Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times by Barry Wain (fantasy novels to read .TXT) 📕

without water and electricity.[98] And the children of newly minted middle-class Malays were best placed to capitalize on ethnic preferences in future, leaving their country cousins and poorer city relatives further behind.

Non-Malay bumiputras, predominantly in Borneo, were also being left in the dust, along with lower-class Indians. They constituted the new poor. Although other bumiputras were supposed to be accorded the same preferential treatment as Malays, in fact they suffered a higher incidence of poverty and lagged in equity ownership and enrolment in higher education.[99] Several studies indicated that the overall plight of the Orang Asli had worsened over the years, despite their status as bumiputras.[100] Significant numbers of Indian labourers, displaced by the influx of foreign workers and the development of plantations for industrial and residential use, joined the ranks of the unemployed in urban squatter areas. Not being bumiputras, they lacked the support needed to acquire skills and obtain jobs.

Ethnic preferential policies in education and employment went a long way towards ending identification of race with job. Where more than 62 per cent of Malays had been employed in agriculture in 1970, most found work in manufacturing. More Malays had jobs even in services, if government agencies were included, than on the farm. With all public universities reserving a majority of places for bumiputras until 2001,[101] Malays joined Chinese and Indians in the professions and filled the ranks of Malaysia's burgeoning middle class. Measured by jobs and income levels, the middle class more than doubled to encompass 26.3 per cent of the population.[102] By 2000, about one in three dentists, doctors and lawyers and one in four architects and engineers, along with a sprinkling of accountants, were Malay, whereas there had been few 30 years earlier.[103] More than one-third of the entire Malay community was in middle-class occupations — professionals, technicians, teachers, nurses, administrators, managers and clerks.[104]

With the high-flying Malay champions chosen for privatized projects toppling during the Asian economic crisis, attempts to create a credible bumiputra commercial and industrial community all but collapsed. By 2000, the government had majority ownership of seven of the ten largest companies listed on Bursa Malaysia, "an indication of the failure of privatization". Among them were the two largest local banks, two privatized utility companies, a shipping line and a gas producer. The three other companies were Chinese owned. None was owned by a Malay.[105] The one Malay who made the top ten in Forbes's first Malaysian rich list in 2006, Syed Mokhtar Albukhary, was a relative late-comer, a businessman who had dallied with Anwar and in whom Dr. Mahathir invested heavily after becoming disillusioned with Daim Zainuddin's protégés.[106]

Some economists argued that affirmative action as a means to redistribute wealth more equitably hindered growth and competitiveness, citing Malaysia's relative decline in the East Asian region: When the NEP was introduced in 1971, Malaysia ranked third only to Japan and Singapore in terms of GDP per capita; by 1990, it had fallen behind South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong as well.[107] And the gap continued to widen, despite Dr. Mahathir's denials, leaving Malaysia scrambling to compete in a globalized world, where China and India were setting a sizzling pace.

Malaysia's population, at more than 23 million in 2003, had almost doubled since 1981 while simultaneously being urbanized and ethnically reconfigured. The portion designated urban swelled from just over one-third to almost two-thirds. Responding to incentives offered when Dr. Mahathir set his 70-million goal, the birthrate defied established international patterns and did not decline as prosperity increased. Malaysia became one of the youngest countries in the region, the envy of others saddled with geriatric liabilities. The Malay birthrate was double that of Chinese and Indians, for Malay families could count on scholarships and jobs for their children as well as tax breaks for more than two kids.[108] Constituting less than half the population in 1981, Malays became a clear and growing majority, without the need to be grouped among bumiputras to achieve national majority status.[109] For non-Malays, minorities lacking political power and shrinking further, the prospect of being demographically marginalized at some point, however distant, fostered a degree of unease.[110]

Although the rest of the country had learned to live with affirmative action, there were clear limits as to how much the NEP and its subsequent variants could help ensure stability and foster national integration. Prosperity contributed to a general satisfaction that crossed ethnic lines. New urban residential developments were ethnically diverse, in contrast with the old racially homogeneous suburbs. The rows of trendy restaurants in Kuala Lumpur's Bangsar neighbourhood, along with the ubiquitous McDonalds, Pizza Hut and KFC fast-food outlets, dispensed officially certified halal fare, acceptable to Muslims, as the eateries catered to every race. A mass consumption culture, common to all groups, appeared to be "the most Malaysianizing of all forces".[111]

Yet ethnic cleavages could not be wholly suppressed by rampant consumerism and rising class consciousness alone. While there was no repeat of the 1969 savagery, small-scale violence, mostly directed against Indians, occurred near the turn of the century. In the worst incident, in March 2001, six people were killed and 37 injured in Kampung Medan, a crowded squatter area near Kuala Lumpur plagued by poverty, crime and substance abuse.

Disturbingly, ethnicity became entrenched as the basis for public assistance, even as it inadvertently promoted inequality within the favoured community and disenfranchised outsiders. Critics worried, too, that what was originally intended as a temporary measure was, over time, creating a culture of dependency that would defeat the very purpose of affirmative action: making the Malays competitive. Dr. Mahathir joined the chorus warning against a "crutch mentality".

Contradictions abounded in the idea of assisting one ethnic group while trying to build unity and a national identity. Official policies produced unintended results, such as the formation of ethnic enclaves in Malaysian society. In the most glaring example, preferential hiring converted the civil service, reasonably ethnically diverse previously, into a wholly Malay preserve.[112] At the time of Dr. Mahathir's retirement, the country generally enjoyed peace, stability and unprecedented affluence,