Let’s give credit where credit is due.
The Malaysianinsider reports today that the cabinet has agreed to drop “race” from most official forms and documents.
“It is understood that Malaysians can opt out of stating race in official forms and documents that still have such a requirement. The category has been in all forms since the country achieved Merdeka in 1957”, Malaysianinsider reports.
Good start, assuming this is not just an eyewash and that the civil servants get down to the serious business of implementing this cabinet decision.
However the report also has it that the “forms will continue to have the category in relation to special privileges for Bumiputras”.
The BN government, and Pakatan Rakyat leaders, must have the courage to tell the rakyat, particularly the Malays and those who continue to be categorised as Bumiputra, that there are no special privileges reserved for anyone under the Federal Constitution.
The BN government, and Pakatan Rakyat leaders, must be brave enough to say that Article 153 affords an affirmative program to enable His Majesty to put in place quotas in a limited field with a view to protecting the special position of the Malays and the indigenous people of East Malaysia and to safeguard the legitimate interests of the other communities.
The BN government must be honest enough to admit that thus far, the NEP, which purports to be founded on Article 153 but in fact goes well beyond the limited scope of that Article, has been systematically abused to allow the rich to get richer.
If we accept now that any affirmative program that is founded on public funds, whether premised on Article 153 or ottherwise, ought to reach out to the poor and marginalised Malaysians, without consideration of race or ethnicity, the categorisation of Bumi / non-Bumi also should be done away with and replaced with a section for details of income for those looking to receive aid from such an affirmative program.
The People's Parliament 
Hoyohoyo
August 18, 2009
I don’t see the significance of it… I mean, can’t you differentiate the races through the name, Ahmad bin Abdul, Tan Ah Kow, Siva Kumar, Jaspal Kaur, Julian Seagan, Marilyn David and etc?
It is not about filling in the “race” in the documents and forms. Our nation should success on the basis of “unity through diversity”. That is, we do acknowledge that we are maybe Malay, Chinese, Indian, Kadazan, Dayak, Orang Asli, Mixed and etc, and we do practice different cultural/religional customs, but at the same time, we call ourselves Malaysians, and we understand, accept, embrace, even appreciate and enjoy our differences between our Malaysian brothers and sisters.
I don’t mind filling in “Chinese” on the forms, as long as the word “Chinese” did not affect the treatment I get. To me, admitting myself a Malaysian Chinese is no big deal. It is the little things that are important, such as addressing in a language that every listener understands, and if some of them don’t, make sure they understand through translations, or make sure every guest knows what’s inside the foods in front of them.
mali
August 18, 2009
It’s not much about formality..more on sincerity.
It’s not what you wear or how you look , the focus is at HEART.
Bob
August 19, 2009
The issue is are we Malaysian or our ethnic origin?
If we continue with our ethnic id as the main identifier, then we will always be stuck in silos and easily manipulatable by bullys and corrupt people.
Clifford
August 18, 2009
Dear Haris,
Najib: “Uh oh! It’s a week before Permatang Pasir, and our chances don’t look very good. Stupid MACC had to go and kill that young man and the cops have learnt nothing except to keep roughing up members of the public and Pakatan MPs. This huge crowd of people just don’t seem to like me or Muhyiddin very much, even with Rosmah putting all her effort into beaming her sweet plastic smile around. The crackdown on the Anti-ISA protest just made the Malay people angrier. Let’s see what cheap trick I can scrape out of the barrel to try and placate the non-Malay voters. Oh, I know! Let’s pretend that we’re going to relax institutionalised racism… they’ll fall for that!”
Much as we would like to believe otherwise, we all know that this is just eyewash. No substantive change is possible under this ossified, neo-fascist regime. The Project Irrelevant Campaign still has some way to go.
frags
August 18, 2009
I think its a small step in the right direction. But I think we may be getting ahead of ourselves here. According to a Stars online article, apparently the DPM said they are still ‘studying’ it.
Which basically means we are telling you this so that you will forget about it when we ourselves(the government) has forgot about the ‘studies’.
Might I suggest a new study on the need to have a study with every bloody policy change/proposal. Even in what seems to be as small as a small field in a form!
