Why I left for our ‘poorer’ neighbour — Indonesia

Malaysia Insider

Contrary to most Malaysians who work overseas, I chose a less popular destination. I have been based in Jakarta for the past year and a bit. Most people look down on Indonesia as the poorer neighbour, much like the way Singapore looks at us. However, after living here, there is much to like, and below are some of the reasons why I prefer life here and do not plan to return anytime soon:

1. Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world. However, you will find that most Indonesians are very open about their religion and respectful of the rights of others. Muslims here have no problem with patronising outlets that sell alcohol or non-halal food, even if they choose not to have any. In Malaysia, the Muslims make a big fuss over small things which they claim are not halal. You may argue that there are fanatics here, but the number is small relative to the population. Just look around Malaysia. Everywhere you look, you get fanatics.


2. The work ethic and culture here is better than in KL. People here are less racist. In Malaysia, you identify companies as Bumi companies, Chinamen companies, Indian companies and so on. Here, it is easy to work with people no matter what ethnic group. Again, you may mention the race riots during Suharto’s era, but the problem is practically non-existent in everyday life nowadays. People here respect talent and ability no matter your background, religion and skin colour.

3. There are unlimited opportunities here for those who want to do business. No such thing as Bumiputera quota, etc. If you see an opportunity, you are free to pursue it. Where Malaysia could once boast of being a strong regional player, our government is now coming here to woo Indonesian investors. I have dealt with local Indonesian companies for a number of years and all dealings are reasonably fair and transparent. This is unlike Malaysia where Bumiputeras are highly favoured no matter how incompetent.

4. Free and open press. It’s no secret our mainstream media is heavily self-censored, and Utusan is openly inciting racial hatred. Here, the Jakarta Globe and Jakarta Post are two publications that are highly regarded for their unbiased reporting and open criticism of the government. We are able to keep ourselves informed without having to log onto alternative news portals.

Of course, Indonesia shares some of Malaysia’s current shortcomings including widespread corruption, and the country is still very poor, but they are on the way up and it is only a matter of time before Malaysia is the one exporting maids to Indonesia.

There are those who will criticise my points above, but I believe the majority have never set foot in Jakarta and understand very little about the place. If you feel proud to be a Malaysian citizen, and look down on Indonesians, just remember that internationally, especially in the US or Europe, people generally put us on a similar standing as other Third World countries regionally.

* We asked readers who have migrated to tell us in their own words why they left. This is one of the stories.

1Malaysia = Utusan = UMNO = 1Melayu

Don: Mere warning shows Najib not serious


Professor Abdul Aziz Bari says that if Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak was serious about 1Malaysia, he would have fired Utusan editors the first day he took office.

PETALING JAYA: If Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is really serious about his 1Malaysia brainchild, he should have fired the Utusan Malaysia’s editors from the first day he took office, says Professor Abdul Aziz Bari.


He also took Najib to task for the lack of leadership over the Christian Malaysia issue, saying that Najib should have issued an apology to the Christian community for his lack of action.

“Najib should have apologised to them (the Christian leaders) for failing to take stern action like removing Utusan’s chief editor or editors. This is not the first time Utusan has come up with controversial issues like the 1Melayu, 1Bumi movement. It has been making a mockery of 1Malaysia,” Abdul Aziz, the International Islamic University law professor, told FMT.

“If Najib is really serious (about 1Malaysia), he would have sacked them from day one (of taking office). To sack them now would be too late,” he added.

Aziz was commenting on the meeting yesterday between Najib and Christians leaders over the Christian Malaysia issue.

Najib did not apologise to the community but instead said that the Christian leaders had given a pledge to respect Islam as the official religion.

The so-called “Christian plot” made headlines in Utusan Malaysia which claimed that the DAP government in Penang, together with Christian leaders, was conspiring to replace Islam as the official religion and to install a Christian prime minister. The Utusan report was based on two blog posts. Both the DAP and the Christian leaders have denied this.

Police are currently investigating the matter. The home ministry also announced yesterday that Utusan has been given a warning over the article, a move some said was too light a punishment.

Aziz agreed that the reprimand was light, saying that if Umno under the leadership of Najib was serious about 1Malaysia, sterner action could have been taken.

