Only here can you find a significant portion of the population that has roots from two of the world’s oldest civilisations; India and China. The Malays share similar cultural values with Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country. Islam as a religion gives us access to the Muslim world. The inherited British system meanwhile gives us access to the Western world as well. ‎We are like chameleons, and we can infiltrate and be at home in almost every nation on Earth!

Interestingly, a survey by Facebook found that Malaysia is the most cyber sociable country with ‎the most Facebook friends.

Malaysia is also a country of Multiples. We are the only country on Earth that is multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi race-based sports associations, chambers of commerce & industry, and political parties, multi-national cuisines, multi-government (1 federal and 13 state governments), and multi-monarchies (9 kings from the world’s total 35 monarchs)!

If the above is not enough, let me reinforce my case with the following arguments:

We are the only nation on the planet that has vowed to protect Allah, and ban others from using that name; and have allegedly labeled Hotdogs and Rootbeer as Haram due to literal reasons.

We house the oldest tropical rainforest, said to be over 130 million years old, older than the Amazon and Congo Basins, home to 14,500 species of flowering plants and trees, with more than 200 species of mammals, 600 species of birds, 140 species of snakes and 60 species of lizards.

And we had the longest King Cobra in the world, measuring in at 5.71 metres, that was found in Port Dickson in 1937.

We also have the biggest roundabout in the world in Putrajaya measuring at 3.5 kilometres in circumference; arguably we also have the “biggest spin in the world” too.

Yes, Malaysia is unique. Not just truly Asia, but truly The World! Can you beat that?

Not to mention our eclectic and exhaustive list of cuisines which spans a line from the East to the West. What dishes can’t you find here?

Blessed with abundant natural resources and harvests, from tin to ‎rubber, palm oil, timber, bauxite, and of course with petroleum being the most precious now. Malaysia is a rich country. So based on our uniqueness, we have all the essential ingredients to thrive and flourish as “a paradise on earth”, but have we done so?

The Land of Multiples comes with Multiple Problems

It is shocking how this small country of 31.8 million people managed to shockingly earn the most unwelcome title of the region’s most unequal nation, most in-efficient energy user, among its many other titles including being the home to the world’s largest financial scandal, 1MDB.

Prior to 1MDB, we have had a litany of scandals from Bank Bumiputera, Perwaja, Metramac, Malaysia Airlines, Bank Islam, Transmile, Megan Media, Scan Associates, and a yearly recurrence of repeated “red reports” on audits of government agencies from the Auditor General’s office. All of these scandals point to one indisputable conclusion – Rampant corruption!

We are trapped in a hollow economy, with over reliance on foreign workers, with the majority of our population earning low income and facing distressing rise in the cost of living. Moreover, the majority of Malaysians do not have savings adequate to survive more than one month if they lose their job.

A serious pensions crisis is looming where two-thirds of 54-year-olds having less than RM50,000 in their EPF accounts.

We are perceived to have 1st World infrastructure but sadly demonstrate a 3rd World culture or attitude. We score bottom third on international education rankings, many of our drivers are insane with road thugs and mat rempits, we are number 20 in the world in terms of fatalities from road accident per capita, besides facing severe vandalism in our cities, having unprofessional and unethical taxi drivers and widespread claims that Kuala Lumpur is one of, if not the rudest city on Earth.

Environmentally, mother nature is crying; we have flash floods (poor town planning coupled with inadequate facilities management) in our cities, massive flooding on the East Coast‎, poor management of our water resources and supply, poor waste management, and rampant illegal dump-sites plus “illegal logging” of our forests and mountains, even in water catchment areas.

Malaysians are also famous for how gullible we can be when it comes to popular get-rich-quick money making schemes! There is a massive, parallel underground economy, covering illegal gambling, drug and other commodity smuggling, pirate DVDs, and credit card cloning. These are also “unwarranted (and unwanted) awards” of Malaysian innovation and enterprise, often derided sarcastically as “Malaysia Boleh”.

The saddest part is, on almost every street and traffic lights pole, without fail, there will be two types of glaring advertisements, either the telephone numbers of Ah Longs (illegal money lenders) or the number for Massage and Escorts services!

Politics is so intense that there is no time to formulate policies, but energy is wasted to tirelessly attack one another. Politics of hate and racial polarisation have been in the forefront over the past two decades. ‎ Human rights, questionable discretionary laws, politically motivated and selective persecutions are also issues plaguing the country. Judicial independence appears to have lost credibility.

As a result we scored 66th of 73 countries on Electoral Integrity and 146th of 180 on World Press Freedom Indices.

So, are we doomed “to rot in purgatory”? Are we heading south? Potentially, but, there is a way out, if only we want to take it!

Endless Impossibilities

If there is one thing that history has thought us, it is that there are endless impossibilities. Throughout human existence, we have been continuously surprised by the successes of nations deemed to be insignificant; for example, The illiterate Mongolians, under Genghis Khan, went on to conquer two-thirds of the then known world, coming from out of no-where.

The Arabs were nomads, rated no higher than slaves in the eyes of the Romans and Persians.

The Japanese used to be lazy drunken farmers before the Meiji revolution. The Vietnamese fought their way and kicked out the French and the Americans from their land and won their Freedom.

Nothing is impossible, no matter how hopeless the situation seems. Always remember that the sun only comes out after the darkest point of the night.

The same goes for Malaysia. We have already steered off course and gone astray, so have we reached the depths of darkness and despair from which we can aspire to rise again?

There is a dire need to re-calibrate our way forward so as to head back to the right path for the good of the nation and Rakyat.

There is a way out of this state of affairs. We must now admit and acknowledge that critical problems plague our beloved nation. Honesty and Sincerity must return to our land.

This calls for every Malaysian to have faith and contribute their share towards this aim. One voice might be insignificant, ten might make a blink, but thousands and millions together can cause thunder and shake the Earth, or at least Putrajaya.

Wish-list for A Strong and Vibrant Malaysia

So here is my wish-list for Malaysia:

As there is so much to be done, an apt start would be convening a National Consultative Council Part 2 for a “back to the drawing board” social and economic re-engineering. This needs an amalgamation of the best minds across the nation to provide realistic and feasible strategies to chart the way forward for national recalibration.

Malaysia’s natural resources are finite and the environment is precious. An improved resource management structure, where these‎ resources are used optimally to be shared and tasted equally by its Rakyat is required. The oil royalty conundrum by the Federal Government and States involved must be resolved amicably for the best of the Rakyat.

Fundamental economic corrections must be made to correct the way we do things. We must evolve from rentier capitalism to techno industrial capitalism. Ideally, we must adapt the best practices from the social market of Europe and the state capitalism of China that are relevant to Malaysia.

Policies must be Rakyat centric, with social justice at its heart, placing decent wealth creation and equitable distribution at the core of its economic deliberations, while providing sustainable environment for corporations to thrive.

Entrepreneurs who can add value, and not mere venture capitalists, are key to our desired success.

We must declare “war” on income and wealth inequality, which creates a never ending vicious cycle that is detrimental to any society.

Primary boarding schools, affordable housing, people and social enterprises, must be developed and encouraged to be in place wherever they are needed.

Efficient and ‘green’ key sectors namely energy, transportation, ‎construction, water and waste management must be prioritized for their economic and environmental advantages.

Every Malaysian needs and deserves a good balanced life that can be provided by a decent and fair-paying job. The Rakyat should not need to have two jobs to live a reasonably conducive and happy life. Relentless, and perhaps unjust economic pursuits have punished the bulk of Malaysians and we have replaced our empathy with apathy.

Functioning family units allow parents to play proactive roles in child upbringing and education and to instil the true “Asian Values” that we so often pronounce, but hardly prioritize in practice.

Women’s empowerment alleviates current burdens on potential economic contributors and offer cohesive social and economic benefits.

Education is paramount as the overarching solution to the majority of the Malaysia’s social and economic ills. Education must be inclusive, and impart moral fibre, critical thinking, humanity, humility, religious tolerance, innovation and creative technological advancement for Malaysians.

A revisit of our national education philosophy must take place and be replaced with the Love Pedagogy.

We need to inculcate a reading culture, critical thinking and prosper our intellectual debating environment. We must celebrate thinkers and philosophers, and provide a conducive environment for public discourse. Intellectuals must be given the mandate to carry the torch and light our candles to see the way forward.

Healthcare must be made affordable and readily available to all segments of the Rakyat. We need more hospitals and training hospitals, and well equipped clinics to serve the sick and needy wherever they reside. A holistic public transportation is another severely needed amenity for the Rakyat.

Education and healthcare are indeed too precious and inalienable rights for all Malaysians, and should not be pawns for the politicians to kick around.

Volunteerism, the social activist NGOs, and the “third sector” must be encouraged and enhanced to strengthen democracy and “justice for all” in the country.

Good governance, integrity, freedom of access to information for the media and whistle-blower protection must be truly practiced to enable a successful fight against corruption, aimed at its core and as a check and balance to the principle of separation of power.

The Constitutional Law must reign supreme and needs to be applied justly, and not be abused for the benefit of the subservient cronies of modern dictators. We need “Rule of law” not rule by the Mafia. Democracy must be seen to be alive and be inclusive for every Malaysian’s participation, and not just a case of going to the polls every 5 years.

Let’s put an end to politics of race and hate. Racial harmony must be inculcated and nurtured from home and school at a young age, even before their pre-school years. After all, aren’t we born skin-colour blind?

Malaysia Boleh!

My wish list for Malaysia is composed of all the proposals that I’ve written, articulated and fought for before.

My mission here is to bring pressure, by means of creating public awareness for a re-navigation to the right path. There are no ‘impossibilities’ that we Malaysians cannot face and overcome and to ensure that everyone in the country counts.

We are a unique nation with the best mixture and ingredients that any nation can ask for. All we need is the intellectual clarity and the will. Let us draw from the power of our uniqueness and diversity and‎ mould them as a pillar of strength to move forward, and never as a crippling weakness, to achieve the Endless Impossibilities and be the best that we can be.

With all my heart, I sincerely echo, Malaysia Boleh! Let’s walk this path together, because together we can!

The post Whither Malaysia: Where do We Go from Here? A Wish-list for Fundamental Correction first appeared on Anas Alam Faizli.

Yet, despite all that, he feared editors. Why? Because editors can control and influence ideas, words and debates. He feared domestic dissent. He wants full control. He even said that, “I want to create an educational body that will steer the way the French people think!”

Napoleon went on to establish public schools in an effort to further craft and dictate how the French would think and act. What Napoleon did through public schools is effective but he undermined and put a stop to human creativity and intellectualism. The same concept was later adopted by the French, as far west as the Americans, and eventually by the whole world

Freedom of Expression Towards Critical Thinking

Are Malaysians being dictated and controlled on how to think and act too? Do we, as a moderate and progressive nation, understand the meaning of freedom, justice and democracy?

I believe we need to think, question and engage first, in order to understand the purpose of certain jurisdictions, rulings or systems. Safe platforms that encourage intellectual discourse and allow Malaysians to think out of the box, beyond definitions from schools, societal norms and the Government, should be put in place.

