The destruction race-based politics wields

Dr. Lim Teck Ghee of the  Centre For Policy Initiatives has written a thought-provoking article on the NEP's effect on the state of public higher education. With the recent complaints I've heard from peers in public unis whose rankings fell in the Times-QS 2009 rankings, I didn't bat an eye at the stats on unemployed graduates.

When my foreign peers try to make sense of the pro-majority quota system in place, I explain to them it's like when South Africa used to bar coloured people from restaurants and schools that white people went to, the 'white schools' were given the best of everything while the coloured students were denied similar benefits. As a result, the white kids grew into smarter and richer adults and the education-income gap between the coloreds and whites widened considerably.

Then I tell my friends to picture the same thing about Malaysia, except that the quota system here doesn't really care about making the majority race into excellent students or a superior workforce. So not only is the majority depriving their superior race of competing on the world stage, they are actually instilling even more resilience and determination in the denied minorities to outperform the majority.

The US has long abolished such race-based policies, and so has South Africa, once notorious for its apartheid system. Why? Because this race-based system doesn't work. When every other nation is harnessing its homegrown talent collectively and not by to race or class, what chance do countries with a 'weak link' like ours have to shine? How ironic it is that our ancestors banded together to fight domination from one race and that we now perpetuate a similarly unjust supremacy.

I still remember the tears in the eyes of a friend who grew up in South Africa being forced to learn Afrikaans in schools and not being allowed in certain restaurants, having separate restrooms from the white kids in school. Those years are long gone for my friend, but in the 21st century, right here in Malaysia, we still have universities who are exclusively for a certain religion or race.

Update: An interesting letter to Malaysiakini on this thorny issue.