Ramasamy and others, time for some sober truth, eh?

 

If Malaysians continue to adopt the crab culture, we will all end up in the frying pan. 

        Crabs in a basket are good at dragging each other down, instead of working together to find a way to escape. 

        With an economy that is already lagging behind other ASEAN nations, politicians from both political divides are still not getting their acts together. 

        They seem too pre-occupied with nothing other than to create more problems and to destablise the government of the day. I do not need to mention Muhyiddin Yasin, Abdul Hadi Awang and the gang who are eyeing for Putrajaya.

        In fact, a mention of names like Kedah Menteri Besar Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor and Permatang Pauh Ustaz Muhammad Fawwaz Mohamad Jan is sufficient to make people feel disgusted, especially with the actions and remarks these two politicians are making.

        In this article, I am addressing the people who are more "salvageable." As ordinary rakyat, we have to whack; if not, when they follow the footsteps of those in Pas, Bersatu and Umno, there will be no more good politicians who can lead and revive our economy.

        Let me begin by saying that we are paying these politicians such as P. Ramasamy to do a job. As Penang's Deputy Chief Minister II, Ramasamy should put his focus on reviving the economy and turn Penang into a state to be emulated by all. 

        But how is Ramasamy contributing towards the state's economy? In what way is he assisting the process of change in this country? The controversy that he has sparked has distracted so many people who fall into the same trap used by their opponents. 

        Ramasamy claimed that his remark urging Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to break the 'monopoly of the Malays' in the civil service was interpreted wrongly and re-interpreted, but accusing others of seeking cheap publicity, which I cannot deny, is he himself not going after cheap publicity?

       In fact, the so-called 'monopoly by the Malays' is just a half-truth. While 90% of civil servants being Malays is a given fact, the other half-truth is that the civil service has become what it is today, partly because the young people in my era preferred to work with the private sector than the government departments. 

Times Have Changed

        Ramasamy's experience may be different, but not everyone would agree that they or their children should join the civil service. Many join the civil service because of the hangover from the colonial days, not out of patriotism. 

        A lot of us no longer see the way our grandparents saw it - at least in my case -- that having a government job was like having an unbreakable rice bowl. We no longer eat rice; our appetite has changed. 

        For our young people, including the more intellectual Malays, the opportunities are "out there" somewhere in the big blue ocean. That is why they venture overseas for more highly paid jobs. 

       My own generation growing up in the sixties and seventies is a good example: Joining the civil service had never even crossed our minds. 

        This is what spokesperson of G25 group of former senior civil servants, Noor Farida Ariffin said in a recent statement, and I quote:

“The main reason other races are not keen to join the civil service is the lack of opportunities for advancement and the discrimination most of them face." 

        For this reason, even when I noticed that the National Education Advisory Council (NEAC) for 2023-2025, it was a mere nudge which I agreed to when the editor of an English daily asked if he could change the title to my blog to attract readership. Editors are paid to do this job although sometimes, we think their titles are rather misleading.

        Therefore, politicians who continue to play on the 'monopoly by Malays' polemics should be ostracized, regardless of their political stand, race or religion. 

        These politicians, including Ramasamy, should just shut their big mouths after reading again his more recent statement: 

"Asking for reforms in the civil service doesn’t tantamount to “breaking the monopoly of the Malays”. My proposal for reforms was in the spirit of bringing about meaningful changes to the practice of governance. That is all!" 

        We want reform in the civil service, but what is more important is the delivery of services. What is the use of having a bunch of Chinese "goons" in Selangor, for example, who are underperforming? I can see this for myself, so when I whack any civil servant, it is not based on race or religion. 

        It is from the view of someone who believes in good customer service. Anwar and his cabinet's efforts should be to reform the laws so that the government machinery is in good shape to bring Malaysia to the next level of excellence that we all can be proud of. 

In Retrospect

        How many of us have ever thought of becoming soldiers and policemen, yet we are not appreciative of our Malay brethren who volunteered to serve the country in keeping our nation safe from terrorist attacks? What is wrong with us? 

        And Malays who say that those who join the forces are more patriotic, did they even know we have many non-Malays who fought the communists? 