On the surface, this may seem like encouragement to partake in unnecessary rebellious activities threatening public safety. But consider the reverse psychology and unintended moral hazard that prevails; it is often when oppressed that people side with the opposite, even when the opposing side may not be the truth or most ideal.

The younger generation especially, will easily be influenced by any idea, regardless of its validity, purely because it is against the mainstream. This is not healthy. We need to liberalize intellectual discussions and arguments. The marginalized and the oppressed should be given room for dialogue and debate. Ideas should be contested in the public sphere.

Evidence has shown that liberalizing ideas and thoughts sparked Britain’s Industrial Revolution. Malaysia too should embrace “Enlightenment” beyond superficial prosperity, through Critical Thinking.

The industrial revolution and the great age of invention could only have happened when people were given the freedom to think for themselves. Then only can human achieve the impossible where even the sky was no limit and even the moon was within reach.

A Story of Social Mobility through Education

My grandfather was a testimony to how Education can uplift generational social mobility. He hailed from Telok Panglima Garang, located far from the bustling city of Kuala Lumpur. In his formative years, he did best in his school and was offered a scholarship by the British Resident at that time. He completed his study then with the Victoria Institution, and became a journalist working with the newspaper Majlis.

Growing up, I always remember how he emphasised education and awareness as key towards great human civilisation. He worked hard and made sure all his children and by extent, his grandchildren managed to complete tertiary education. I remember how he told me he had no regrets as all his grandchildren are well educated.

Many have written on how Malaysia should escape the clutch and trap of the middle income. We have been stuck as a Middle Income nation since 1996. The only way forward is through Education. History of First World nations have time and time again, shown us how powerful the power of education is in founding civilizations and uplifting societies’ quality of life.

Honouring Atok

When I embarked on my doctorate journey, it was my hope that I could create awareness and contribute to society through my thesis and articles. The first piece of article produced during research became part of a book entitled “Rich Malaysia, Poor Malaysians”.

The book provided the public with insight into the day-to-day operations of Petronas being the country’s largest cash cow and how Petronas contributed to Malaysia’s growth. I then continued to write on socio-economic realities of Malaysia, particularly Education and Volunteering. I tried to spell out benefits accrued from education; dangers of the middle income trap; widening income inequality and the ensuing social upheaval. Most importantly, wanted to stress how an inclusive educational system helps in bringing about inclusive socio economic results, thereby helping to alleviate poverty and increase the nation’s well-being. The argument is finalized with the call for policy makers to adopt a “One Graduate One Household” target.

Admittedly, I touched on a multitude of areas. But in sum, education is one of, if not the only, most important solution to all the problems that we are facing today. My war will not be against a thousand bayonets. My war will be against the lack of education and awareness. I strongly believe that only through education that Malaysia will prosper. I strongly believe that education is an enabler to solving if not all, most of our socio-economic woes in the country. True education teaches us to think, not to blindly obey.

Creating Awareness Together

One can only do so much; even seemingly an inconspicuous speck of dust – yet here I am, with my ideas. However, this speck will only gather steam if many individuals group a collective effort for all Malaysians.

If we allow thinking to flourish, it will turn into dividends for our small sovereign nation, still grappling to understand the true meaning of growth, modernity and human development. If we keep suppressing and fail to encourage thought, Malaysians will be left divided and haphazardly finding meaning amidst global external influences.

Thoughts have not only fuelled revolutions and counter-establishment movements, but have also shaped academia, society and influenced leadership, policy-making, and ultimately mankind’s general livelihood.

As a developing nation, Malaysia is approaching the last but toughest hurdle in achieving wealth and prosperity; that is a knowledge-based society, driven by intellectuals and thinkers. Read, understand, think and take action!

Let’s inculcate reading and critical thinking culture among Malaysians, promote a love for knowledge, care enough to uplift our socio-economic status and strive for a better prosperous Malaysia.

The post Battling Apathy and Ignorance for a Prosperous Malaysia first appeared on Anas Alam Faizli.

Well, simply put, our economy is kind of hollow.

We import cheap components from China, assemble it locally and export the finished products.

Sadly, the finished products that we export are mostly of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEMs) type; assembled using cheap labour for foreign companies. We hardly manufacture nor do we export our own brands. As a result, on average, the value-added in the E&E products’ production chain is approximately only 15 percent.

We do the same for our textiles, as sweat shops for foreign companies.

The attraction for foreign companies to locate their E&E manufacturing in Malaysia is largely to benefit from cheap labour, cheap subsidised energy, tax holidays; and as a haven to carry out transfer pricing for the purposes of tax evasions.

However, we are not as attractive as we once used to be. This concept of mere assembling will not work in our favour for long if we do not keep up with technology as other emerging economies offer more competitive production lines.

Additionally, TPP via the Rules of Origin will upset this hegemony. A post TPPA formalization would see us importing from TPP countries to enjoy the reduction in tariff (no longer importing from China ) – but that is a story for another day.

Furthermore, since 2009 our nett foreign direct investment has been downright negative until today. Meaning, we invested more in total overseas versus investment coming into Malaysia. TPPA proponents might take a shot here to promote the Investor State to State Dispute (ISDS) clause under TPPA saying that as we invest more overseas we would require the protection.

However, such arguments fall flat in the face of the facts – we are not investing overseas in expanding our businesses but more in acquiring properties. Think MARA!

So why is this hollow economy unhealthy?

Why is mere assembling not going to work for the long term? I am going to explain using the case of iPhones. How much money goes to respective countries for every sale of an iPhone?

iPhone is an American product which is assembled in China. One would take a guess that a sizable chunk of profits will go to China and America. One might also think that Malaysia is making huge profits by assembling numerous E&E products.

Well, such assumptions are wrong.

The money from an iPhone sale (source: WSJ) goes to the following countries – 34% to Japan, 17% to Germany, 13% to South Korea, 6% to United States and only 3.6% goes to China.

Why is that so? Because the money will go to paying the high spec and high tech components which are imported from Japan, Germany and South Korea to make up the iPhone. Assembly line is cheap and does not contribute much added value.

Thus, in order to compete we need to continuously upgrade our technology and knowledge in order to survive in this fast paced world.

Instead, we are currently trapped in the middle – we are neither here nor there. We are not cheap and we are not sophisticated enough. We are not able to compete with Vietnam or Indonesia in term of cost, and Singapore in term of technology.

High Income Nation? A Meaningless Number Game of Average

Back in 2010, the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) was launched as part of achieving this ambition of elevating Malaysia from the crutch of the Middle Income Nation trap which we have been party of since 1996. The goal is to spur the country’s growth to achieve the High Income Nation status by 2020 through targeting GNI per capita of US$15,000.

Two years later, indeed, PEMANDU did announce a huge growth rate in 2012, showing how they’re on-track.

But there is a major flaw here, Ringgit to USD at the time of ETP’s announcement was at an average of RM3.52/dollar whilst in 2012 it was averaging at RM3.10/dollar. There was a FOREX gain here.

However, it is a double-edged sword, the same FOREX will come to haunt PEMANDU as the FOREX is currently hovering at RM4.30/dollar. Looking at the current condition, in order to achieve US$15,000 (RM64,500) by 2020, considering that our GNI/capita is ~RM35,000 in 2014 we need 10.7% yearly GNI growth consistently every year until 2020. That’s Mission Impossible. High Income Nation is no longer achievable. We are out of luck. The best we did was when we averaged a 9% yearly growth between 1988 to 1997 prior to the Asian Financial Crisis.

Regardless, the GNI per capita is just a number game of average. It doesn’t mean anything to the ordinary Malaysian now facing difficulties embracing the fast paced increase in the cost of living. It doesn’t mean anything to a country plagued with one of the highest inequality in the region.

To explain further, let’s do a simple mathematic calculation:

Our GNI per capita (2014): ~ RM 35,000/capita/year
Average person per Household: 4.2

Therefore,
GNI/ household / year: RM 147,000
GNI/ household / month: RM 12,250

These numbers are so lopsided and don’t mean much.

By average, every household is earning RM12,250 a month. However, since we have a wide disparity between the rich and poor the majority of our population is very far from this average. 75% of our household are earning below RM5,000 a month.

Sarawak is a clear example how a high income nation doesn’t mean anything. Sarawak in 2008 crossed World Bank’s threshold of a high income state by definition but look at the situation of the people in Sarawak. There is no real meaning to the fixation of achieving a high income nation status.

Export led-based Economy/ Development is No Longer Viable

Back in 2010, The United Nations via UN conference on trade and development (UNCTAD) called for a re-think of the export-led growth economic model foisted onto developing countries in recent decades. UNCTAD said that higher wages and stronger domestic demand were the necessary ingredients for sustained growth.

Three years after that, UNCTAD again reiterated that policy makers will need to reconsider development strategies that have been overly dependent on exports. UNCTAD also said that development strategies should place a greater emphasis on the role of wages and the public sector in the development process. Export-led development is no longer viable, economies will perform better with more balanced strategies.

What does an export led-based economy/development mean anyway? It means that export is our number one priority and we strategise everything economically according to this strategy.

Education, Innovation, Research and Development as a Way Out

According to UNESCO, the number of researchers in Malaysia for each 1 million population is only 365 behind Japan’s 5,416, Denmark’s 5,300, the United States 4,721, South Korea’s 4,231 and even South Africa at 384. Our PhD holders slightly passed the 15,000 marks from our 30 million population.

A study released by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) categorizes Malaysia as an efficiency-driven economy, behind innovation-driven economies. We focus on improving existing processes, but we are not out there inventing new things where the big money is.

Focusing on the latter is extremely important now more than ever for Malaysia, because we can no longer offer very cheap labour, land and factories to produce mass generic products competitively.

Malaysia is neither here nor there, and education opportunity is a major contributing factor. Robert Reich, former U.S. secretary of labour and professor at UC Berkeley, made a compelling argument that is very applicable to Malaysia.

To attract jobs and capital, nations and states face two choices; one is to build a low-tax but low-wage “warehouse economy” competing on price, another is to compete on quality, by increasing taxes and regulation to invest in human capital for a highly productive workforce.

In Malaysia, wage growth caught up with productivity growth only up until the late 1990’s. Since 1996, we have been living in the “middle income trap”, stunted at the World Bank’s definition of upper middle income; neither high nor low income. In fact, for the past 10 years real wage growth has been negative.

Having 77% of the Malaysian workforce with only SPM and below qualification is a structural barrier to us crossing over to the higher income group. The labour force is largely unskilled and unable to move their labour services up the value chain where higher salaries are paid.

We are in dire need for more trained professionals and innovators, and we could have harvested them from talents that did not pursue tertiary education due to the lack of opportunities. As a developing nation, Malaysia is approaching the last but toughest hurdle in achieving wealth and prosperity; that is a knowledge-based society, driven by intellectuals and thinkers.

Trickle down economy and an export-led based growth or development have been proven not to work. We need the right economic policy and approach to solve fundamental economic problems and issues. We also need to strictly reduce the number of foreign workers through industry limits and quota and we need to start now.

