observant of the visitors, the contrast between west Malaysia (Malacca peninsula and adjacent islands) and east Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak) are striking. East Malaysia is, generally speaking, poorer than west Malaysia. This regional disparity is responsible for the sense of deprivation that many Sarawakans and Sabahans feel; and is also behind the “kami-kama” attitude that persists among them, as a psychologist told me in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. Although the communication infrastructure of the west is visibly more advanced than the east, there are more ethnic groups sharing east Malaysia than in the west (more than 20 groups in Sarawak and more than 35 in Sabah); and no group constitutes absolute numerical majority over other. An anthropologist in Sabah told me that the society in Sabah and Sarawak tends to be relatively egalitarian, while in west Malaysia it is more hierarchical. While in the west there is more compartmentalization of ethnic boundaries among Malays, Indians, and Chinese; in the east, cultural diversity and integration seem to be more visible. The history of east Malaysia registers less racial tension in general than in the west, and I saw first hand the existence of many bi-racial families. A Malay social worker I interviewed in Sarawak told me that when she went to Kuala Lumpur to study, she suffered a cultural shock because to her west Malaysia looked like another country, despite the fact that she found in the west the same ethnic groups among which she had lived all her life in Sarawak. Religious tolerance seems to be more pronounced in east Malaysia than in the west. I saw an example of that tolerance first hand when I visited an Iban longhouse along the Lemanak river in Sarawak. Some members of the tribe living together in this huge communal house had the Christian cross on their door and the next door showed the animist offerings to their deities two meters apart from the Christian cross. A tourist guide told me that gender roles are more balanced in the east than in the west. These differences translate to the workplace in that east Malaysian ethnic groups seem to get along easier and communicate with each more at work than west Malaysians. According to the people I entered in contact with in Sarawak and Sabah, their perception is that the civil service in east Malaysia is less politicized than in west Malaysia. There are differences even in terms of the Federal constitution and the constitutions of the States of Sabah and Sarawak regarding who qualify as ‘native‘ in west and east Malaysia. As Faruqi (2003) points out, as it presently written, Peninsula Malays qualify as natives of Sarawak and Sabah but there appear to be legal and political difficulties about enforcing privileges for Sabah natives in Sarawak, Sarawak natives in Sabah, and natives from both these states in Peninsula Malaysia.

As a manifestation of the great diversity explained before, even within peninsular Malaysia can the observant visitor notice geographical and attitudinal differences. West coast peninsular Malaysia (toward the straits of Malacca) tend to be more urbanized, industrialized, westernized, and secularized than east coast peninsular Malaysia (toward the South China sea). The major south-north land transportation facilities are also located on the western part of the peninsula (Johor, Melaka, Negeri-Sembilan, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Perak, Kedah, Penang, Perlis), as well as the major ports. East coast peninsular Malaysia (Kelantan, Terengganu, and Pahang) tend to be more rural, agricultural-based, and more religious than the rest of the peninsula.

Multi-ethnicity in the Malaysian Workforce as a Challenge

It has taken 50 years to physically transform Malaysia, but it will take a little bit longer to transform the minds of the Malaysians, according to what a management expert told me. The challenges for the country are many. For the sake of brevity, I will refer here to some of the ones I was able to observe during my trip this summer 2005; such as the existence of a highly segregated educational system with little opportunity for intercultural interactions, the ghost of inter-ethnic tensions as a latent phenomenon in the country, the accentuation of intra-ethnic disparities that create potential for conflicts, the new problems created by the policies designed to correct economic imbalances, and some less productive by-products of ethno-politics in the country.

The Malaysian educational system is “de facto” segregated. Educational experts I interviewed told me that the main ethnic groups tend to attend particular types of schools and engaged very little in honest discussions about their similarities and cultural differences. In regards to attending primary and secondary schools, the main ethnic groups show differences worth mentioning. Three of the main types of schools in Malaysia are the national schools, the vernacular schools (specialized schools geared to the Chinese and Indian communities), and the mission schools (managed by Christian churches). Although the government funds all three, Malays attend mostly national schools, Chinese and Indians attend mostly vernacular schools, and all three ethnic groups tend to attend mission schools. After 1970, to increase the matriculation of Malays in college, the government encouraged the establishment of private colleges so that the non-Malays still had a chance to get a college education. This has resulted in a predominantly Malay-and-other-Bumiputras student population in the 12 public universities, and Chinese, Indians, Eurasians, and others matriculated predominantly in the hundreds of private colleges and universities across the country.

