A REPLY TO DR. BOO CHENG HAU - "Isn’t a one-race civil service a form of apartheid?"

First and foremost, Dr Boo has to look back on the history of Malaysia. The history of what is today known as peninsular Malaysia is characterized by the migration of diverse peoples. The Malays, who are officially regarded as among the original inhabitants of the peninsular, were by no means its original denizens. The Malay race is the result of the evolution of people who had migrated south from western China, Burma, Thailand and also people who had come from Indonesia. This shows that Chinese immigrants take advantage of new opportunities and beginning to settle both on the island and on the mainland, setting up shop in retail trade.

Secondly, I am strongly believed that the major reason why Dr Boo resigned from the public health sector is because of the low salary. As we know the pay for the doctors is not that much. Besides that, Dr Boo himself is obviously lack of patriotism spirit.

Thirdly, the small amount of the Chinese as civil servants is actually due to the attitude of the Chinese themselves. They are not interested in joining the civil service even if they have a chance to be in it. Besides, they are more interested to be in the private sectors or the business sectors which can give them more profit. On top of that, the Chinese mostly do not like to be under the administration especially of the Malays.

Moreover, UMNO is a party for Malays. As the party for the Malays, they have to uphold their race. The same thing happens in our neighbour country. However, the government has never put aside the rights of other races from many aspects such as the language, religion, culture and socio-economic. For example, the government is willing to open the race based school such as SJKC and SJKT. This is not happening in any other country in this world. The Non-Malays in Malaysia are lucky to be in this country which tolerate to such things.

In addition, the existence of the UMNO Ultras is actually an advantage to all the Tiong Hwa citizens to be rich in this country. They can freely do their businesses and live a wealthy life without any disturbance from the Malays. This proves that the accusation of Dr Boo that UMNO enforced apartheid is totally inacceptable. It is true that UMNO is giving the chances for the Malays to upgrade their living standard and to remain the Malays special rights. But it defers from the policy during the apartheid era which degrades fellow countrymen and refuses to allow that all human beings are equals.

Non-Malays in Malaysia should be grateful for what they have now. Malays have tolerated so much and could not do more. The government is being fair to all the races in Malaysia. The most important thing is that all Malaysian citizens regardless of the skin colour should focus on how to develop our beloved country instead of arguing about the racial rights. If we have achieved as the developed country, only then we could think of the merit system because at that time the Malays are afford to compete with the Non-Malays.

The fact is that there are 1,247,894 civil servants in Malaysia, 78.2% of them are Malays. But the Non-Malays must aware that their income per capita from the total workforce in Malaysia is far ahead of the Malays who work in the public sector. And they should also aware that the wealth of the country is still monopolized by the Non- Malays.