The only forward is for Malaysia to provide to its citizens with good job opportunities, decent wages and salaries and also an ecosystem that promotes innovation and entrepreneurship in high value products and businesses. We need to start building machine tools and our own equipment.

Let’s not get stuck with the myth of a high income nation status that doesn’t mean much to ordinary Malaysians. Let’s start thinking how the country can provide opportunities, access and rewards – equally to all its citizenry. A fundamental correction is severely required.

*A version of this article first appeared in The Edge on 16th January 2016

The post Malaysia’s Hollow Economy and the Fundamental Flaws of a High Income Nation Ambition first appeared on Anas Alam Faizli.

Alhamdulillah, I was proud of my sibling’s genius! Ideas gushed to my mind as to ways to expand his potential. Imagine the lethal combination of excelling both in the knowledge of the revelation and science. I recall having shared such suggestions with him when asked what he should pursue for his upper secondary.

I then had this notion considering his ability to memorize the Holy Book, he should pursue the Science Stream and continue with Medicine. After all, my maternal grandfather had always wanted a -grandchild of the medicinal kind.

I thought by doing so he would be more respected than your ordinary Ustaz. Looking back, what caused my perception? Perhaps, back then the idea of an Ustaz not mastering Science was seen by me as less credible. Many years after that I thought maybe I should have suggested him to pursue Hadeeth as we are severely lacking in Hadeeth experts.

Allama Iqbal (1877-1938) in his Lectures compiled as “The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam” addressed such pertinent questions. Is science compatible with religion? The modern man has been trying to separate faith from science and history. They have been trying to confine faith within the walls of the mosque. To them, secularism is progress. As a result, man became soulless. For Iqbal, ultimately there can only be one truth. The truth that faith discovers cannot be different from the truth discovered by science or history.

In the same compilation, he argued that, “To have a succession of identical thoughts and feelings is to have no thoughts and feelings at all. Such is the lot of most Muslim countries today. They are mechanically repeating old values…”

The frustration that was felt by Iqbal is not new. Some might argue that he went too far in his ideas. Others was inspired like the reformer Tariq Ramadan. Iqbal’s frustrations reappears from time to time from the birth of Islam until today. An example is of Ibn al-Qayyim, one of Ibn Taymiyya’s most “passionate advocate” who had repeatedly sought new methods to deal with the problems of the 13th century.

He gave more weight to “formulated evidential theories” more than oral testimony. He sought scientific method on how to prove a child and its alleged father by using experts to identify facial similarities. He also opined that a judge can obtain a sample of a husband’s ejaculate for lab tests to measure his impotence when woman sought divorce using that ground.

Today, these examples sounds backward but back in the 13th century that was progress. A marriage of science and faith. At that time, the Imams of the day were kept to the old ways of their ancestors when the problems that was facing and plaguing the Ummah has changed tremendously in all fields, be it science, economics, medicine and every other aspects of human and societal life.

Tariq, Iqbal and Qayyim obviously have disagreements with each other, as an example on innovation (bid’a) but essentially we can agree that we need constant revisit to changing circumstances. Not just them, this also include Jamaluddin Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, Rashid Ridha, Kiyai Hj Ahmad Dahlan, HAMKA and many other thinkers.

The revisiting and reconstruction of Islamic position is a continuous process that can change over time due to various circumstances. Perhaps we need to be reminded that Imam As-Shafie himself had changed his opinion in a certain matter in a short span of time.

The followers of Imam Abu Hanifah have also had different opinions with his earlier followers and remarked that if Abu Hanifah was still alive he might have adopted their new position due to the changes that have taken place. Abu Hanifah himself had made seven different opinions with regards to an issue which had change due to changing circumstances.

Such is the fact that there is room for continuous change in opinion. Whilst many areas of Islam is straight forward and there’s no room for change; mostly in the realm of creed (aqidah), there are other areas where pressing change is required. There are areas where evolution of thoughts are necessary. Continuous reconstruction of religious thought must be allowed.

We have to say no to dogmatism and stop refusing to see things any other way, and to be open to the possibility that we might be wrong. We need solutions for new problems that come with changing times or different geographical location or due to different racial or religious composition of a country. Some has become dogmatic that they have forgotten the basic foundation of legal theory (Usul al-Fiqh) that everything is permissible until proven wrong and not the other way around.

Islam is a religion that inculcates thinking. If we encourage thinking, and if we allow continuous discussions and debates, we will nurture intellectualism and progress. We need to question first, in order to understand the purpose of certain jurisdictions, rulings or systems. On the surface, this may seem like encouragement to partake in unnecessary rebellious activities questioning or threatening the religion. But it should not be the case.

Throughout history we have seen how new ideas are often rejected without proper deliberation. We have seen how the ideas of democracy was initially out rightly rejected as haram and must be fought against. We have seen how the idea of woman being allowed to vote was rejected as haram. As we have allowed a revisit, we find today that democracy is although not perfect but is consistent with the spirit of Islam and we have now supported woman leaders among many other issues.

I have no authority to speak in this subject matter but I fear of what is currently happening. I fear of the ongoing ruckus and the continuous blackening of Islam’s name where most of the time we are partly to be blamed. I fear how people are shying away from Islam in crafting solutions to problems that is plaguing the Ummah. Problems ranging from policy making, health, environment, economy, security, national harmony and many others.

If the intellectuals do not continuously revisit to changing circumstances and their best to provide answers and solution to the people, the concept that Islam is Syumul (complete) and covers every aspect of life will not be felt by ordinary Muslims. They will not feel it as they see that Islam cannot provide a comprehensive answer for their life’s or societal problems.

If the intellectuals fail to deliberate and adapt to new changing circumstances, the people will shy away from following the guidance of the religion and the concept that Islam is Syumul will not weigh any bearing. The concept that Islam is Rahmatan Lil Alamin (blessing to all universe) will not be felt by mankind.

Islam is a religion of love, forgiveness and peace. A religion that inculcates and nurtures strength in its followers. Islam is not a religion that punishes and instil fear.

“The biggest enemy of Islam is the ignorant Muslim, whose ignorance leads him to intolerance, whose actions destroy the true image of Islam, and when the people look at him they think that Islam is what he is.” Ahmed Deedat, (1918-2005)

There is no escape from continuous learning, at times to unlearn and then relearning. Wallahu a’lam.

The post The Continuous Revisit of Islamic Thought is A Must first appeared on Anas Alam Faizli.

MALAYSIA’S VICIOUS INEQUALITY AND PROPOSED ACTIONS TO REMEDY IT

Economic growth is good. However, like anything good, overindulgence and foolishness can land us in trouble. High income nation with high inequality is a silent and unseen troublemaker like high cholesterol and high blood pressure. We must not ignore the adverse effects of high inequality in our eager pursuit of high income nation. The World Economic Forum has recently recognised inequality as the number 1 global concern in its Global Agenda 2015.

High Income Nation status is pointless to 80% employed and self-employed Malaysians who earn below RM3,000 a month. Their low earnings contribute to the high level of income inequality, i.e. the highly skewed distribution of income. A small number of Malaysians earn tens or hundreds of thousands or even millions of Ringgits a month. Malaysia’s Gini coefficient index is among the highest in the region and has remained relatively stagnant at above 0.4 since the late 1980s as pointed out by the honourable Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah during a Budget 2014 Focus Group meeting to address income inequality on 3rd of August 2013.

As concerned and conscientious citizens, we call on the government to take urgent and affirmative actions to reduce the high level of inequality in Malaysia. To get the ball rolling, we propose policy actions in 9 KEY AREAS for the government to consider.

The government should also consider dedicating the revenue it receives from Petronas towards the effort to reduce inequality.

1. Set Gini index or other appropriate measure of inequality as a national target.

• Unlike GDP growth components, actions and progress made in reducing inequality are not summarised and presented as a single number. GDP, GNI, ETP, GTP, EPP, NKEA, NKRA, etc. do not address the costs of inequality to the country. Costs of inequality include unemployment, crime, poverty, distrustful and uncaring society, racial disharmony, health and social problems as well depleting social goods.
• A measure of inequality should be made a national target and the progress communicated to the rakyat just like GDP growth and income per capita. What gets measured gets done. We propose that Gini index for Malaysia be reduced to below 0.35 by 2020 as the national target.

2. Use progressive measure of poverty

• Consolidate the various poverty definitions and thresholds in use into one that meets leading global standards and practices. Instead of using the Poverty Line Income (PLI) based on absolute poverty, we propose the government to use relative poverty measure with threshold of 60% of median household income with appropriate adjustments for family size. Currently that translates into RM1,200 for a single person, RM2,000 for a married household with no children, additional RM300 for the first 2 children each and another RM200 each for the next 2 children and RM100 for each subsequent children.

3. Provide equal access to education opportunities and improve the connectivity between local labour force and human resource requirements.

• Full board primary school for children of the poor. Students in secondary Sekolah Berasrama Penuh (SBP) such as MRSM today are mainly children of middle and upper class parents with good primary education. We need primary school SBPs to help children of rural and urban poor families to improve their chances of entering secondary and tertiary education. The government can use alternative delivery systems for this such as empowering social entrepreneurs to deliver the service through social enterprises.
• Vocational and Polytechnic education and training. Government should target an intake of at least 100,000 students by 2020. This is important to diversify and upgrade the skills of our labour force of which 75% of them are currently holding SPM certificates and below.
• Public Universities. Government should increase the annual intake from 200,000 currently to a minimum of 400,000 students by 2020. Various studies and research have proven that tertiary education can help reduce inequality.

4. Ensure decent jobs and fair wages for citizens. As a principle, no person in full-time employment should be in poverty.

• Set a minimum wage of RM1,350 for 2015 and target RM1,850 by 2020 in order to achieve the 40% CE/GDP ratio as proposed by the honourable Minister in charge of Economic Planning Dato’ Sri Abdul Wahid Omar. With GNI target of RM1.7 trillion by 2020 this proposed amount should be the minimum wage set by the government. This amount is 10% higher than our proposed relative poverty threshold (RM1,200). An annual increase of 6.5% from the 2015 minimum wage will reach the minimum wage of RM1,850 by 2020.
• Capping top executives’ pay. Companies should be discouraged from the practices of paying top level executives more than 50 times the median or average wage. This can be achieved through tax disincentives.
• Recognise the collective rights of workers. Clauses in the Trade Unions Act should be revised to empower Trade Unions and Malaysia should ratify the ILO convention.
• Limit the use of foreign workers in certain industries. Government should increase the foreign worker levy to RM5,000 and set limits of foreign worker employment by industry. Government may allow 100% foreign workers for genuine domestic maids. However, there should be zero foreign workers in the service and manufacturing, a maximum 30% for construction and 50% for agro based / plantation industry.

5. Affordable Housing. As a principle, every citizen should be given the opportunity to own a house fit for living. The government has invested large sums of money to foster and support the culture of innovation including social innovation. What better way of getting the return on investment than finding innovative ways to deliver affordable homes to the rakyat.