The different ethnic groups seem to know very little about each other‘s cultural background. The building of walls between the groups has increased after 1969. As a result of the perceived inequalities of the previous 20 years, when the Asian crisis hit Malaysia in the 1990s the ethnic groups in the country became more inward looking. Tensions also raise when the poor Malay get incentives from the government and poor Indians, Chinese and non-Malay Bumis do not. As Oo (1991) put it, the 1969 racial riots violently replaced the cultural pluralism of post-independent Malaysia with a new era of increasingly ethnocentric articulations. People tend to make conscious choices regarding the places where they prefer to live, accentuating a tendency toward voluntary physical segregation. An Eurasian teacher told me that before the1980s, children of different ethnic backgrounds tended to mixed more than now. He further confessed that stereotypes about each race abound and jokes about each group are told inward, but these jokes are not shared between ethnic groups because it would call for a personal conflict or worse. A native told me (and an expatriate manager confirmed it) that Malaysians of different ethnic backgrounds mix with each other during work time, but neither go together for lunch, nor get together after work. A college professor told me that there is an economic reason to work together, but culturally “we are separated.”

There seems to be very little opportunities for intercultural interactions at school and at work. The limited opportunities offered by the educational system for the youth seem to be reinforced by an unwillingness to engage in honest discussions about race at societal level, and a very weak system for inter-cultural training at the level of the workplace. This tendency towards voluntary cultural isolation observed during my trip in 2005 seems to be a legacy from the colonial times. In a still unpublished paper, Shakila Yacob (2005, p.5) wrote that “during the colonial period in Malaya there were very few opportunities for members of the three racial groups to interact socially. Indeed, their separation was preserved and reinforced in the premeditated colonial policy of maintaining a division of labor along ethnic lines.” Still today, instances of racial intolerance, distrust, and defensiveness exist, after almost half a century of independence (Yacob, 2005), with very little formal and informal opportunities for inter-cultural discussions and mutual understanding at macro-societal level and micro-societal levels, such as the workplace. Another perspective that shed light on this issue is the notion of “imposed cultural isolation” in modern times by specific government policies to suppress dissent. Guan (2005, p.212) explained it in these terms: “The ethnic preferential policy has invariably generated intense controversy in Malaysian society, with the majority Malays, Chinese, and Indians, taking diametrically opposing views. This inflammatory public issue and the emotionally charged debate it has generated, however, has not deteriorated into outright ethnic violence as had happened earlier in 1969. A combination of punitive laws (such as Internal Security Act and the Sedition Act) and coercive actions were used throughout the 1970s and 1980s to stifle debate. However, because the state was suppressing the discussion, the quality of reasoned arguments for and against affirmative action also stagnated.” Because of the sensitivities aforementioned, diversity training as we know it elsewhere in the world is very limited in Malaysia. I asked the question around to many professionals and lay people and got very similar response: We do not want to talk about it for fear that it will stir controversies and incite tensions. I did not have enough time to interview many experts, but based on the limited interviews I made, the offering of this type of training at work seem very scarce. In many Malaysian work organizations it is totally non-existing.

It is well known that people carry their cultural baggage to the workplace. As Abdullah (2001) put it, “for example, a Malay manager [in a work situation] would tend to emphasize the values of family togetherness, harmony, relationships and ‘give and take;‘ while a Chinese will regard highly the values of hard work and financial incentives. Indians, on the other hand, may prefer respect for elders and harmony. These ethnic-based values tend to pervade the workplace. Managers are expected to take them into consideration when making decisions and solving problems” (p.4). The same way that cultural baggage may facilitate inter-ethnic understanding, it also may facilitate the spreading of stereotypes. Several examples of ethnic stereotypes abound in Southeast Asia, embraced by ethnic groups within the country, as well as sustained from the former colonial superpowers in the region. For instance, the Malays have been historically portrayed as people full of parochialism, driven by local loyalties, rather than national ones. A historian told me that one of the reasons why the British kept the sultanate system in place and co-opted the Malay aristocrats was to preserve this parochialism and divide to conquer. While the Chinese are seen as critical of their leaders, Malays and Indians are usually portrayed as not questioning their political elites. Chinese are also portrayed as placing a premium on education, which can explain their proclivity to upward mobility, as compared to the Indians and other ethnic groups. On the other hand, other groups see the ethnic Chinese as being more inward looking, culturally speaking. These types of perceptions lead to stereotypes of the different ethnic groups. When I asked an Indian merchant about teamwork in a multicultural workplace in Malaysia, he told me that the Malay would be the leader (perceived as fair and well suited for managerial roles), the Indian would be the secretary (perceived as used to the professional practice), and the Chinese would be the treasurer (entrepreneurial, commercially savvy).