“Utusan is owned by Umno. Given the power that Umno has, it could have cancelled the permit or sacked the editors instead of letting them off with a mere warning,” he said.

‘Monstrous allegations’

Aziz also criticised the paper for making such “monstrous allegations”.

“It is difficult to believe that a minority group (in Malaysia) would have sat down and discussed such a thing. It is unthinkable and illogical for them to do so. Any sensible group of people can see through this. You can’t even imagine such a scenario let alone make that demand,” he said.

The Christians in Malaysia constitute less than 10% of the population.

He also criticised Utusan for “stooping so low”, saying that “it shows that Umno is panicking”.

Asked if Najib was demonstrating maturity by staying out of the fray, Aziz disagreed, saying that Najib was in the centre of the fray by giving signals on the direction that Umno should be taking.

Example of these signals were Najib’s war-like rhetoric in recent times at several high-level party events and the light punishment meted out to Utusan.

” At the Umno general assembly last year, Najib spoke about defending ‘Putrajaya at all cost’. At an Umno Selangor event this month, he also told Umno members ‘to take back Selangor by any means’ possible. At the 65th Umno anniversary celebration recently, he rallied his troops for election. It is like a war when it is merely an election,” Aziz said.

“By directing from behind and telling his troops that this is a do-or-die mission, Najib is very much a part of the fray. This is not political rhetoric in ordinary times. He is not showing any kind of leadership, he is merely a part of the team,” he said.

Asked if he thought Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had a role to play in pushing for Umno’s pro-Malay stand, Aziz said that as party president, the onus fell on Najib to control the members.

He also questioned the kind of political games that Najib was playing, saying that he was propagating 1Malaysia but allowing matters such as the Christian issue to slip pass.

“Is this the kind of mature politics you expect from the son of a prime minister, from someone who comes from an aristocratic family?” he asked.

By Tarani Palani

How Lee Kuan Yew sees Malaysia in 20 years' time

The clear and present danger

If the Doomsday prediction never comes true, New Zealand will remain as picturesque after a hundred years, with cows and goats roaming all over the country sparsely populated by humans.

A hundred years later, Singapore 's foundation will remain rock solid. The tiny city-state will continue to lure new immigrants, and many new-generation Singaporeans will see their lineages traced back to those of migrants.



How about Malaysia a hundred years from now?

Lee Kuan Yew did not seem to see things that far. He only set his sight 20 years later.

He said all constituencies in Malaysia would be dominated by the Malays in 20 years' time, and the leadership in this country would value the Chinese population less and less.

The Chinese population would continue to slide, he added, not because of the pathetically low fertility rates among the Chinese in this country, but because those who could afford would have sent their children overseas, who would decide not to come back.

"And those migrating to Malaysia will be from Islamic states, making the country's Islamisation inclination more and more pronounced."

Statistics don't lie, and the current political and social ecosystems are not here without a reason.

MM Lee's predictions are by no means novel. But his well-thought remarks have touched the hearts of many a Malaysian.

If this is what the country should look like 20 years from now, we can imagine Chinese Malaysians to be like apes in a forest sanctuary a hundred years down the road, where we need to sharpen our eyesight to carefully scan through the entire swathe of forest before we can catch a glimpse of one or two of them.

That comparison is, most certainly, exaggerated, but I really hope we will not be reduced to a rare species by then.

The ratio of Chinese population in this country has been on steady decline over the decades; so has their political status here. Very soon, they will be completely engulfed by the powerful waves of aggressive Islamisation.

This is the pessimistic side of the outlook of their destiny.

But Chinese Malaysians cannot afford to go on this way, and wait helplessly for such a destiny to befall them.

They have to take the initiative to accentuate their own strengths and be in firm control of their own fates before they can divert such a predestination.

The next ten years will be key to the future destiny of Chinese Malaysians. If the country's policies get more and more ethnically-oriented and religiously inclined, the future of Chinese community is well within our imagination, and Chinese Malaysians will exit the country in droves.

On the other hand, if community-centric ideologies get diluted, conflicts between mainstream and minority races get thinned down, the common Malaysian identity gets consolidated, and the spirit of secularity stays very much relevant, then Chinese Malaysians will have a much more promising future here.
So will Malaysia .