• As a first step, the government should consolidate all current housing agencies and SPVs into one national housing authority. This will enable better management and greater economies of scale.
• Government should tighten RPGT and financing for second and subsequent home purchase and foreign purchase to curb speculation and stabilise the market. Government should also provide assistance to enable first time buyers to purchase affordable houses.
• Alternatively, the government could empower housing associations to build affordable houses, and empower local state governments to find solutions together with housing associations and social entrepreneurs to provide affordable housing in their respective areas.

6. Develop the People or Social Sector to help tackle poverty and social problems, provide goods and services at affordable prices, and create social innovation to help reduce inequality.

• The Malaysian private sector has been enjoying a wide range of supports, incentives, privileges, access to finance, development programmes, Public Private Partnership (PPP) schemes, etc. provided or assisted by the government. Similarly, the government should help develop, support and incentivise the social sector.
• As a first step, the government should recognise the social sector in its own right rather than just a balancing item as the informal sector. In line with global effort to develop the social sector, the government should introduce various measures, schemes and incentives to develop the sector including funds for social innovation and access to social finance. This includes a proper development of the microfinance sector.

7. Social Transfers

• Cash transfers to help alleviate poverty through hand-outs should be based on clear need, guidelines and targeted outcomes. The income level that qualifies for cash hand-outs should be tied to poverty threshold. Proper targeted outcomes, guidelines, measures and means testing should be established prior to execution.
• Alternatively, assistance to the poor can be achieved through alternative delivery systems such as the empowering social entrepreneurs to help alleviate poverty via social enterprises.

8. Good governance and fight against corruption

• Corruption and weak governance are among the main root causes of high inequality. The government should step up effort to fight corruption including higher budget allocation and taking radical steps to expose and punish corruptors.
• The government, public sector and private sector should observe and be guided as far as possible by the governance, integrity and transparency principles and guidelines advocated by the UN Global Compact, Transparency International and Global Financial Integrity.

9. Fiscal measures and incentives

• Capital Gain Tax and Inheritance Tax have been proven to play a significant role in closing the income disparities between rich and poor in addition to bringing additional tax revenue to the government.
• Additionally the government can introduce various fiscal incentives to encourage the haves of the country to contribute towards the improvement of the well-being of the have-nots. Reducing inequality will be more difficult compared to creating growth.

BLINDSPOT proposes a special unit led by a competent Minister reporting to a Parliamentary Select Committee for Inequality be created to champion the cause. The unit should have sufficient clout and be given the power to execute across different ministries to ensure that inequality is reduced. We envisage an annual budget of 8% of GDP is required; an incremental of 5% of GDP from the current allocations.

Government, private sector and the rakyat should make a concerted effort to tackle income and wealth inequality. Among others, this calls for stimulating and constructive economic and social discourses, and non-partisan or bi-partisan collaboration to reach consensus on potentially new economic goals and philosophy.

BLINDSPOT urges all Malaysian think tanks, policy makers, academicians and activists to evaluate these proposals and contribute towards the cause as much as possible, in order to create a better Malaysia not only for us, but for generations to come.

We hope that these proposals will help break the vicious cycle of inequality and shift Malaysia into a virtuous cycle of equitable and harmonious economy.
BLINDSPOT

For any queries please contact:
ANAS ALAM FAIZLI – aafaizli@gmail.com
AZLAN AWANG – azlanawang@gmail.com
KHALID KARIM – khalidbinkarim@gmail.com
RAZIN MURAT – razin@ymail.com

*BLINDSPOT founded since 2011 is a group of professionals who are passionate about economic and social justice. They cover issues that impact ordinary rakyat such as employment and wages, education, housing, cost of living, inequality, poverty, the changing economy of the rural heartland and the implication of today’s economic agenda on our future generations.

The post Malaysia’s Vicious Inequality and Proposed Actions to Remedy It first appeared on Anas Alam Faizli.

Mandeville made clear his displeasure with an economic hierarchy that accepted poverty as necessary to safeguard “social order”, dismissing charity as hypocrisy of priests and noblemen wanting to maintain status quo. His great paradox that “private vices bring about public benefits” was echoed by his junior of half a century, Adam Smith. Similarly, Smith posited that true virtuous self-interest results in an unintended invincible cooperation, which produces greater economic good.

Is the answer to humankind’s economic queries truly within the power of collective selfish incentives? A revisit to the origins of economic superpowers of today can invalidate this claim.

How did West Europe, America and Japan emerge as significantly superior economies to the rest of the world? In 1820, the average income in Western Europe was roughly 90% of that of Africa today. Huge poverty and wealth gaps between nations today virtually did not exist prior to the 19^th century. Everyone started on the same footing.

Since the beginning of time, human population only reached 15 million 5,000 years ago. We hit our first billion mark in 1804, and our second more than a century later in 1927. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the world witnessed tremendous economic and human development taking place in Europe and North America. Poverty was reduced in those regions dramatically. Since then, human population skyrocketed to 3 billion in the span of only 40 years to 1960, already reaching 7 billion by 2012.

Healthcare, agriculture, food technology and better mode of production paved way to the industrial revolution. For the first time ever, world food production was at a surplus; one person was able to produce food for thousands of other people. Britain assumed leading position in modern economic growth, given its relative ability to rupture existing structures and undergo necessary gender, familial and social mobility. Growth and technology diffused outwards to other receptive regions like Japan, which was undergoing the Meiji restoration, and North America, from waves of outward migration from Europe.

At the same time, vast regional differences and inequalities surfaced. Modern economic growth was not tasted by many parts the world; thereon emerged dichotomous terminologies we are familiar with today, such as “the east”, “the west”, “third world” and “first world”.  Underdevelopment and poverty was no longer something humans could just wait to naturally climb out of. Poverty became relative; it needed combating and attention because great superpowers were accelerating at their self-driven pace, unintentionally or not “trampling” on the poor. Private vices alone will result in grave imbalances. Only then did earlier works in economic philosophy re-emerged with complex theories and models for the solution to man’s economic problems, picking up from where Smith and Marx left off.

Jeffrey Sachs in the End of Poverty (2005) saw that eradication of extreme poverty by the year 2025 is possible, as per the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), given properly planned development aid. Sachs argued that through increasing anti-malarial bed nets in Sub-Saharan Africa, promoting debt cancellation by richer nations to the world’s poorest economies, adequate funding for clinical economics, and tripling development aids, the world can be free of extreme poverty. The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living below one dollar and 25 cents per day, at purchasing power parity. But Sachs views the extremely poor as those stuck in a rut and unable to even begin climbing the ladder of development out of poverty without aid.

If we believe in the capability of “private vices” to establish this great invincible cooperative force to achieve economic prosperity; does this mean we see welfare and redistribution as dead? Does it mean we are apathetic towards extreme poverty and economic deprivations of fellow human beings? Where do we draw the line?

Demystifying Welfare

A welfare state sees its government play a huge role in the provision of goods and services to ensure social and economic well-being of its citizens. It aims to reduce economic insecurity that is produced by nature or the market. The concept rests upon major normative themes like ‘rights’, ‘needs’ ‘equality’, and ‘justice’. In view of organized Islamic living, the Islamic worldview too puts the fulfilment of basic needs of all human beings as one of its primary objectives. Nejatollah Siddiqui in his ‘Role of State in the Economy’ proposes that the burden of fulfilling needs rest on the Islamic state; it is a fardh kifayah, which is an essential duty that must be performed.

Garfinkel and Smeeding at Columbia in 2010 found that all wealthy nations are in principal welfare states; they are “primarily capitalist economies with large selective doses of socialism”. Welfare can take the form of direct transfers or on-behalf payments to service providers, like education and healthcare. Transfers can be cash or coupon handouts, disability and unemployment benefits, which we do not have in Malaysia, family assistance, and poor relief.

Statistically, welfare states can be defined as countries devoting at least 20% to social transfers like Nordic countries, Austria and the Netherlands. On the other hand, countries like the United States and poorer Third World countries spend less in social safety nets and human investments. Malaysia spends only 4.1% on Education (ranking her 101^st) and 4.4% on Healthcare (ranking her 156^th in the world). Not coincidentally, Malaysia also ranks among the highest in income-disparity gap in Asia between the rich and poor.

Using the Nordic example, higher social transfers of the welfare state have resulted in less poverty, less inequality, and longer life expectancy with statistically no net cost in terms of GDP, economic growth or even budget deficits. But according to welfare expert Peter H. Lindert, the burden of proof lies on those who claim that welfare states strangle productivity and growth. Antagonists need to prove why, in reality, large welfare states end up with higher growth rates.

Welfare Will Not Bankrupt Malaysia

When approaching the subject of financing welfare programmes, we can never avoid Scandinavia. It is always thought that they run a terrific social democratic welfare state, but at the expense of its people. The myth is that citizens, especially the rich and hardworking, are really bullied to pay heavy income taxes. The reality is not as disheartening.

In the 1980s, corporations and property incomes in Sweden rarely pay top statutory rates because of deductibles and loopholes. In fact in the 1990s, Sweden and some other European countries simplified their tax systems which effectively lower tax rates at the high income brackets. The OECD experience since 1980 exhibits no sign of negative econometric impacts on GDP and national product from higher taxes having to finance larger transfers and welfare payments.

It is actually sin taxes that are highest. Tobacco and alcohol are demerit goods because its total costs to society that arise from its consumption (higher healthcare bills from second hand smokers) outweigh the private costs to smokers who purchase them. Consumption in general is also taxed via the Value Added Tax (VAT); the more financially able one is to consume, the more one ought to be taxed.

The Nordic model also taxes lower income groups. While those earning below RM3,000 (which form the majority) are not taxed in Malaysia, even the average Nordic toilet janitor does. At first glance this seems cruel, but labour supply is less sensitive to tax than say, capital supply; people are less likely and less able to change or run away from jobs because of tax as much as investment monies and consumption could. By making everyone pay labour income tax, even those in favour of receiving government welfare too are made to contribute at least a little to the welfare they enjoy.

Welfare Will Not Hinder Progress, Rather Catalyze It

It is time we cease looking at welfare as populist, a game of pity or even something to be grateful to the government for. It is a perfectly feasible economic programme in its own merit and even growth-accretive. Keynes explained that the welfare state is not just absolute support for the poor. Welfare is actually part of a package of policy instruments to keep the market economy on track and prevent relapses of economic crises. Welfare spending also stimulates demand when private investment and expenditure dry up in times of dampened economic growth.

The Columbia University study showed that large welfare state budgets enrich nations rather than impoverish them. First, all modern rich nations have large welfare states.  Second, he found that these states grow faster economically in periods after large welfare programmes compared to periods before them. Third, they found strong evidence that public education and public health have led to enormous gains in productivity and economic well-being. The study drew a 125 years historical timeline for rich nations and found a correlation between social spending and growth rates. It is empirically proven that higher growth rates are registered in states during its large welfare era as opposed to its pre-large welfare era.

How so? For one thing, a welfare state is more inclusive; it generates economic producers wven out of its economically-handicapped citizens, by ensuring the bottom income earners are placed onto the ladder of development.