Another kind of stereotype about Southeast Asians involves the perception of some people from the former colonial superpowers about the natives of the region. Professor Hirschman (1986) offered a very good account of a very well known stereotype about the Malays, spread by imperialists Europeans for years to justify their occupation of Malaya. Hirschman (1986, p.345) said “one of the most frequent stereotypes of Southeast Asians, especially of Malays, was of indolence or laziness.” He continues by saying that “in his excellent book (The Myth of the Lazy Native), Hussein Alatas (1977) finds such expressions about Malays, Javanese, and Filipinos throughout the colonial period. Hussein Alatas concludes that this stereotype was founded on the unwillingness of Southeast Asians to work for Europeans. Given the terms of employment--in wages and working conditions—offered by Europeans relative to traditional fishing and agriculture, Malays made the economically rational choice” (Hirschman, 1986, p.345). Professor Hirschman further explains that besides resisting the rules of the game by the European occupiers, some other internal social factors need to be taken into account. Citing the work of McNair (1972), he wrote that “the social explanation says that any economic gains will simply be confiscated by local elites: It is no advantage to a man to cultivate a goodly piece of land, and raise crops that were not for his own eating, to grow fruits that were absorbed by the Sultan or chief and their numerous followings; or to become the possessor of buffaloes that might be seized any day to draw the properties of his lord” (Hirschman, 1986, p.345). The remarkable economic achievements of the almost five decades of post-independence in Malaysia validate Professor Hirschman‘s assertion about the wrongness of this imperialist stereotype about the lazy native.

The ghost of ethnic tension is a latent phenomenon in the country. Oo (1991) described the notion of ethnocentrism as a challenge for the future of the country in these terms: “Malaysians display a pot-pourri of cultural diversity which, in itself, is a microcosm of Nusantara, Asian, and European lineages. There are incidents of some assimilation among different racial groups, either by choice or circumstances, over the passage of history. But generally, these groups have remained characteristically distinct in terms of their original heritage. Despite efforts at national integration through policy instruments, Malaysians have remained Malays, Chinese, Indians, Eurasian, Sarawakans, and Sabahans” (Oo, 1991, p.5). The notion of “divide and rule” attributed to the British Empire in Malaysia still exists, as many people told me during my visit. Many of the social scientists I interviewed told me that it is easy to spark a conflict in Malaysia in any environment (and the workplace is one of them), due to the underlying threat of inter-ethnic tensions. Some ethnic segments of the society (part of the Chinese entrepreneurial class, which controls the economy) have been able to contain their dissatisfaction with the policies espoused by positive discrimination because they would have a lot to lose if tensions become violent. Others segments of the society (low income Indians, for example) have turned to more political radicalization to make their voices heard.

Not everyone agrees with the policies of affirmative action in Malaysia. It is something that almost everyone welcomes when it benefits them, and complains about it when it hurts them. Chinese and Indians resent the policies for college admission because the quota system favors Bumiputras, even when the applicants from their ethnic groups document more merits for admission. On the other hand, Malays resent the fact that the private sector (dominated by Chinese and upper class Indians) seem to discriminate against them; but Chinese and Indians were virtually confined to the private sector by the policies in place as part of the NEP implemented to uplift Bumiputras. In July 2005, while I was in the country, at the UMNO National Assemble, the UMNO youth wing proposed to revive the NEP to finish the job of achieving the Bumiputra participation in the 30% of the country‘s equity (Ritikos, 2005). This notion of reviving NEP was resented by the Chinese and Indians parties, which together with UMNO form the “Barisan Nasional” ruling coalition. In his opinion article published by The Star newspaper, Wong Sulong (2005) sadly commented that “after nearly 50 years of independence and 35 years of the NEP, Malaysians are still very divided on how the economic cake is to be shared;” adding later that “affirmative action policies will continue whatever the nametag. The question is how to make it more equitable and less divisive.” Sulong (2005) concluded that “Malaysians must stop chasing and biting their own tails through endless argument about who gets what share of the national economic pie. Ensure the pie gets bigger, and faster, first. What is there to share if it shrinks? And it will shrink if we are not globally competitive.”

