The Dog-Fight for Scholarships
By batsman
When Bersih 2.0 leaders are facing death threats and the Chinese in Malaysia are being picked upon as easy targets for threatening genocide, the perception still persists that reforms are nothing more than dog-fights over scholarships, no, not just over scholarships but those scholarships that guarantee a place to study overseas.
Since RPK is also talking about perception, let us see what such a dog-fight over choice scholarships mean in terms of perception.
Most things contain the seeds of both good and bad. Human beings too have the ability to do both good and bad. Both good and bad are contained in a singular entity.
This can only mean that people have to use good judgement when making decisions. They have to be able to differentiate not only between many colours but in various shades of colour.
Physically humans are able to differentiate between many thousands of colours and shades of colours just with their eyes and nervous system. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for human intellect. Too often when asked to make decisions on social or political issues, humans are encouraged to differentiate only between black and white. They are not even encouraged to see the various shades of grey not to mention all the varied multi-colours and shades of colours of life.
When there is a question over the granting of scholarships to our brightest and best students, there is just cause to do so. After all UMNO is using government scholarships to offer to family and cronies. Beyond that, Malaysia is so rich that scholarships are being used to buy votes. Beyond that still, Malaysia is so well endowed that the ruling elite wants to monopolise all that wealth and use scholarships to implement policies of divide and rule to keep people quarreling amongst themselves.
Such a phenomena should involve Bersih 2.0, since Bersih is concerned about clean elections and scholarships are being used to buy votes and support for the ruling elite. It should come as no surprise if the leaders of NGOs threatening Bersih 2.0 have at one time or another been able to get scholarships for their children or other family members through corrupt crony contacts.
So the fight over scholarships contain both good and bad points. If it is to expose the ruling elite for using scholarships to buy votes and support as well as exercising corrupt monopoly of scholarships for their own family members and cronies, then the fight is just and good for democratic reforms in Malaysia.
Unfortunately if the dog-fight is over who gets the best scholarships to study overseas and who is more qualified to get these elite scholarships, then a bad perception sets in. How many students get 8As or 10As out of the tens of thousands? The perception arise if the fight is just for an extremely small minority? This is going beyond the just fight against cronyism, favouritism, corruption and vote buying. It has gone into the fight that elites on both sides are more concerned with.
It is not a question of who gets the scholarships but whether our institutions for award of scholarships is transparent and effective – whether they have integrity and are trusted to do an honest and effective job of encouraging the best students to achieve their dreams and pay back the favour by contributing their best for the country.
The fight is being distracted from the reforms of our institutions especially the electoral reforms, by our Prime Minister going on FM radio to provoke questions on who gets the best scholarships. This is using government assets and services for party political gains. It is the same as using the wealth of the country for personal or private gains such as arranging for the marriage of one’s own daughter even if it is just by partially using government expenses.
Similarly, anyone who tunes in to RTM 1 can see that it is campaigning openly for BN’s party political advantage. Again, this is using government assets, government money and government services for party political or even personal gain. It is not uncommon for RTM 1 to give exposure and advertisement for private businesses under the guise of documentaries. If people are unable to see that government power and money must never be used for party political gains or for personal gains, then it comes as no surprise that our institutions are slowing being corrupted and going down the drain.
Even in Parliament, someone is bold and arrogant enough to say, “You MPs cannot chase me out but I can chase you out” (quoted from newspapers). This clearly shows a person well on the way to abuse his powers, a person who believes he is not answerable to anyone and who can act against MPs as he wishes – on mere whim and fancy. Such clearly dictatorial tendencies are slowly corrupting our institutions even those of the seat of our democracy – our Parliament.
So it is important to see the good and bad enmeshed together in singularities and be able to differentiate them. The fight for who gets the best and choicest scholarships is a distraction. Cronyism and abuse of powers is bound up with Bersih 2.0’s fight for clean elections and electoral reforms. Do not get distracted. If you are more concerned about who gets what scholarship or who hopes to get what future houses in the old RMAF Sungei Besi grounds than about Bersih 2.0’s fight of clean elections, then you have been distracted.