Sorry…I’m just frustrated.
tired
August 18, 2009
Your MyKad will tell them what your race is. Until and unless MyKad do not record ethnicity, all efforts are just pure spins.
ktteokt
August 18, 2009
Let’s just hope Najis and the BN government is sincere in dropping stupid terms such as BUMIPUTRA from the official forms and stop dividing the people into BUMIPUTRA and NON-BUMIPUTRA!
yong chee keong
August 18, 2009
Not good enough. What is so difficult to tell a person’s ethnic origin just by his name. I am Chinese. Ibrahim is a Malay or at least Muslim. Velu is Indian. It is a whole way of thinking that needs to be changed.
sambal muncha
August 19, 2009
The SABM movement is having an impact!
Samuel Goh Kim Eng
August 19, 2009
FROM A FORM TO TOTAL TRANSFORM
What is there to raise in a form
When there’s total need for reform
Making good what has been deformed
Best of all for entire nation to transform
(C) Samuel Goh Kim Eng – 190809
http://MotivationInMotion.blogspot.com
Wed. 19th Aug. 2009.
chiew ka 4...!
August 19, 2009
Of course the word “race” will be dropped.
Replaced with ……..
Bumiputra O Yes O No
There u go…!
anna brella
August 19, 2009
If everyone stops responding to the pointless race/ethnicity profiling question on standard forms, then that will eventually kill that question from being a bugbear to you as well as appearing on those forms as it will only be a waste of form-space and also of ink and so be an additional printing cost.
If there is a question on those forms that asks you to state if you are a Bumiputra or not, by ticking a yes or a no, then simply tick “yes” always because all Malaysians are Bumiputras anyway as all, if born in Malaysia, both in theory and practice, princesses/princes/children of the soil/earth/bumi of Malaysia. That should hopefully, take care of that pointless meaninglessness in definition in time too!
“Imagine Power To The People” John Lennon.
kenwang
August 20, 2009
If I were Najib I would not try to scrap the race question in any forms.Whats wrong in it anywhere?The Malays and bumiputras must have special status and privileges in this country.If the other races want equal status and privileges then they must proof by joining the army en-masse,send to the boundaries and protect this country from our enemies.As it is they are thinking of making money and more money everyday to enable them to live in comfort and luxuries.Now they want equality in everything under the sun,moon and sky.Najib should realise that in his efforts to please everyone he will end up pleasing no one.So,Datuk Najib please stop it and return the Malays and Bumiputras their rightful status in this country.
Cyril
August 20, 2009
Thia is all well and good but why has nobody noticed that our MyKad number incorporates a code that denotes race. This will remain an eyewash so long as they do not also remove that code.
anna brella
August 21, 2009
My view, simply put, is that “they” will remove anything that “you” don’t want to affirm or subscribe to if “you” insist that “they” do exactly that or that “you” WILL freely apply your personal political WILL and your measure of a healthy dose of democratic dissent/disrespect and WILL most definitely vote “them” all out promptly at that very next opportunity that “you” WILL most definitely get.
That is why in a democracy it is, without the shadow of a doubt, always the collective of the Sovereign People/Rakyat who are at the apex/pinnacle of that national governing power pyramid, and NOT (as is sometimes erroneously assumed), any of their subordinate elected heads of state (symbolic figureheads of the People) or governments (the People’s functional state organs) as these are all made up of various “lesser powered” people who form parts of the collective to whom the Sovereign People have conditionally delegated various of their collectively decided/agreed governing powers.
If you thoroughly understand that simple and elegant democratic ideal and structurally balanced parts/ relationships, then “you” WILL get what “you” want from “them” that “you” have chosen or elected into those positions of delegated power to act in “Your” name.
It is “your” failure to understand that balanced democratic relationship structure that has caused “you” to neglect “them” over the past five decades, and which incomprehension and neglect over that long period of time has enabled “them” to conveniently spin and turn that balanced democratic structural relationship on its head, thereby cleverly inverting that democratic power pyramid to enable “them” to make “you” their servants while “they” lord it over “you” as your masters and milk “your” nation dry of its resources while “you” watch powerlessly from the bottom.
It really is that simple once you have grasped the democratic nettle and are willing to work together to put things back into their rightful places of order so that they work synchronously in harmony for “you” as they were designed to work for ALL of You within that democratic power relationship structural model called Malaysia.
“Imagine Power To The People” John Lennon.