If welfare programs are tax-financed, it is revealed that social spending can only have a net positive effect on GDP because the leakage out of the economy in the form of tax is re-injected into the economy at targeted productive uses. Denison, Barro, Lucas, Hicks and many others agree that there is overwhelming empirical evidence that public education promotes productivity and growth. In fact, even many other social transfer programs raise GDP per capita. America sees shortened life expectancy, ranking 19^th of 20 rich nations, and GDP gone wasted as they refuse to spend for health care. Scientific evidence over a similar 125-year period also suggests public health measures have large social benefits and promote productivity and growth. Unsurprisingly, Finland is the second-happiest country on earth (the US not even in top 10), with lower infant mortality rate, better school scores, and a far lower poverty rate than the US.

Furthermore, various studies also found that the richer a country is, the more its citizens can attribute their incomes to welfare transfers, as exhibited by Europe and Australia, because high-budget welfare states feature a tax mix that is more pro-growth than the tax mixes of low-budget Japan and Switzerland. These high-budget states also have more efficient health care, better support for childcare, women’s careers, and other features that more than mitigate any negative incentives effects on transfer recipients.

Transfer payments have a direct impact on economic growth by generating private consumption. But the BR1M that we have witnessed is myopic and too little to make a sustainable impact to income. Public provision of education up to tertiary level too will also produce Malaysians who can acquire better skills and jobs, and thus stronger consuming power. Both productivity and private consumption will contribute directly to domestic components of GDP growth. Unfortunately we still hear Malaysians rejecting public university offers from sheer inability to pay even the already subsidized tuition fees.

Such are only some of reasons why Malaysia needs to embark on a serious welfare plan. When designed properly to extract most from less elastic sources to more elastic sources, we can inch closer to ensuring basic comfortable living standards for every Malaysian, and more importantly for them to have the means to ensure that for themselves. A bigger welfare budget is really crucial to enhance the means to achieve a respectable minimum standard of living for many low-income Malaysians.

Welfare Will Not Make Us Lazy

Aside from welfare straining government’s coffers or cannibalizing growth, welfare opponents also worry about disincentive effects of tax-financed welfare programs. One other major argument against welfare is how it will make recipients lazy. I argue otherwise. Inheriting a bloated trust fund from your grandfather makes you lazy. Free education and free healthcare do not. That 77% of labor force are only SPM-qualified and below, sluggish wage growth due to lack of skills and qualification, relatively higher graduate unemployment compared to overall employment, and low insurance penetration for access to quality healthcare, only manifest how poor Malaysians are not too far off from those “stuck in a rut” as illustrated by Jeff Sachs. Though not necessarily dying of Malaria, their economic helplessness relative to other Malaysians enjoying a heftier share of Malaysia’s growth can be likened to it. Siddiqui proposed that the standard of need fulfilment of an individual should depend on the average of the standard of living of the society that the individual lives in. This needs fulfilment include food, clothing, shelter, medical care and education. In richer states, it should also include transportation, care taking and attendance.

In the case of Malaysia, bigger welfare programs in education and health for example, will help raise the purchasing power for the average lower middle class Malaysians who are very much left behind in the curve of development. They may not be statistically considered poor, but it is increasingly harder for them to be that much better off than their parents. The path of social mobility for the “just above poor” group gets more blurred. Targeted and productive welfare is very necessary to demystify that social mobility path for them and get them started on the path of self-development.

Justifying Welfare for a Country as Rich as Malaysia

The most interesting case yet, for a bigger welfare program in Malaysia, is that the government budget is also significantly financed by non-tax sources. Indirect taxes (excise duties, sales tax) and non-tax revenues (investment income, permits, licensing) combined, contribute about as large as direct taxes to the government’s 2012 revenue. Out of indirect tax, individual income tax is the least, at about 11.4 percent. The rest are due to petroleum income and corporate taxes.

What does this mean? First, given government revenue sources are status quo with our wealth of oil and natural resources, welfare programs need not even mean we have to start paying more personal income taxes. Second, there is much room still for welfare programs to positively contribute to employment empowerment, education and socio-economic well being of vulnerable Malaysians without necessarily resulting in laze, complacency or over-dependency.

In fact, over-dependency is only prevalent amongst selected groups who have been enjoying selective treatments by the government, rather than amongst the truly needy groups. While BR1M sings its own praises about how many Rakyat will benefit from it, there’s a saying that “We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.”

Not Just Any Welfare, But Tactical Welfare for Economic Justice

My thesis is that welfare states, when successfully undertaken emulating as much as possible the successes of the social democratic model, is more inclusive to all citizens. Given our current circumstances, it is the best way to promote better productivity in situations of depressed wages, skills and productivity. To allegation that welfare will produce lazy citizens such as in the British case, can be dispelled by the relative success of the Nordic model.

Bearing in mind the need to historically scrutinize data and on-the-ground experiences when studying success stories of other nations, we recognize that arriving at a conclusion is not as simple as it seems. A large welfare programme in no way suggests redistributive intervention where the free market works fine without significant externalities, including fair international trade. Given our relative size, dependencies and advantages on a global scale, it is pivotal for Malaysia to endeavour a larger welfare budget which will ultimately enrich Malaysia, rather than impoverish it.

We dream of a world where grave imbalances cease to exist, where the most vulnerable groups within society are put where they can start making more of themselves. That world would see government intervention as introduced at the start of this address. In that good world, the government corrects externalities and directs resources to where separately functioning private incentives will not, in an ultimate goal of ensuring net positive social outcomes inclusively for Malaysia to yield exponential dividends to reap from.

“Power has only one duty – to secure the social welfare of the People” – Benjamin Disraeli

The post How Welfare is Inclusive, Just, and Catalytic to the Malaysian Economy first appeared on Anas Alam Faizli.

Thus, the subject of love could not have escaped philosophical scrutiny of the Classical Greek époque. Plato’s breakthrough work Symposium, characterized love as a series of elevations; love firstly takes form of the animalistic desire (eros), progresses to an intellectual experience (philia), and lastly to be overtaken by a theological vision of love (agape). Religion too provides resources to help conceptualize love, more holistic than those offered by philosophy and science (psychology or chemistry) given that they are either revealed or had stood the historical test of time. Christian teachings propagate love as emanation from god, manifested by the sacrifice of Christ to free his people of sins and reciprocated by Christians through acts of faith and devotion. Meanwhile, Buddhism was founded on love itself, of Buddha for mankind from destruction and self-inflicted impediments to freedom. The Quran, Prophet Muhammad s.a.w., the call to da’wah and centuries of exemplary way of life that preceded Islamic revelation provide Muslims with guidance and clues of how wide-encompassing the scope of love may be; that love for god, oneself, and one another underpin Islamic teachings and way of life. Thus, the premises for interpreting love cannot only be limited to the carnal connotations of the lower self that is often associated with it.

Since Friedrich Schiller’s Aesthetic Education of Man in 1794, Maria Montessori’s Il Metodo della Pedagogia Scientifica in 1909, Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society in 1971 and a host of other defining works in the field of education, mankind and its civilizations have been in search of the best pedagogy applicable to the formal schooling system. But the answer that we have been looking high and low for could be something simple and right in front of our eyes.

The Role of The National Philosophy of Education

Empirical evidence has shown that the lack of a definitive national philosophy of education has been a disadvantage to a nation’s education and development. Proclaimed by the education world as the best education system, the Finnish education is developed around the philosophy of inclusion. There is no such thing as streaming. Children are individually supported to complete basic education and better-performing children are expected to help their slower peers.

Meanwhile, Japan sees very low dropout rates, because focus on morality and discipline as national education philosophy propagates that staying disciplined in education is the path to a good life. Despite being endowed with relatively less national resources than its counterparts. Korea is where it is today, due to having Confucianism embedded within its philosophy. Education is to enhance character, rather than simply expressions of moral worth and stature. The Americans focused on pragmatism as backbone to its philosophy of education and life. Academics believe that this was the secret to America’s success in science, technology, and putting a man on the moon. Therefore, re-focusing our attention on the national philosophy of education is very important. It casts a wider net than we initially imagined; cascading down to all aspects of life and sectors within the nation.

Our National Philosophy of Education or the Falsafah Pendidikan Negara (FPN) aims to broaden the potential of the individual holistically to create a human being that is balanced and harmonized intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and physically, so that Malaysians are knowledgeable, morally virtuous, responsible, presentable and skilled, able to attain self-harmony and contribute to the well-being of his family, community and the nation.

Based on this, we can already conclude that the national education system is not scoring in its own goalposts. While its desired outcome for a holistic and useful human being is clear, the philosophy of broadening individual potential is vague, hardly permitting it to truncate through to the conduct and incentives within the national education system. It is producing individuals that are devoid of many of the non-intellectual aspects it itself stipulated. Worst still, students in the bottom rung of the current system do not even fare well on the intellectual aspect.

Hence, Malaysia as a developing nation, there is need for us to review the Falsafah Pendidikan Negara (FPN) and make them more focused. The philosophy of education will then found the framework and becomes the over-arching strong foundation that will provide Malaysians with the best education in the world.

Do We Have An Education Crisis?

Of late ordinary Malaysians have grown to be very vocal about national education. With hindsight post NEP, we criticize the emphasis on exams, the politicization of educational policies, strict measures of success using revered-but-feared grading systems, and excessive focus on employability in the job market. But, what exactly constitutes a “crisis” in education?

An education system is in crisis, when the society that is produced out of it, including those that are deemed successful by its measurable standards, is devoid of the true spirit of education. Of course, the true spirit of education in itself is a problematic starting point because different societies have different ideas about what is the end of an education system.

There are several ways how this could have happened.

Firstly, teaching has been teacher-centred and not learner-centred. The teacher is the focal point in teaching; a figure who “tells” the students sets of information. In a recent forum entitled Pedagogi Pendidikan Berasaskan Cinta hosted by Teach for The Needs (TFTN), author Hasrizal Jamil highlights a potent observation; that even successful straight-A students can be failures of the education system in their own definitions. There are three dimensions to education; while the education system has been successful in the first two, namely establishing institutions of educations and designing syllabi, it is at the pedagogical dimension that it has failed its true “clients”, which are the students. This failure is in re-humanizing humans, from becoming robots that achieve academic and economic goals, but whose souls are empty, lack of empathy and virtues, and ability to appreciate humanity in general. Malik Bennabi espoused the same when he argued that the end of education must be to humanize humans.

However, these are merely symptomatic to one root cause; love is the missing element in the FPN and our pedagogy. The design of the formal education system has arrived at the conclusion that a professional and emotionless distance between teacher and student is required. Children become incentivized to mind only themselves, not in solidarity with their peers. Friends are to play with at break time, but competition at class time. Love is left out of formal pedagogy, and remained in informal contexts such as at home where parents teach children.