Whatever happens to this country or our society, the most important element for new-generation Chinese to secure a place in this land, will be their very own competitiveness.

In this age of globalization, when national boundaries are increasingly obscured, people will find a greener pasture beyond our shores if our internal conditions remain this bleak.

We cannot afford to talk about what will happen to us a hundred years from now. We need to buck up and fight for our near-term opportunities.

Meaningless and unnecessary squabbles, like the one currently taking place within MCA, will only serve to bog down the pace of the Chinese community further, blurring their vision of the clear and present danger.

What the Chinese community urgently needs right now is high-caliber and farsighted leadership, not one engrossed with endless infighting.

(By TAY TIAN YAN/Translated by DOMINIC LOH/Sin Chew Daily) 
MySinchew)

600,000 Malaysians in Singapore?

Some 600,000 Malaysians may be living and working in Singapore, which has a population of just over 5 million.

According to the World Bank, more than one million Malaysians live abroad, the result of race-based economic policies that created a brain drain. The Bank noted that Singapore has absorbed 57 per cent of Malaysia’s overseas citizens, with almost 90 per cent of those crossing the border ethnic Chinese. See Insider report.

If the Bank is correct, then some 600000 Malaysians could be in Singapore: 386000 are residents born in Malaysia (according to the Singapore 2010 census published by the Singapore Department of Statistics), close to 200000 non-residents living and working in Singapore, and say 100000 commuters.

Obviously, we have lost a huge amount of talent. Does the federal government even care why so many Malaysians have left the country, for obvious reasons? Maybe it might start taking an interest if these Malaysians are granted postal balloting rights.

On Twitter, Malaysians say no to 1 Malaysia email a/c

Malaysians on the Internet are ridiculing the government’s plan to give a 1 Malaysia email account to every Malaysian aged 18 and over.



They were up in arms on social media network Twitter as soon as news of the RM50 million project to set up a new one-stop web portal for government services was made public this morning.

The hashtag “#1malaysiaemail” was the third most popular topic among Malaysian users on the network as of 5pm today.

Many said that the money could be put to better use, such as in education, helping the poor and getting Internet service out to rural areas.

“The free #1Malaysiaemail will be the same as my unifi.my and streamyx. Unattended, full of junk and probably long forgotten,” said a user called starwing.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had said the 1 Malaysia email initiative will allow direct and secure communications between Malaysian citizens and government as well as enhance delivery of public services.

The Malaysian Insider understands that the idea came from a lab session organised by Pemandu, the unit under Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Idris Jala.

Some were also alarmed that the contract had been given to Tricubes Berhad, a company that is currently being monitored by Bursa Malaysia under Guidance Note 3 for accounting irregularities.

“Tricubes is a GN3 company. What the **** does our PM take us for? Idiots? #1MalaysiaEmail,” chris_yap said.

“So it’s gonna cost Gomen RM50mil to setup #1Malaysiaemail? Nice bailout to Tricubes. Whose money???,” vernieman added.

Another user noted that the government still insisted that Malaysians above the age of 21 would have to personally register to vote, yet it was planning to identify all Malaysians above the age of 18, estimated at about 16 million people, and hand them email accounts.

“Now who said automatic voter registration is a hassle again? Giving free email is not, apparently,” said bongkersz.

The email initiative has also paved the way for some to openly poke fun at the 1 Malaysia concept itself.

“Will we be getting #1Malaysia penis enlargement ads now? @NajibRazak Or better yet 1Malaysia emails that say I have won the lottery,” said theshi, referencing common topics of spam emails.

Juanajaafar sarcastically said “the 1Malaysia email account will solve the nation’s brain drain, looming food crisis and reduce cases of incest among urban poor Malays.”

Musician Pete Teo also noted that free email accounts were already available from other providers.

“Free email a/c from govt? Dear @NajibRazak, (why) spend taxpayers’ $$ (to) replicate what Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc (already give for) free? #looting,” he wrote.

Others called on the prime minister to roll out free wireless Internet, improve broadband Internet service and to give computers to those in rural areas.

By Shannon Teoh