Some intellectual circles in Malaysia recognize that affirmative action policies have created overdependence in some segments of the society. Undoubtedly, NEP, NDP, and NVP have contributed to the improvement of the economic conditions of the Malays and have led to the emergence of a sizable Malay middle-class; but these affirmative economic policies have also created over-dependence on government inducements in some strata of the newly emerged Bumiputra middle-class. Paraphrasing the paper that Hamid (2003) presented at the Seminar on “The Bumiputera Policy,” in Penang, 23-25, September 2003, Mason and Omar (2003) said that this Malay middle-class was artificial, created by and dependent on government support. Hamid (2003) attributes the debacle befalling Malay business in 1997-98 to the over-dependence on the government. As Guan (2005, p.212) put it, “since the 1990s, however, a number of factors and developments have contributed to opening up the public space for Malaysians citizens to debate the country‘s ethnic preferential policy. Perhaps the single most important development is that of the emergence from within the Malay community of voices that are skeptical and critical of the policy. Even from within the United Malay National Organization (UMNO), doubts and anxieties have plagued certain leaders regarding the negative impacts of affirmative action on the Malays, individually and as a community.” The best-known contemporary politician in Malaysia, former Prime Minister Mahathir Bin Mohamad has discussed some of these issues publicly, contributing to a better understanding of it (see Hong, 2001; and Loh, 2002).

Race relations have become a lot more complicated by the emergence of intra-ethnic disparities. Some segments within the ethnic groups have become richer than others, adding to the complexity of race relations in the country. According to Oo (1991), these intra-ethnic disputes and hostile factionalism exist amidst dormant inter-ethnic rivalries. This situation is more accentuated among Indians, rich and poor Malays, and marginalized indigenous populations (non-Malay bumiputeras) in west and east Malaysia. Although NEP solved major societal problems, it also created new ones. For instance, economic disparities pre-1969 tended to be almost exclusively inter-ethnic in nature, now in the 21st century they are intra-ethnic too. Besides, scholars who study the country for decades told me that currently there is more government emphasis on wealth restructuring than on poverty eradication. Again, paraphrasing Oo (1991), intra-ethnic disputes have been aggravated by new problems related to class, interest groups, and generational conflicts, which transcend ethnic differences. Oo (1991) said that the chameleon-like nature of Malaysian politics merely camouflages the real problems of race relations and national integration in Malaysia.

Non-Malay groups sometimes complain of a Malay cultural hegemony in the country. According to Kheng (2003, pp.230-231), “in Malaysia during the period of British rule and up to the immediate post-independence period in the 1960s, the nation‘s history textbooks were open, impartial, pluralistic, and accommodated every ethnic group. However, after the country‘s bloody May 13, 1969 interracial riots, the Malay-dominated government imposed Malay history and Malay cultural identity on the other ethnic groups.” Kheng (2003, pp.230-231) continues the argument by saying that “this was done in line with the demands of rising Malay ethno-nationalism in the country. There has been resistance from the non-Malay ethnic groups, and from their political parties, so that the policy has not received full public endorsement. In recent years, the Malay culture policy has been moderated and downgraded owing to the twists and turns of national politics.”

Non-Malay groups also complain about the effects of positive discrimination policies. This is particularly important for the Chinese, whose enterprising spirit and love for education finds obstacles in the quota system established by the policies of NEP. Educators I interview in the country told me that the Chinese value education so much that even under unequal conditions (for instance, Bahasa Melayu is the secondary school language in the country) Chinese students excel more comparatively, as measured by standardized tests and other educational measurements. On the other hand, although NEP was implemented to level the playing-field for Bumiputras, Malays have not yet achieved the goal of participating in 30% of the country‘s equity (I heard in August 2005 that it is currently about 23%); and, according to Fee (2002) many Indians find themselves marginalized and impoverished without much hope for uplifting themselves as other ethnic groups have done. I also read on the newspapers (while in Malaysia) that some instances of religious intolerance reported by the press tend to scare intellectuals. Instances of religious intolerance affect Muslims and non-Muslims, according to the comments I read on the New Straits Times during the months of July and August, 2005.

