A new and economically ascendant Southeast Asia

It is heartening to read about the uneasiness of the Malay Malaysian elite and their urgent call to restructure Malaysia for the future instead of being stuck in the past of racial and religious politics. There is a sense of frustration and despair among this Malay elite who wanted to do so much, who knew that Malaysia cannot remained stagnant in economic growth and wasting time and resources in unproductive hackling on religious and racial issues drummed up by the respective leaders. There is a time and place for religion. Leave them to the religious leaders and leave them in their place in the mosques and not to be bucking around with matters of the state. And political leaders must rise above the insidious past of race politics, to think secular and think development. Malaysia can do better given the right leadership, and UMNO and its present batch of leaders are not the one to lead Malaysia forward.

While Malaysia is still bogged down with trying to be more religious and more racist, and a shrinking economic pie, the Indonesians have embarked on a new journey of change. Ever since the Presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid or Gus Dur, race politics have been taken out of the equation, or at least kept in the cupboard, hopefully not to reappear. Megawati continued to play down on racial politics and allowed the Indonesians with Chinese ancestry to participate more actively in the economy. Yudhoyono did the same and the Chinese Indonesians expanded their participation in the main stream of Indonesian polity, in business and in politics, culminating in the unprecedented election of Joko Widodo as the new President and Ahok as the governor of Jakarta, both with ethnic Chinese origin.

The path to accept the Chinese Indonesians into the main stream of Indonesian life without discrimination is putting Indonesia on a clean slate to take full advantage of the industries of the Chinese Indonesians to grow its economic pie. Without the legacy of the Suharto regime in its way, Indonesia can embark on any economic model, tap on all the resources of its able citizenry to grow the economic pie. Allowing the Chinese Indonesians an unrestricted role is like starting another engine of growth in a capitalist modelled economy.

Indonesia is now free from its historical baggage of racial politics and political bickering to move forward confidently, to embrace all the positive elements of a secular state, to raise the standard of living of its people, through industrialisation and scientific modernisation. Without harping on the fear of a Chinese minority playing a bigger role than its population, the country could benefit greatly without compromising on the economic well being of its population at large. Indonesia is set to be the next economic powerhouse of Southeast Asia and could leapfrog the rest to stake its rightful claim as the biggest economy and biggest regional power in the region.

Malaysia could do likewise by tapping on the industries of the minority groups to grow at a faster pace. But the shackles of racial and religious politics are not easy to remove especially with the ultras in charge in UMNO. They have no new ideas on how to grow the economic pie other than to constrain the growth of the minority groups in the economy and enterprises just to prove that they are in charge. While Indonesia is tapping on a new growth engine in its ethnic minority, Malaysia under UMNO is preventing this engine of growth from being ignited to grow the economic pie.

What is UMNO afraid of? The dynamic non bumi minorities generating more economic output that put them to same or they could not manage to do likewise? With full control of political and military power, the Malay rights and interests would never be challenged and UMNO would be in a better position to distribute the new wealth generated by the non bumi minorities. Is that bad? Why is UMNO seeking to tie chains and shackles to prevent the non bumi minorities from doing what they could do best for the economy to benefit the country and people? With the non bumi minorities being curtailed in their economic endeavours, Malaysia is as good as firing on two cylinders.

The UMNO leadership is more interested in protecting its power than in the general well being of its populace. Would the new Malay elite be able to strip the UMNO leaders from its pole position in govt and lead Malaysia into a new path of economic growth, prosperity and secularism? Or would it remain locked and restrained by its past unenlightened policies while watching Indonesia run away uncontested and unchallenged to be the richest country in Southeast Asia? Malaysia has squandered away its lead in the economic fields and unlikely to move forward. It is wasting all its potential to be a much richer and prosperous nation, but instead to become a more religious and racist country with one foot in the mud, dragging and compromising on its economic development.

The new Malay elite have a tough road ahead to replace the backward looking UMNO leadership.