KUALA LUMPUR, April 18, 2008 (AFP) - Malaysia's ethnic Chinese are dissatisfied with the country's national and economic policies while youngsters are becoming racially polarised, a survey released on Friday said.
Racial and religious tensions, alarm over "Islamisation" and alienation of the country's minorities were reflected in the ruling coalition government's worst ever results in March 8 polls.
Voters swung in support of the opposition, depriving the ruling coalition of a two-thirds majority in parliament and handing over control of five states to the opposition, in protest against the Muslim Malay-majority government.
The Centre for Public Policy Studies said Malaysia's Chinese, who dominate the economy, feel that they have been unfairly treated by government policies favouring the Malays.
"The Chinese do feel the most dissatisfied and most unfairly treated. This is something that the government needs to look at urgently," the centre's managing director, Tricia Yeoh, said.
The survey found 75 percent of Malays say they have never been treated unfairly due to their race, compared to 45 percent of Chinese and 49 percent of Indians.
The Chinese also feel that they have significantly less ownership of the country compared to other races and gave "significantly negative responses" to economic policies, Yeoh said.
Only 42 percent of Chinese believed government policies fostered national unity, compared to 85 percent of Malays, the survey said.
The long-standing dissatisfaction and anger felt by Chinese and Indians culminated in the government's poor electoral results, Yeoh said.
"Now we have the numbers and statistics to confirm the perception that the Chinese and the Indians were feeling unfairly treated in the country," she said.
Malaysia's affirmative action programme was introduced in the early 1970s to bridge the wealth gap with ethnic Chinese who dominate business, by giving Malays advantages in education, housing and commerce.
It has been criticised for benefiting only an elite group of Malays, while many in the rural areas still live in poverty.
The survey interviewed 1,000 youths aged between 18 and 35 from both urban and rural areas across Peninsula Malaysia from July and August 2007.
Youngsters between the age of 18 and 24 in the country were also found to be more racially polarised, preferring to mix within groups of their own race, due to lack of interaction between the races in schools and universities.
Edmund Bon, from the National Young Lawyer's Committee which co-authored the report, said the government should change its "superficial" national unity campaigns, which merely scratch the surface.
"What we need to look at are the underlying problems... education policies, scholarship issues, quotas, both religious and racial policies, rather than the usual education campaigns and awareness programmes," Bon said.
No comments:
Post a Comment