Some researchers in and outside Malaysia point out that ethnic preferential policies have contributed to the formation of ethnic enclaves in the society. To exemplify how these ethnic enclaves manifest themselves in the workplace, Guan (2005, p.216) said that “the public service sector is an excellent example of how preferential hiring has transformed a previously ethnically diverse sector into one that is almost ethnically homogeneous. Prior to the implementation of NEP in 1971, although Malays dominated the public service sector, it had nevertheless quite a sizable representation of Chinese and Indians. Systematic preferential hiring of Malays at the expense of recruiting non-Malays had by the 1990s transformed the civil service into a wholly Malay enclave.” Furthermore, Guan (2005) reports that “anecdotal evidence would suggest that ethnic enclaves in the business sector are quite pervasive at the company level. On the one hand, corporatized and privatized public service and enterprises, such as Petronas, Proton, Telkom, Tenaga and so on, have remained largely Malay entities. Malay-owned companies generally also tended to have a predominantly Malay workforce. On the other hand, the majority of Chinese-owned companies, especially the small and medium enterprises, employ a largely Chinese (in fact Mandarin speaking) workforce. Interestingly, it is the multinational companies that are likely to have an ethnically diverse workforce.”

Malays and other Bumiputras often complain about the Chinese economic hegemony in the country. These complaints resemble the dissatisfaction that Chinese, Indians and other non-Bumiputras express about Malay‘s cultural hegemony. Commenting Gomez‘s (2003) paper presented at the Seminar on “Bumiputera Policy” in Penang, 23-25 September, 2003, Mason and Omar (2003, p.4) said that “Gomez points out that in the initial stage of the NEP, bumiputera (read Malay) participation [in the private sector equity ownership] were minimal. Among the leading companies, prominent Malays were appointed to the boards of director, essentially to secure access to the government and to bypass bureaucratic red-tape. These directors had equity ownership but were not active in the management of the enterprise. At the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) level, ‘Ali-Baba‘ relationships were forged, wherein Malays provided the contracts while the Chinese would implement them. Accordingly, Chinese economic hegemony was not broken or even challenged.”

A by-product of ethno-politics is the existence of an assortment of exclusionary practices in the market. Although the strong support for the private sector and the corporatization of the country has brought about economic prosperity to a big proportion of the population, it has also increased nepotism, cronyism, and other corrupt practices in both the private sector and government. Some people attribute this phenomenon to abuses of NEP, NDP, and NVP implementation. By the same token, some ethnic groups have benefited the least from the state intervention in economic matters, such as the case of the Indians, some indigenous tribes, and some segments of the low-income Malay population.

For some Malaysians that talked to me, the political and managerial cultures of the country are very similar and linked at their core. According to people I interviewed, the open and subtle links between “ethnic groups and politics,” and “business and political leaders,” are extremely strong in Malaysia. The strengthening of the state that resulted from NEP implementation since the early 70s, coupled with the growth in state participation in the economy through direct investment in many sectors, has resulted in state control of many facets of the country‘s wealth, including the media. There is very little in terms of economic activity in the country in which the state is not involved. Therefore, in most economic sectors in the country, the party line tends to be the bottom line. Since politics is ethnic-based, so is government and business. Social scientists that talked to me in Malaysia said that the process of privatization implemented lately has had uneven results. They argue that the government has awarded many projects and special benefits to Bumiputras with government connections, while other Bumiputras are left out of the economic cake. This situation has lead to a deepening of political patronage, the rise of a Bumi bureaucratic capitalist class, and involvement of politicians in business and business people in politics in ways that make it difficult to distinguish one sector from the other.

Multi-ethnicity and the Future: Looking Ahead with Optimism

In a country as heterogeneous as Malaysia, managing its workforce is a huge challenge. Paradoxically, the same factors that make the society as complex as it is, work in favor of a work environment in which things can get done, people can work together productively, and ethnic relations can be managed in ways that facilitate performance. Multi-ethnicity is an asset and a challenge for the future of the country, and the Malaysian people understand it very well, as I observed in my brief visit.

Malaysia, unlike some of its neighboring countries in Southeast Asia, was able to relatively recover from the Asian crisis of the late 1990s a little bit faster. Citing the CIA World Factbook, Rappa (2002, p.47) points out that “Malaysia made a quick economic recovery in 1999 from its worst recession since independence in 1957. GDP grew 5%, responding to a dynamic export sector, which grew over 10% and fiscal stimulus from higher government spending. The large export surplus has enabled the country to build up its already substantial financial reserves, to $31 billion at yearend 1999. This stable macroeconomic environment, in which both inflation and unemployment stand at 3% or less, has made possible the relaxation of most of the capital controls imposed by the government in 1998 to counter the impact of the Asian crisis.”