We apply this template of distance between teachers and students that we experienced in school to the wider context of our lives, impeding our connections between one another in the larger society. This has very large implications on how we perceive ethics, moral behaviour, civil consciousness and communal living. This is exactly where the education system can fail even the straight-A students. In the case of unfortunate less-performing students, this formal schooling will leave them totally deprived of the love factor in their pedagogy, because their families are unable to provide them the necessary love and care at home. In school, teachers and peers continuously side-line them. Unsurprisingly, they enter society as individuals completely devoid of every single aspect that the FPN aspired.

Why Love As Pedagogy and Philosophy Will Work

Paulo Freire proposed love as the solution to his landmark framework in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Students are the oppressed and the teaching system is the oppressor because the teacher-student relationship is dichotomous, instead of a single unit together in the search for the end of education. Frantz Fanon too puts akin society’s intellectuals as the colonized, from a colonizing system. But how will love revitalize formal pedagogy to mitigate problems of the current education system?

Robert Sternberg’s popular 1986 triangular theory of love theorizes that love constitutes intimacy, passion and commitment. Although this is applied to love and interpersonal relationships in general, it explains well the potential of love when applied in pedagogy in helping children develop their IQ.

Intimacy, through bonding and connection, forms a foundational preclusion to the process of imparting of knowledge from the teacher to the student. It eases communication so students do not fear asking questions. It provides psychological comfort, which produces sense of aspirations, such as “I want to be with my teacher discovering this answer”, or “I want to be like my teacher”.

Next, passion supplements pedagogy through its motivational force in the quest for learning. Passionate love injects exuberance into academic experience. Zeal for learning and doing well in school becomes a propelling force much stronger and longer-lasting to other incentives, such as rewards from parents, recognition by the school, or entry to top universities. “Burning-out” from studying thus becomes less likely.

The third component of love, commitment, will then inject the permanence aspect to learning. Once a student decides that he loves learning and he loves the teacher, he undertakes an intention to reach the end of education with a sense of loyalty. It goes without saying that staying true to the course of education, even into old age, is the aspiration of every pedagogic system.

What about the role of love in the EQ context? Since school, children are taught to compete, to be streamed into top classrooms, and incentivized with material things. As a result, they may deliver their A’s but they are emotionally empty without love. They compete unhealthily through school and into their working professions; carrying the notion that winning is to always put oneself ahead of another. But when the seeds of love, kindness and empathy are planted within them, they will develop a sense of responsibility. The able pupils guide the weaker pupils. Brotherhood, camaraderie, compassion and humility are thus effectively “taught” at school!

Revisiting Malaysia’s Philosophy of Education: A Proposition

Founded on love, TFTN teacher-ambassadors identify and help pupils within the national schooling system who lag behind peers, in academic performance and in motivation, as a result of inadequate tender loving care at home. But, this small group of volunteers can only do so much. Change needs to also come simultaneously top-down to encourage bottom-up responses. The education system and its outcomes are rooted from the philosophy of the national education system itself. Policies are designed around it and implementations are incentivized by it.

Malaysia is a melting pot of differences. To manage these differences and tread the path of development together, unity must come from within every individual Malaysian. There is no point imposing ethical and moral policies in economic sectors and community living for adult Malaysians, when we have not been trained that we have the capacity to love beyond our family and our lovers since young. Therefore, I am proposing that the FPN be more focused and put love as its overarching pedagogy to achieve its own end goal of humanization.

At the end of the day, it is not love in and for itself that is our goal, but the values that we can extract out of it such as passion, sense of purpose, and commitment in the learning process as well as kindness, empathy, charity, devotion, and respect in the context of life. Love is not merely “touchy feely”; it has potent revolutionary capabilities to shape humankind.

Recent years have seen literatures on love as pedagogy. I humbly call and urge for students and researchers in academia to further this in the aim of developing an educational framework philosophy and pedagogy based on love. Without love, the human is empty and void. Problems facing humanity remain the same, regardless of whether he is academically and economically successful. Love is paramount as the overarching solution to many of the world’s social and economic malaises. Spread the love!

“Love intends not to weaken us, rather to ignite strength in us”- HAMKA

The post Love as a Pedagogy and Malaysia’s Philosophy of Education first appeared on Anas Alam Faizli.

While learning has its plus points, there are some who think that the modern school system does not extol the benefits of education.

MODERN, public, free and compulsory schooling was first introduced by the King of Prussia in 1760.

He introduced schooling to shape the minds of the people into being docile and obedient to his rule. Shortly after, this concept mushroomed throughout the globe to be adopted by the French, the Americans, and eventually the whole world. Napoleon Bonaparte also embraced this concept 50 years later. In his very own words, “I want to create an educational body that will steer the way the French people think!

Even at the core of its early foundation, indoctrination and brainwashing became the main objective of the formation of the school. Apart from the basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills, schools were to ensure the despot rulers stayed in power.

The schools today with timetables and syllabus and division of classes by age, are very much like the Prussian schools.

The early intention of the formation of school is thus a betrayal to the word “education” itself. Its goals were to deplete the human mind, imprison them and train them to be workers in the Industrial Revolution. It was to mould people into becoming submissive servants; and it still does so, albeit in arguably subtler ways.

Schools today see children being told to memorise answers and solutions to problems, and subscribe to the idea of success that is defined by winning over others, paper qualifications and dollars and cents.

Did you know that 98% of children aged five are geniuses? This finding was concluded by scientist and speaker George Land, who also found that this number dropped to a whopping 30% when a group of 10-year olds were tested.

Only 12% of 15-year-olds are considered geniuses, and out of tested adults, only 2% are geniuses. So what could probably be wrong?

Let’s roughly consider what happens between the ages of five and adulthood. We grow up, we experience new things, we meet more people and most importantly, we go to school.

Now, blaming school for the decadence in human intellect is of course a grossly simplified hypothesis, given that so many other variables also come into play.

But, have we ever considered why the school system has been made so synonymous to education in the first place? We know education is important, but why is school so important?

The human brain is apparently elastic and can be very flexible.

Neuroscientists describe the brain’s capability to biologically adapt to changes and new knowledge as “plasticity”.

Plasticity allows humans to learn new things, new characters and also adjust to prevailing situations wherever necessary.

Thus, any normal and healthy individual should be clever, as long as they are allowed access to the new knowledge or experience.

The question is, with the imposition of school on humans, did we do justice to plasticity or did we rather inhibit any progress to their intellectual development thereby limiting their true potential?

Children are said to live in the moment and without worries. They are endowed with brains that are ready and eager to learn like an absorbent sponge. Self-learning in human is innate.

A child’s first three years is where growth is steepest. The child grows and is capable of communicating in one or two languages, decipher simple problems, formulate questions and possess the drive to do things on his own. What happened to the rate of the human growth in later years up to adulthood? Why are only 2% of adults, geniuses?

Nature versus Nurture

In Latin, tabula rasa means blank slate. It is the epistemological theory that individuals are born with an “empty” brain and all their knowledge comes from experience, perception and learning.

In essence, proponents of tabula rasa favour nurture over nature, as coined by polymath Francis Galton.

It is in contrast to opposing theories which hold that human intellect can be genetic. On top of the nature vs nature view, one should not discount that, divine intervention is also a major part of learning and intellectual attainment.

From an education perspective, tabula rasa proposes that children build personalities, establish behaviours and become intelligent, as a result of nurturing. In essence, it is implying that intelligence and desirable personalities are neither fated nor incidental.

Education bodies worldwide have continued to remain committed to early twentieth century educational philosophy.

They have not been able to significantly challenge this tradition. Words that suitably describe this current philosophy include “conveying”, “imparting” and “telling” of information and facts, instead of “discovering”, “encouraging”, “provoking” and “nurturing”. It has always been about teaching pedagogy and not about learning.

Learning involves failure and making mistakes, things that the education systems these days no longer seem to tolerate.

Similarly, there is a litany of words used to describe teaching such as “pedagogy” and “andragogy”, but synonyms for learning exist not in the same abundance. We have always been trying to produce skilled teachers, but what about skilled learners?

Brazillian critical educationist Paulo Freire suggested a solution; a two-way relationship has to be introduced to learning from both teacher and student.

He promoted the teacher-student concept, where the teacher is the mentor who learns, and the student is a learner who teaches.

Teaching versus learning is best concluded by renowned scientist Albert Einsten when he said, “I never teach my pupils, I only provide conditions in which they learn.”

Foucault, Kant and Freire viewed that education should not act as information transferring to the masses. If this were the case, children would then be considered as educated or intelligent through how much information they could absorb.

The products would be children who are good at answering quizzes, not adult citizens with problem-solving skills, innovation and human compassion.

Here’s the conundrum: can we arrive to the conclusion that our existing modern schools can largely be considered obsolete and outdated?

Its main shortfall is the focus on teaching, rather than learning, freedom of choice and the inculcating love and human linkages within a body of individual and collective development process.

The call to rethink education is now vital to ensure that plasticity of the brain is fully capitalised and translated into greater outcomes from the school-going child.

Children must no longer be taught based on resulting education materials, rather be made involved in the process of reaching those conclusions and attaining those materials.

Educators and governing authorities responsible for the schooling system must call for a shift of focus for the school.

Now is the time to move towards equipping children with tools of freedom through critical thinking, selfinduced intellect, self-reliance, cooperation and compassion for others.

A major enabler for this goal is having the school incentives systems slowly revamped; from chasing after cold, hard academic targets, to softer, nurturing and encourag ing key performance indexes.

This is to allow children to discover their own answers, instead of imposing answers onto them.

Education should be fun and exciting.

Imagine schools that encourage children to be curious, discovering, reading outside of textbook requirements, asking difficult questions, creating new things and most importantly, schools must start to “humanise humans” again.

The result of such an education or nurturing system, onto society will be game-changing for sure.

As Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire said: Studying doesn’t consist of devouring ideas but of creating and re-creating them.

The post Schools stifling our intellect first appeared on Anas Alam Faizli.

It gets worse.

Only 12% of 15-year olds are considered geniuses, and out of tested adults, only 2% are geniuses. So what went wrong?

Let’s roughly consider what happened between the age of five and adulthood. We grow up, we experience new things, we meet more people and most importantly, we went to school. Now, blaming school for the decadence in human intellect is of course a grossly simplified hypothesis, given that so many other variables also come into play. But, have we ever considered why the school system has been made so synonymous to education in the first place? We know education is important, but why is school so important?

“Man’s tragedy is that he was once a child”. – Nietzsche

Plasticity and the Child

The human brain is apparently elastic and can be very flexible.  Neuroscientists describe the brain’s capability to biologically adapt to changes and new knowledge as Plasticity. Plasticity allows human to learn new things, new characters and also adjust to prevailing situations wherever necessary. Thus, any normal and healthy individual should theoretically be able to be well, clever, as long as they are allowed access to these new knowledge or experience. The question is, with the imposition of school on humans, did we do justice to plasticity or did we rather inhibit any progress to human’s intellectual development thereby limiting human’s true potential?

Children are super humans. They live in the moment and take everything they see in front of them without worrying for future consequences or having to abide to a pre-determined framework with specified goals and objectives.  They are endowed with brains that are ready and eager to learn like a brand new absorbent sponge. Whether we dip it in fresh spring water, or contaminated murky water, the sponge will absorb well.

