Malaysia, Singapore:
What's love got to
do with it? By Gary LaMoshi
HONG KONG - Malaysian author and political
scientist Farish Noor posed a question about dissent
that he admitted he couldn't answer. At last month's
Kuala Lumpur Literary Festival, Noor asked: "How does
the world confront the realities of power, particularly
when power manifests itself in such a loving,
paternalistic manner?"
Malaysians got a whole
lot of love during the second quarter of this year. The
central bank reported economic growth of 8% for the
quarter compared with 2003, spurred by big gains in
manufacturing and consumer spending, while inflation
remained low at 1.2%. That growth came on top of a 7.6%
growth rate in the first quarter of this year.
Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz predicted
that Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi would announce in
his budget speech next month economic growth figures for
the year revised upward from the current 6-6.5%. In its
announcement of the figures, Malaysia's loving national
news agency, Bernama, couldn't help calling the figures
"remarkable".
In neighboring Singapore, economic
growth clocked in at 12.5%, the best quarter in 10
years. As in Malaysia, exports to a recovering global
economy spurred much of the growth. The numbers for both
economies were made more gaudy by to comparison to last
year's figures devastated by severe acute respiratory
syndrome (SARS) in the region.
More money,
less love? In Malaysia and Singapore, governments
promise economic growth and prosperity in exchange for
their overbearing embrace. This quarter, and
historically, the governments delivered. But as
prosperity rises, people like Noor question whether the
price is worth paying.
Singapore and Malaysia
are, by far, the most prosperous economies in Southeast
Asia. They are also the region's last survivors of the
guided-democracy breed. Despite the gloss of free
elections, the same party has ruled since independence.
Each ruling party unabashedly uses the mechanisms of
government to maintain power. Censors still take a razor
to movies and ban books. Both countries use
internal-security laws with broad powers to stifle
opposition. More pernicious, government control of the
media and flow of information frames public thinking and
steers national dialogue and debate, declaring large
parts of the public life out of bounds for discussion.
In his National Day speech on Sunday, hailed by
government media as heralding a "major overhaul" in line
with a "bold vision" for Singapore, new Prime Minister
Lee Hsien Loong (see Asian values behind Singapore son's
rise, August 10) pledged to remove licensing
requirements for free speech indoors, as long it doesn't
touch on taboo topics of race or religion. Apparently
Singaporeans can now register their disagreement with
government policies at the dinner table without fear of
the Special Branch police busting in; go ahead and try,
but don't webcast it. Public speech, even at the highly
touted but rarely used Speaker's Corner in a public
park, still requires a police license.
Malaysia's true Malaysians Race and
religious issues are even more contentious in Malaysia,
where government preferences for ethnic Malays have
distorted economic life and failed to erode
ethnic-Chinese domination in commerce significantly. The
government's related policy of promoting Malaysia as an
Islamic state - even though Muslims (like Malays) only
comprise 60% of the population - cleaves and reinforces
divisions within society. The young generation of the
nation's Chinese - and other minorities, such as ethnic
Indians - may see themselves as 100% Malaysian, but
government policies continue to promote group politics,
prejudices and jealousies. Winning a contract or getting
a university seat can depend more on pedigree than
merit.
The government can argue, with the latest
gross domestic product (GDP) figures and personal
incomes that stand hand and shoulder above their
neighbors as backing, that the system works. That's true
to some extent. In 1997, when the regional economic
crisis devastated Malaysia, then-prime minister Mahathir
Mohamad went against the advice of his deputy Anwar
Ibrahim and didn't follow the International Monetary
Fund's prescription to combat the collapse. Mahathir
imposed currency restrictions and a fixed exchange rate
- and jailed Anwar for daring to disagree.
Following Mahathir's policies, Malaysia endured
a more mild depression (and a more moderate recovery)
than its neighbors that accepted the conventional
medicine. But it's impossible to know whether following
the alternative prescription would have worked better.
The road less traveled Similarly, we
can't know whether Malaysia and Singapore would have
done better economically if they had followed different,
less restrictive paths to economic growth. Unlike their
neighbors, neither country is saddled with large
populations that stretch resources to their limits.
(Much of Prime Minister Lee's Sunday speech focused on
the drive to raise Singapore's extraordinarily low
birthrate, hardly an indicator of general satisfaction
and confidence about the future.)
Political
restrictions weren't responsible for these countries'
extraordinary growth over their short histories. The
secret wasn't preventing free speech but enacting sound
economic policies, which political restrictions now
increasingly grate against. It can be argued that
setting political boundaries to promote stability had a
valid role in poor, fledgling societies four decades
ago. But today, in richer, more mature societies, these
limits have long outlived their usefulness.
It's
unlikely that Malaysia's and Singapore's restrictive
policies will contribute to future economic growth. For
both countries, manufacturing remains a key component of
their growth, and that's a dying business for these
high-wage economies. Malaysia hoped its national car
company, Proton, would make it the Detroit of Southeast
Asia, but Thailand won over foreign auto makers (see 'Detroit of Asia' claims its stake),
and China threatens to flatten all rivals as the global
car giants pile in to win a slice of its domestic
market.
Malaysia and Singapore can't compete
with their neighbors on costs, so they'll have to
compete on adding value. That requires education systems
that don't discriminate by race and that encourage
creativity. But that isn't done by requiring creativity
courses or ordering it; that happens by opening up
society from top to bottom, removing taboos and goring
sacred cows.
The burgeoning services industries
require that same kind of creativity and special skills.
In that arena, Singapore has a leg up because nearly
everyone speaks English. Malaysia has gone in the other
direction, with instruction in Malay that's produced a
generation with limited English skills in an
increasingly English-oriented global economy. Financial
services, a key component of a consumer economy and
increasingly global, require unfettered communication -
Prime Minister Lee's brother, Lee Hsien Yang, runs
Singapore Telecom - free information and fundamental
fairness without government meddling.
No one
invests in Malaysia because they need to have a Malay
partner or because they're assured no one will discuss
race relations in polite company; they do it in spite of
those restrictions. The overarching role of Singapore's
Temasek Group, the Finance Ministry's investment arm
chaired by Prime Minister Lee's wife that controls large
slices of key industries and has become increasingly
acquisitive of private business, is no incentive for
outside investors. In Malaysia and Singapore today, the
sole beneficiaries of political restrictions are
entrenched politicians and entrenched interests. To
answer Noor's question, continued success requires less
love and more words.
Gary LaMoshi, a
longtime editor of investor-rights advocate eRaider.com,
has also contributed to Slate and Salon.com. He's worked
as a broadcast producer and as a print writer and editor
in the United States and Asia. He moved to Hong Kong in
1995 and now splits his time between there and
Indonesia.
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