Current economic trends are very promising. According to Welsh (2004, p.157), “Malaysia‘s economy in 2004 resembled that of the boom years of the early 1990s. The economy grew at a rate of 7%, the budget deficit shrank from 5.3% in 2003 to 4.5% by the end of 2004 and is projected to reach 3.8% in 2005, largely because of increased tax revenue. The Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, now known as Bursa Malaysia, hit a historical high in September 2004, and high oil prices boosted the country‘s reserves to a record amount.” Other tangential but good indicators include the fact that the country‘s rate of literacy reaches close to 85%, computer ownership per 100 inhabitants is around 10, and cell phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants is around 35, higher than many other less-developed countries in the Southeast Asia region.

The affirmative economic policies of the last 35 years account for promising trends in the Malaysian society. Prior to the implementation of NEP the gap in incomes for Malay and Chinese households was enormous. According to Guan (2005, p.213), “the gap between the Malay and Chinese households mean income disparity ratio narrowed from 2.29 in 1970 to 1.74 in 1999.” Guan (2005, p.213) also stresses that “segmentation of the economy along ethnic lines was omnipresent before. The overwhelming majority of Malays were employed in the agricultural sector and resided in the rural areas. In 1970, Malays employed in the agricultural sector made up 67.8 percent of the total Malays employed compared to 31.4 percent of Chinese, and 48.6 percent of Indians…by 1995, however, Malays employed in the agricultural sector had decreased to 22.2 percent and in fact manufacturing had taken over as the sector that employed the most Malays with 24.9 percent. Unsurprisingly, the high proportion of 62.3 percent of Malays workers engaged in agricultural and related occupations in 1970 decreased to 25.3 percent in 1995, while the share of Malay manufacturing workers increased from 18 percent to 27.5 percent during this period.”

The division of labor of the colonial past has been transformed by the affirmative economic policies. As Guan (2005, p.214) points out, “the success of the ethnic preferential policies in education and employment had led to the growth of a noticeable Malay professional class. While in 1970 and 1980 there were few Malay architects, accountants, engineers, dentists, doctors, and lawyers, since 1990 their numbers in these professions have increased significantly…In 2000, for instance, about one out of three dentists, doctors, and lawyers and one out of four architects and engineers were Malays. And unlike in the past, Malay professionals today are found in both the public and private sectors.” In terms of poverty reduction regardless of ethnicity, the country has also produced remarkable results. In 1970, half the population of Malaysia lived in poverty, and the incidence of poverty among the bumiputera, Chinese, and Indians was 66 percent, 27 percent and 40 percent respectively (Guan, 2005). The overall incidence of poverty has been reduced from 52.4 percent in 19970 to 16.5 percent in 1990 and to 5.5 percent in 1999. Rural poverty has declined to 21.8 percent in 1990 and to 10 percent in 1999, and Malay poverty, much of which is in the rural sector, has declined to 20.8 percent in 1990 and to 10.2 percent in 1999 (Guan, 2005).

Bumiputras have made significant gains in terms of the country‘s equity. Although the early period of NEP implementation did not accelerate the incorporation of Bumiputras to the private sector at the pace expected, during the 1990s some progress was made in that regard. Citing Gomez (2003), Mason and Omar (2003, p.5) said that “among smaller firms, including those listed in the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, there was a growing evidence of inter-ethnic business ties on equal partnership, unlike the ‘Ali-Baba‘ arrangement of the earlier period. They suggest that among the new generations of Malaysians, there was greater openness to inter-ethnic cooperation in business for mutual benefit. Non-bumiputera Malaysians carried a strong Malaysian identity and were comfortable in inter-ethnic relationships. In addition, the 1990s also saw the emergence of an independent bumiputera middle-class, confident in their ability to hold their own in business, possessing skills acquired through government support under NEP.” The economic disparities between the Malay and non-Malay communities have narrowed significantly as a net result of the NEP, NDP, and NVP. According to Guan (2003, p. 215), “in terms of ownership of share capital of limited companies, Malay and Chinese shares were 4.3 per cent and 38.3 per cent respectively in 1971—with foreign ownership taking the lion‘s share of 61.7 per cent. By 1995, the Malay share had increased to 20.6 per cent while the Chinese share had reached 40.9 per cent.”