Self-learning in human is innate. A child’s first three years is where growth is steepest. The child grows from an immobile crying baby to a person, with an understanding of a 3-year old, capable of communicating in one or two languages, draw on the wall, decipher simple problems, formulate questions upon questions and possess the drive to do things on their own. What happened to the rate of the human growth in later years up to adulthood? Why are only 2% of adults, geniuses?

School as an Indoctrination ground

Tracing the origin of school, one would find shocking revelations. Modern, public, free and compulsory schooling was first introduced by the King of Prussia (olden day Germany) in 1760.  He introduced school to shape the public mind into being docile and obedient to his rule.  Shortly after, this concept mushroomed throughout the globe to be adopted by the French, as far west as the Americans, and eventually by the whole world.  Napoleon Bonaparte also embraced this concept 50 years later. In his very own words, “I want to create an educational body that will steer the way the French people think!.

This is interesting. Even at the core of its early foundation, indoctrination and brainwashing became the main objective of the formation of the school. Apart from the basic reading, writing and simple arithmetic skills, school was to ensure the despot rulers stay in power. The schools introduced in Prussia, with time tables, certain sets of syllabus and division of classes by age, are the same schools that the modern world now sees.

The early intention of the formation of school is thus a betrayal to word education itself.  Its main goals were to deplete the human mind, imprison them and train them to be homogenous, effective, and cheap factory workers to assist the Industrial Revolution. It was designed to mold people into becoming submissive servants; and up to today it still does so, albeit in arguably subtler ways. Schools today see children being told to memorize answers and solutions to problems, and subscribe to the idea of success that is defined by winning over others, paper qualifications and dollars and cents.

Tabula rasa: Nature Versus Nurture

Tabula rasa means blank slate in Latin. It is the epistemological theory that individuals are born with an “empty” brain and all their knowledge comes from experience, perception and learning. In essence, proponents of tabula rasa favour nurture over nature, as coined by polymath Francis Galton. It is in contrast to opposing theories which hold that human intellect can be genetic, like that proposed by Charles Jung. On top of the nature vs nature view, one should not discount that, divine intervention is also a major part of learning and intellectual attainment via the concept of hidayah and in the context of reception to education.

Tabula rasa was first briefly introduced by Aristotle, and later reemerged during the time of Ibnu Sina. The latter argued that the active human intellect is developed from material intellect. This is concurred by the system of education, which is attained knowledge through experience and human reasoning. The theory of Tabula Rasa was then further experimented by St Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, Rousseau and Sigmund Freud.

Ibnu Tufail illustrated the concept through his novel, which fictitiously narrated a child’s development through experience alone, in complete isolation from the rest of the world on a deserted island. Another illustration of the concept in popular culture is the story of Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel, who survived 227 days after a shipwreck, stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, without having learnt the theory of survival from school.  He had survived purely by experience, knowledge attainment and human reasoning.

From an education perspective, Tabula Rasa proposes that children build personalities, establish behaviors and become intelligent, as a result of nurturing. In essence, it is implying that intelligence and desirable personalities are neither fated nor incidental. They are born from the right nurturing system, complemented with an environment that allows for learning by experience, room for inquisition, and self-reasoning.

Teaching versus Learning

Education bodies worldwide have continued to remain committed to early twentieth century educational philosophy. They have not been able to significantly challenge this tradition. Words that suitably describe this current philosophy include “conveying”, “imparting” and “telling” of information and facts, instead of “discovering”, “encouraging”, “provoking” and “nurturing”. It has always been about teaching pedagogy and not about learning.

Learning involves failure and making mistakes, things that the education systems these days no longer seem to tolerate. Similarly, there is a litany of words used to describe teaching such as “pedagogy” and “andragogy”, but synonyms for learning exist not in the same abundance.  We have always been trying to produce skilled teachers, but what about skilled learners?

Brazillian critical educationist Paulo Freire suggested a solution; a two-way relationship has to be introduced to learning from both teacher and student.  He promoted the teacher-student concept, where the teacher is a teacher that learns, and the student is a learner that teaches. Teaching versus learning is best concluded by Albert Einsten when he said, “I never teach my pupils, I only provide conditions in which they learn.”

Rethinking Education for Plasticity

Foucoult, Kant and Freire viewed that education should not act as information transferring to the masses. If this were the case, children would then be considered as educated or intelligent through how much information they could absorb.  The products would be children that are good at answering quizzes, not adult citizens with problem-solving skills, innovation and human compassion.

Here’s the conundrum: can we arrive to the conclusion that our existing modern schools can largely be considered obsolete and outdated? Its main shortfall is the focus on teaching, rather than learning, freedom of choice and the inculcating love and human linkages within a body of individual and collective development process.

The call to rethink education is now vital to ensure that plasticity of the brain is fully capitalized and translated into greater outcomes from the school-going child. Children must no longer be taught based on resulting education materials, rather be made involved in the process of reaching those conclusions and attaining those materials.

Educators and governing authorities responsible for the schooling system must call for a shift of focus for the school. Now is the time to move towards equipping children with tools of freedom through critical thinking, self-induced intellect, self-reliance, cooperation and compassion for others. A major enabler for this goal is having the school measurement and incentives systems slowly revamped; from chasing after cold, hard academic targets, to softer, nurturing and encouraging KPIs.

This is to allow children to discover their own answers, instead of imposing answers onto them.  Education should be fun and exciting. Imagine schools that encourage children to be curious, out there discovering, reading outside of textbook requirements, asking difficult questions, creating new things and most importantly, as Malik Bennabi termed it, schools that start to “humanize humans” again. The result of such education, or shall we say, nurturing system, onto society and humankind will be game changing for sure.

“Studying doesn’t consist of devouring ideas but of creating and re-creating them.”—Paulo Freire

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“Founded on the values of solidarity and mutual trust, volunteerism transcends all cultural, linguistic and geographic boundaries. By giving their time and skills without expectation of material reward, volunteers themselves are uplifted by a singular sense of purpose.” (Ban Ki-moon)

A Eurobarometer study conducted in 2006 estimated that full-time equivalent volunteers total approximately 140 million globally, contributing USD 400 billion or 7% of world GDP. Together with full time employees working for the sector, they would form the ninth most populous country in the world.

Voluntary but Obligatory? Volunteerism as Fard Kifayah

Islam provides a beautiful perspective, encouraging volunteerism through the concept of the ‘fard-kifayah, or socially obligatory duty.  An act is compulsory for any members of society should the need arise. As long as there is already another member of society performing it, this act will be non-compulsory at individual level. However, the sin of insubordination is borne by the whole society should no one perform it.

Early act of voluntarism made its impact in the Islamic society of Medina under the guidance of the Prophet, at a time when disunity, greed and selfishness plagued Bedouin Arabs. The great Nabawi mosque of Medina was built on a charitable basis, both by voluntary labour and cash. It was also benevolent military forces that fought numerous battles against Makkan forces during that period. 

In America, voluntarism emerged during periods of European explorations westwards across the Pacific. Colonists in the “New Land” had no choice but to form mutual systems of support to ensure survival. Volunteers farmed, developed irrigation systems, and provided healthcare in the absence of state or commercial provision of communal needs. The resulting social cohesion from these voluntary acts became foundation for these earlier systems of livelihood for early colonies in North America. In mid-nineteenth century Europe too, collectives were organized voluntarily, forming businesses to deliver services given the then lack of a welfare state.

The Self-less Volunteers

Humans as economic agents are self-interested and aim to maximize their respective utility when they consume goods, and provide factors of production. So why do people volunteer? Different disciplines have different answers. The economist would attempt to quantify non-monetary benefits gained by a volunteer, while the sociologist would explain volunteerism as humankind’s way of expressing core societal principles, like solidarity, social cohesion, and democracy. Psychologists say that volunteerism is innate.

The phenomenon of volunteering is difficult to define academically because it is often public perception that defines it. However, there are three common characteristics of volunteerism beyond the original blunt definition of “work for no pay”. These are choice, going beyond paid or family responsibilities, and ultimately resulting in some kind of contribution to society. This stands even if the volunteer, in whatever way, personally benefits from volunteering.

The Emergence of Volunteerism in Developing Countries

The voluntary sector already represents an important part of socio, economic and political structures in developed countries. In the past few decades, it has enjoyed considerably intensive growth in developing countries too. This is due to several reasons. Most commonly, it is thought to arise from the emergence of pluralism, freedom of speech and increased pressures for solidarity amongst a people. It is also linked to democratic developments within society and populist rises against the ugly outcomes of capitalism. While these may all be true, the major underlying reason is efficient provision of goods and services, wherever markets and governments have failed.

As often misunderstood, the sector is apolitical; it need not be in opposing stance to the government. In fact, it strengthens and complements the government as well as market forces.  Strong governmental support for the sector around the world can be seen as 40% of funding for the sector comes from governments. 10% come from philanthropy while the remaining comes from fees.  Resources and funding vary with the wealth of a certain society.

Because needs and deficiencies vary between developed and developing countries, the kind of volunteer movements, the methods deployed, and the degree of exercisable difference, also vary. Volunteerism in developing countries may tackle developing issues such as educational opportunities, human rights or orphan care. Meanwhile, developed European countries may see the rise of volunteerism revolving around integration issues amongst second-generation immigrants, or urban backlashes. In America, volunteers may work for victims of a deeply rooted market-based capitalist system, and inequality. In any case, the basis of the voluntary sector is premised on the main goal of not-for-profit and the advancement of identified social goals.

Volunteerism, Civil Society as the “Third Sector”

Since the 1970s, volunteerism has been labeled as the Third Sector (after government and private sectors). Discussions have even gone as far as attaching the role of “saviour of democracy” to it and crediting it for the “rise of a civil society”. The academic realm suggests that the third sector is a credible alternative to state-provided and market-based welfare. But what is civil society and how is the third sector a potential saviour?

Civil society, put simplistically, was originally a term that describes any society living under a functional state. With increasing state meddling in matters of welfare, civil society disconnected itself to solely represent the interest of the third economic agent (households), championing their rights under banners such as “charity”, “humanity” and “equality for all”. That said, the government remains the primary caretaker of the general good and common wealth. Civil society simply shares this sense of “public welfare” without making claims to legitimate coercion or authority, unlike the government.

Voluntarism is an overarching characteristic of civil society. This is because civil society is essentially a collective action that is not a result of coercion or compulsion. Rather, it is made of groups of individuals with shared interests, purposes and values. In other words, civil society is the citizen, mobilized out of will. It is the sector that charities, NGOs, religious groups, trade unions, self-help groups, social movements, coalitions and advocacy groups would fall into.

Academics have outlined three major roles of civil society; to provide services, represent common citizens, and governance.

