My comment below is a response to this : I will post the original text below in case the image gets lost :
You need to slow down a bit. Let me break it down to a structural approach for you.
1. We live in a constitutional ethnocracy, with constitutional guarantees for unequal access based on ethnicity, and we define the privileged ethnicity as a subset of a certain religion. All this is weird ( see other country constitutions ) but it's simple legal fact.
2. You can only change this by parliamentary 67% majority ... and for some items you can only change this with the approval of the COR / council of rulers. In politics there is no such thing as impossible. It is business. You give something, you get something. So next we can go and ask who wants what, and what are they willing to give.
3. But before that, some structural stuff is changing : Sabah and Sarawak are OTW to getting 35% of parliamentary seats ... this is in order to guarantee that they can block any constitutional amendments ( 100 - 35 = 65 < 67 ). That further means that you need another ( 67 - 35 = 32 ) percent of support from Malaya for any changes which are also 100% supported by Borneo. That's 50% of Malaya + 100% of future Borneon parliamentary seats can change the Constitution. Implementation will surely be messier than that ... bit more here, bit less there etc.
4. Back to what parliamentarians want. If we adopt the fiction that parliamentarians represent the marhaen, then the real question is what do the marhaen want. Well Malaysia has been poor forever. Literally SINCE BEFORE MALAYA ... and we are STILL POOR. You can't sugar coat this with a few shiny towers ... quality of life in Malaysia is POOR. And this is why ... PEOPLE ARE UNHAPPY AND ANGRY IN POLITICS.
Until we fix endemic poverty and structural barriers to economic growth ( party A will say it's too much religion, party B will say it's too many pendatang, whatever ) ... people will not agree. Not because of facts, but because poor people are stupid, and easily angered, and it's not their fault ... they are being abused.
5. We can leave 'what does the COR want' to a longer fantasy discussion. But of course, they have constitutional duties to protect Malay imperialism. But even that changes over the arc of history ... what Malays want will change ... every 50 years ... we don't know what it'll be like. But if you are interested in nation building, it's certainly the sort of thing you should have DEFINITIVE MODELS for.
Hope this helps. I hope folks will teach their kids this from the ages of 8-18, it would give us a lot more informed voters who are interested in structural study of the nation.
🙂
Original post which I commented on :
Anon :
Malaysia is getting from bad to worst everyday.
problem stems from the fact that we, as a country, never had a rountable of discussions regarding all these issues at the highest levels. All of our problems, which leads to more structural problems, can be traced to:
- the status of NEP and special rights of bumiputera. This needs review urgently. They have been abused, time and time again, to enrich cronies in the name of "bumiputera equity" - which leads to insolvency of many politically connected companies, and complete embezzlement of state funds.
- enforcement of quota for non-bumis and lack of meritocracy in public sector as well as public education.
- the status of SJK schools, that are allegedly counterproductive towards racial unity. They need not be abolished, only reviewed. Nons are concerned with lack of quality as well as creeping islamism in national schools, malays are concerned with creation of fifth column/lack of integration in the society. These problems are not mutually exclusive.
Why we suck, as a nation, is because we never want to DEAL with these problems openly like mature adults. Every time these topics is brought up, they are completely shut down by two words: isu sensitif. Mengganggu sensitivit agama, mengganggu sensitiviti kaum. They will never be solved so long as they remain sensitive issues. These are codewords for sweeping all these shit under the rug. Also, most damningly, issues 1 & 2 will never be allowed to be tabled/discussed/questioned openly, since they are the very pillars that created the power structure that we have in Malaysia. It is in a lot of powerful people's interests (royalties, politicians, state apparatus) that issues 1&2 remain isu sensitif and swept under the rug for all eternity.
Unfortunately you cannot ask politicians to solve these issues for us. What happens when you ask them to do so? Well they will find a way to line their pockets whilst giving you empty sweet promises, like they have been doing for decades. The people must come forward and discuss this themselves, at the highest possible public forum, and get it sorted with a referendum. If you ask the politicians, they will simply shut it down by labelling it isu sensitif. At best, they will just delay real reforms and they have a lot of excuses to do so, chiefly not having enough parliament supermajority to pass legislation (even if they do, no one is gonna table it, it will be political suicide, remember, MPs are mostly self-serving). It's very much in their best interests to keep the status quo. That applies for SJK schools as well, which probably needs some kind of review/update/expansion. However in my opinion, issues 1&2 are the most important and urgent to prioritise, since they affect almost everyhing in Malaysia.
We have the politics that we deserve, because we suck as a people. We are like kids, not mature adults. We cannot discuss these issues without someone threatening violence, 13 may, and keris and parang (just mentioning it will make people lose their shit, how childish is that?). And because of this, we will forever remain backwards. You can thank the majority who want to keep it that way. You have to wait until they grow the fuck up, which might take decades judging from facebook, threads, and tit tok comments.
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