Diversity is recognized by all ethnic groups as an asset for the country. Although ethnicity in Malaysia is a force stronger than religion and ideology (or any other social construct imaginable), diversity is also the source of strength for the future of the country. Malaysians, in general, told me that they notice an important attitudinal change toward the future. Vision 2020, the goal of becoming a developed nation by the year 2020 is mentioned on the streets of any small town as well as the most remote farm that you can visit. I was particularly impressed when I visited the planned city of Putrajaya, administrative capital of the country. Designed, built and administered by Malaysians, Putrajaya has become a symbol of what Malaysia wants to be by the year 2020. In fact, during the month of August 2005, the government was ready to declare that the state of Selangor had already reached the indicators of a “developed” state within the federation.

As the country has become more open to the global economy, pragmatism drives the different ethnic groups to find middle ground and get the work done. In describing the common values of Malaysians, Abdullah (1996) said that “Malaysians, whether Malay, Chinese, Indian or others, on the average believe that money is the main reason why people go to work.” Citing a study by the Malaysian Institute of Management, Abdullah (1996, pp.104-122) contends that Malaysians, in terms of their common cultural values tend to be collectivistic, hierarchical, relationship-oriented, face savers (“jaga maruah”), religious, and success-oriented. Likewise, their managerial values are: goal clarity, cooperation, decisiveness, commitment, high achievement, accountability, shared wisdom, performance merit, improvement orientation, and reliability (Abdullah, 1996, pp.104-122). Of course, each ethnic group will also display its unique cultural and managerial values at work, but the Malaysian values pointed out here augur a promising outlook for the country. As Hirschman (1985, p.68) predicted 20 years ago, “social change in Malaysia is often glacial in character but often not clearly visible to contemporary observers. However, in recent years economic development has led to truly revolutionary change. Although modernization is transforming many attributes of Malaysian society, the evolving patterns may not necessarily follow Western models. The examples of Japan and other Asian societies, the influence of Islam and other religious traditions, and the unique characteristics of Malaysia‘s past and present may well lead in new directions.”

Generational differences among the immigrant communities reinforce their Malaysian identity above anything else. Although older generations of immigrants kept their emotional ties to their respective motherlands, new generations of Chinese and Indians no longer think of themselves as Chinese or Indians, but as Malaysians. Very few Indians and Chinese Malaysians today were born outside Malaysia. It was not the case 30 years ago. Chinese and Indians initially came to Malaysia to make money and go back to China and India. For instance, up to the 1950s there were newspapers in Malaysia devoted to China and India, but not any more. With time, the Chinese and the Indians have been establishing roots in Malaysia in a ways that does not distinguish them from Bumiputras. The tipping point in this process of integration was the concession of citizenship to non-Malays after independence, followed by their integration into the political and bureaucratic life of the country (which did not happen with the same intensity in some neighboring countries around Malaysia, such as Thailand and Indonesia).

The pragmatism of Malaysians is evident everywhere. Ethnic bargaining and compromise permeates every aspect of the country‘s life. One prominent Chinese business leader told me that this pragmatic attitude transcend ethnic lines in ways that would amaze any foreigner in Malaysia. It seems that, as an anthropologist told me, economic necessity pushes the different groups to work toward a common goal; because although Malaysians are highly separated by cultures and languages; they are, essentially, united by the forces of the market. This clear market orientation, which began hundreds of years ago around the straits of Malacca, is a potent force for the future of this pragmatic conglomerate of ethnic groups that is today‘s Malaysia.

The political leadership of the country seems to understand the value of diversity. For instance, it is reassuring the reaction of the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to the call for reviving NEP policies by the youth wing of UMNO in July this year. The Prime Minister said that the new national agenda and the ninth Malaysia plan will give fair treatment to all races (Ritikos, 2005). He said that the government needed to help those who had lagged behind, but at the same time, would not impede others from progressing: “We do not intend to stop the progress of any party just to wait for others to catch up. We must move together” he said (Rikitos, 2005, p.1).

For some management experts, labor relations in Malaysia show promising trends for the future. As Mano Maniam (2001) put it, “the swelling urbanization and middle-class values and lifestyles, are inevitable issues in characterizing the workforce of the new century. A more educated, better informed, more discerning or choosy, mobile and demanding workforce has already emerged and will be the key challenge to economic and social growth. The knowledge worker, by replacing the preceding manual worker, will bear many qualities, which will have more far-reaching consequences than most people realize. The management-labour equation will be altered, most likely towards a more equitable, just and harmonious relationship from the traditional owner-worker mindset” (p. 210).