        So, even if tomorrow Anwar or Sarawak chief minister, Abang Johari were to set up a quota for the civil service, how many of these positions would be grabbed by the Chinese or Indians? Tell me honestly! 

        For any reform to benefit every Malaysian, the reform has to be holistic, taking into account a recruitment and promotion process that is based on meritocracy, and salaries and opportunities that can match the private sector. 

        We should do away with promotions that are based on race or religion, but why allow the politicians to sabotage the Anwar initiative? Let the man do his job. He is barely 100 days into the job. Do we expect him to perform miracles when the system is already rotten after 60 plus years of nationhood? 

        I am sure amongst the Malay public servants, there are many who have been sidelined; and they too wish one day, there will be reform, where the ringleaders and underperforming superiors are removed. 

        I have seen how this had worked out in the small factory I was managing in my early years. The moment the ringleaders and the bullies are removed, the good staff start to shine. 

        The process of change will take years since people are already so entrenched in the culture of entitlement. This cannot happen overnight as it involves more than just the remuneration package; reform has to deal with the bureaucracy and the snail-paced career progression that ambitious young people cannot and would not want to go through.  

       When even civil servants see their colleagues who are "politically linked" being promoted, they too become demoralised. This is the civil service that the unity government has inherited because nothing was done all these years to rectify the system. 

       It was years later in my adulthood that we learnt from our primary school teachers that our somewhat psychopathic Standard Two teacher was promoted to become a headmaster in a rural school. It became obvious to me that he was a member of a particular political party, which I no longer have to make too obvious for you to guess.

        Likewise, I also hear complaints of Chinese school principals being promoted because of their political link. When they become principals, they will use their iron claws on even Chinese parents and their children, who dare complain to the Ministry of Education. 

        Does it suffice for me to say that this is also why many of the good people including Malay civil servants opt out of public service after they see there was no progression. One of my good online chat friends whom I shall just call 'Nik' recently told me that he had retired at 40 because he was tired with the culture in the civil service.

       The problem with the bully culture has its roots in the politicking within the civil service itself, not race or religion. While 80 percent of the civil servants are Malays, not every Malay thinks alike. Even the Malays are being discriminated against by their superiors.  

        This, my dear Ramasamy, Maszlee Malik, Hassan Karim, S. Thayaparan, is the kind of reform that everyone is looking forward to: equitable treatment of all civil servants and promotion of only those who perform. The law must also be reformed to allow for the sacking of ringleaders and underperforming staff, in order to allow good staff to rise and shine. 

Hassan Karim

       Because Maszlee's comments came to me as a surprise, this is a word of advice to Maszlee when he called Ramasamy a liability. Based on media reports, the people of Simpang Renggam have given him the cold shoulder and one old man even shouted at him, "What have you done for our constituency?" 

        He should now focus his attention on gaining the confidence of his constituency, instead of courting more controversies. 

        When parents were telling him to park "khat" under the arts subject alongside with the Chinese and other forms of calligraphy, he was blinded by his own ego. Even recently, he quoted Anwar, which he had to quickly retract. Is he himself not a liability to the unity government? 

        Let me end here by saying that, while Umno and Barisan Nasional have learnt from their past mistakes of using foul mouthed politicians and their quasi-spokesmen in the likes of Jamal Md Yunos, Ibrahim Ali, Lokman Adam to dominate the narrative of the day, we do not expect this vacuum to be dominated by another puff of hot air that seeks to create more divisions, rather than healing the country's social fabrics and focus on the economy and spiritual well-being of every Malaysian. 

        Politicians should just confine their verbal diarrhea within the four walls of parliament and the state assembly, instead of spilling over to the rakyat whose livelihood is already affected by the pandemic. 

        It is time that as rakyat, we put a stop to bickering politicians. They either shut up their big mouths, or in the coming state election, they will have to be shipped out.

        A senior civil servant Ramon Navaratnam sent me a message recently to suggest painting faces of politicians on roads to shame them, but I am no artist. To me, no politician is an enemy, but when comments like this have to be made, I would do it for the sake of the majority of my fellow Malaysians.

        What the nation needs most urgently now is to revive the economy and focus on healing of the nation. 

(I put pictures and videos here not to shame these politicians but to break the monotony of the text for my readers).