There are attempts at national unity that might foster intercultural integration in the near future. Two of these programs aimed at national unity are worth mentioning: a) The student integration plan for unity (Rimup, short for “Rancangan Integrasi Murid Untuk Perpaduan”), and b) The National Service (NS) program. According to a report I read on the New Sunday Times, August 7, 2005 (two days before I left the country) the Rimup program groups together the two main vernacular streams in the country--the Tamil and Chinese schools—with national schools. Each group of schools under the Rimup program will then conduct joint co-curricular and academic-related activities (Ahmad, 2005). The Rimup program was launched in July 2005 and will be implemented nationwide gradually. According to Ahmad (2005), the program is getting a hot reception, with 150 vernacular schools and national schools expected to participate by year‘s end. If the pilot program is successful in fostering integration among the three main ethnic groups (Malay, Chinese, and Indian) at the school level, the impact could be enormous, considering the fact that there are 5,756 national primary schools (predominantly Malay), 1,287 Chinese primary schools, and 525 Tamil primary schools spread nationwide with a combined enrolment of 3,045,975 pupils (Ahmad, 2005). With mounting concerns that Malaysians of different races are not mixing enough, the report says, the Rimup program offers tangible benefits. The hope is that if children mix and get to know each other‘s culture, future generations of Malaysians will be able to understand each other better.

The second program aimed at national integration worth mentioning is the National Service (NS) program. Around the time I visited the country, a Parliamentary Select Committee on Unity and National Service was holding public hearings to assess the success of the national service program. According to Ling (2005a), the Select Committee has found that program participants had markedly changed attitude towards other races at the end of their three-month stint. Ling (2005a) reported that the Chair of the Select Committee said that the NS program could be introduced in a diluted form in schools and universities, where racial polarization continues to persist. NS is already in the third phase. A total of 240,000 have participated. The Chair of the Select Committee said that “they are agents for national integration.” In an interview with the Chair, Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili conducted by Ling (2005b, p.12), the interviewer asked the Chair “Is it a not a cause for concern that after more than 40 years of independence we still have to make efforts to achieve unity?” The Chair response was: “It is a process. We need to continue to preserve peace. The moment we stop making efforts, we will go backwards.” Replying to the follow-up question that “You have said Malaysians should move beyond tolerance. Please elaborate?” the Chair said “There are three stages to racial unity. The first is accepting each other as human beings and citizens. The second is where we tolerate the differences, faults and deficiencies of others. The third stage is appreciating each other and I think this is where the crux of national unity lies. When we appreciate each other, it becomes a lifestyle. We will then become family and not look at each other‘s colour or profession.”

I see Malaysians moving toward the vision 2020 with optimism in terms of intercultural relations. The observant visitor can notice that Malaysians, generally speaking are peace-loving people who have, for the most part, lived harmoniously for centuries. All ethnic groups recognize that they need each other: The Chinese are the indispensable contributors to the country‘s economy, the Indians provide essential manpower, the Malays contribute with the political legitimacy that keeps the country together. A middle-class that already transcend ethnic boundaries is gaining strength in the country. The hope is that as this middle class becomes more pluralistic, tolerant, and inclusive, the latent phenomenon of ethnic tensions will diminish. The country shows a clear economic improvement among the previously impoverished Bumiputra majority. The goal of reaching the status of “developed country” by the year 2020 seems to be a lot more than a public relation slogan; it seems to be an aim embraced by the entire country, regardless of ethnic category or political affiliation. As Oo (1991) advocated, the key is for Malaysia to create an eclectic value system, which transcends racial and ethnic differences, as a basis for national integration. As long as the society as a whole wrestles with these issues, the workplace will resemble that struggle too.

As I observed during my visit, there are commonalities in terms of values that can be counted as strong forces for a better future for Malaysia. Among them are worth mentioning the political system that assures ethnic representation in politics, the religiosity of the people (as diverse as it is), the demonstrated tolerance towards each other, and the willingness of the ethnic groups to compromise in almost every instance of the country‘s life. Malays and other Bumiputra majority groups seem to understand that they have to share their ancestral motherland with immigrants that have contributed greatly to the building of modern Malaysia. Eurasians, Indians, Chinese, and other non-Bumiputra minorities seem to understand that they need to live in a country that, at least for the short term, will discriminate against them as a matter of national necessity.

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Source: www.macee.org.my/hays05/mm.doc