Civil society achieves this via multiple methods. First, it acts as pressure groups; analyzing prevalent policies and advocate recommendations. Secondly, civil society can become watchdogs and independent experts in monitoring state performance, effectively pressuring the public service to be accountable. Thirdly, civil society molds society by providing avenue for the latter to identify, articulate and act upon their beliefs and value systems. Fourth, it acts as a political agent, mobilizing marginalized sections of the society otherwise vulnerable, to participate and have representation in public affairs. Lastly, civil society is an industry of its own, a sector which contributes to society by consuming and demanding outputs of other industries while producing its own services.

Directly, it provides services to the community, which creates new value in itself. Quintessential examples of direct services are teaching and pro bono legal representation. Indirectly, it demands goods and services from businesses to be transferred to the needy. This actually benefits the commercial private sector as demand is increased, and lightens the burden of the government in providing public goods.

The Third Sector Challenges

The third sector is not without its implementing challenges. Civil society acts in very sparse and fragmented manners making it difficult for them to be heard or exercise any concrete influence. Even with solidarity amongst many organizations, the true quality of their opportunities is questionable. Furthermore, it too faces possibilities of selectivity and elitism, because citizens that found and drive NGOs tend to be experienced or subject matter experts, instead of your common “everyday man”. This may hinder its claims to legitimacy. Another challenge is balancing diversity and efficacy. Civil society’s claims to be the antidote of democracy stems from its ability to release diverse resources, meet diverse needs, and give voice to diverse groups of citizens. However, to emerge as a harmonious third sector, reconciling this diversity remains a challenge.

Agent of Democracy

After gaining momentum and scale, the Third Sector in developing countries will further become the proxy for transparency and supplement democratic deficits.  We know that voluntarism is both reason and energy behind civil society but the definition of civil society itself is being continuously redefined. Thus, there is need to study ways to form a legitimate, influential and functional Third Sector. This can be achieved by experimentation in new forms of social enterprises, cooperatives and organizations that may transcend between traditional borders defining what’s public, what’s private, and what’s NGO.

The challenge is not so much in getting ordinary people on board. Rather, it is in making the organizations that these ordinary people form, influential and strong enough to exercise difference. As for its contribution to democracy, it will come from how prominently this third sector can emerge as a new player in a democratic setup and position itself at par with existing agents within it.

Teach for the Needs in Retrospect

Teach For The Needs (TFTN) holds the spirit of civil society at the core of its being. Ordinary citizens founded the organization as members of civil society, taking it upon themselves to fill in the current gaps within the national schooling system. Close to a year after its establishment, TFTN is now joined by more than 30 Teacher-Ambassadors and 350 registered Volunteers with 5 Expansion Program, developing neglected and underprivileged pupils and orphans both academically and emotionally.

On 1^st March 2013, TFTN will be celebrating its 1^st year of inception by launching its “Kempen Membaca” together with a Forum entitled “Sekolah Bukan Penjara, Universiti Bukan Kilang”. Panelists sharing their intellectual thoughts on the subject include Zul Fikri Zamir, Dr Maszlee Malik and Hishamudin Rais.  The forum will discuss and revisit the objectives of education, schools and universities from the perspective of society, exploring beyond the boundaries of the existing national education philosophy (Falsafah Pendidikan Negara). It is hoped that efforts like this will impact the communities within its reach, become building blocks to a legitimate third sector in Malaysia, and eventually form an influential voice within our democracy.

Passive democracy must now make way for active democracy, where civil society advocates participation and inclusiveness, rather than just going to the polls once in every 5 years.

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The government should fund tertiary education to reach out to more citizens and ensure they have the necessary knowledge and skills to enter the workforce. This will in turn uplift the lot of its people.

EDUCATION was institutionalised to formalise the process of knowledge acquisition and research in man’s quest for understanding.

Some of the earliest universities in the history of mankind namely Al-Azhar (Egypt), Bologna and Naples (Italy), Palencia (Spain), Cambridge and Oxford (United Kingdom), all have one thing in common; they were built by notable early world civilisations as institutions of research, discourse, learning, proliferation of knowledge and documentation.

This contrasts largely from the role of universities today as institutions of human capital accreditation, qualification, and most unfortunately, business and profits.

A system that discriminates based on household economic ability, can and will cause an unhealthy imbalance in the quality of the resulting labour force and society. These form the basis of our argument.

In America, an individual has to get his own funds to pursue higher education, while many European countries have public-funded institutions of higher learning. The latter is the best for Malaysia.

Our societal and economic progression (or digression) does not depend on any one factor, but on the interaction of economic, social and political factors over a long period of time.

Let’s first look at some realities that we need to contend with to understand why the Malaysian government should fund higher education.

● Society benefits from education

We can never truly measure the immense positive externalities derived from an educated society. Outcomes of university education and research continuously found the progress of mankind. In developing Malaysia, higher education is an impetus for establishing a civic-minded society, highly-skilled manpower and competitive value proposition for capital and production. There may be a cost involved as the government’s funding of tertiary eduction will inevitably be included in our taxes, but the consequences for failing to do so can be devastating.

● Income trap

In Malaysia, wage growth caught up with productivity growth up to the late 1990’s. Since 1996, we have been living in the “middle income trap”, stunted at the World Bank’s definition of upper middle income; neither high nor low income. In fact, for the past 10 years real wage growth has been negative. We have a largely unskilled labour force and this means they cannot move up the value chain and command higher salaries.

● Education is fundamental to a competitive value proposition

Another case for education is competitiveness for both foreign direct investment (FDI) and outputs. On the FDI side, our factors of production, in this case labour, needs to be attractive enough. On the output side, our goal to move away from producing lower-value manufacturing and primary goods into the higher-value services sector, have been held back by limited talent and capabilities. Lack of advanced education is one major factor causing this lack of competitiveness.

● Efficiency-driven economy versus Innovation-driven economy

A study released by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) categorises Malaysia as an efficiency-driven economy, behind innovation-driven economies. We focus on improving existing processes, but we are not out there inventing new things where the big money is.

Focusing on the latter is extremely important now for Malaysia, because we can no longer offer very cheap labour, land and factories to produce mass generic products competitively. The number of researchers in Malaysia for one million people is only 365, behind Japan’s 5,416 and South Korea’s 4,231. We are in dire need of more trained professionals and innovators.

● Education is an investment

Like parents investing in their children’s future, the state must invest in its population for the future of the nation. An educated society will inevitably have a higher standard of living because of higher income, production of high value goods and services, longer life expectancy, subscription to civic and moral values, political stability, existence of civil liberties and openness to change and development. While highly developed nations like Denmark and the Netherlands invest 11.2% and 10.8% respectively of GDP in education, we invested only 4.8% last year.

Currently, about 80% of the bottom 40% income households are only-SPM qualified and below, while only 5% received higher education. The rest never made it to school at all.

The reason is crystal clear; it is education that can lift households into higher income thus significantly reducing poverty and its consequences. If this group were to receive higher education, it is the state that ultimately benefits as social capital is returned from the household to the state in increased production and tax income. Social justice is served; while nobody is left discriminated or neglected from being given an opportunity to develop his or her own merits.

● A positive net return-on-investment

Entertain this simple simulation: Consider a fresh graduate entering the workforce with a salary of RM2,500, working for 30 years with a modest increment of 5% a year. Upon retiring at the age of 55 years, he would have paid back at least RM290,000 to the government only in income taxes. Even after discounting, payback in taxes is significantly beyond the investment cost providing education.

● Education correlates with wealth and income

Tertiary-educated individuals have an average of RM182,000 in wealth to their name, while SPM holders have only an average RM82,000 in net worth. Degree holders have at least 2.2 times the wealth of SPM leavers. But the tertiary education penetration rate for Malaysia stands at only 36.5%. This is only measured at point of enrolment (not completion)! Not only we are significantly behind “very high human development” nations’ average of 75%, we are also behind “high human development” nations’ average of 50%. Education will reduce income inequality

Malaysia ranks as the third most unequal nation in Asia, based on a GINI coefficient of 0.4621 (World Bank). Using only GINI, a simple measure of dispersion between the richest and poorest in an economy, we can already see that there are structural problems with the kind of growth that we have been enjoying. A household that earns RM10,000 monthly and above is already considered the top 4% Malaysian households! 60% of the highest-earning income households have at least one member that received tertiary-level education. But 60% of the lowest-earning households have only SPM-holders as their most qualified household member. Not coincidentally, only the top 20% income households in Malaysia have experienced substantial income growth. For the remaining 80% it has been moderate. The gap between the rich and poor has been consistently growing from year 1970 until today. Only non-discriminatory access to education for the bottom 40% will arrest the growth of this gap.

We expect free access to education to allow inter-generational mobility and narrow this inequality gap. If we let economic disability become a prohibitive factor for education, relatively poorer households will never be lifted out of the low-income bracket.

● One graduate for every Malaysian family

We need an education system that is inclusive, does not neglect academically-struggling yet vocationally-advantaged pupils, matches industry requirements, yet streams students into disciplines where they will excel most. Most importantly, the system must not allow students to find themselves at the point of entering the industry, handicapped with a student loan on their shoulders, only to realise that they are not employable.

Malaysia has progressed in many aspects by making primary and secondary education free. 100% of Malaysians finish at least Year Six and 68% finish Form Five. The current socio and economic condition in Malaysia now calls to make finishing Form Five legally compulsory, and providing free and accessible tertiary education for all.

I urge the government, non-governmental bodies, policy-makers, and lobby groups to move towards providing free tuition fees for higher education at all our public universities. Where public universities are unable to cater for all qualified students, perhaps the same quantum of funds should be provided to private universities in a staggered manner, so as to ensure that education is accessible to all.

I also propose that there should be at lest one graduate in each of the 6.4 million Malaysian households to ensure inter-generational mobility; that is for at least one child of a fisherman or low-salaried factory worker so as to uplift the entire family which will enable them to move on to the higher income bracket. A graduate in each family will be the change-agent who will ensure that his generation improves the lot of the family. Education is far too important for us to risk any mismanagement, oversight and underfunding. The generations that go through a robustly managed quality education system, will ultimately decide Malaysia’s direction and the society that we will live in. Only then can we fundamentally assure that all layers of society can enjoy a high income — not just the top 1%. Let us reflect what Nelson Mandela said for a better Malaysia! “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.”

■ The writer is a professional who works in the oil and gas sector. He is pursuing a post-graduate doctorate and is the executive director of Teach For The Needs (TFTN). Data and figures in this article were derived from EPU, DOSM, HIS 2009, HDR 2011, World databank and BNM. For details, please refer to BLINDSPOT (http://www.facebook.com/blindspot.mmsia)

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FACTS:-
Top 20% income earners in Malaysia are 63% Tertiary Educated.
Middle 40% income earners in Malaysia are 25% Tertiary Educated.
Bottom 40% income earners in Malaysia are 96% SPM and below.

Tertiary-educated individuals have an average of RM182,000 in wealth to their name versus SPM holders’ RM82,000. Degree holders have at least 2.2 times the wealth of SPM leavers.

However the tertiary education penetration rate (enrolment not completion) for Malaysia stands at only 36.5%. This is behind “very high human development” nations’ average of 75%, we are also behind “high human development” nations’ average of 50%.

In contrast, 86% of Americans, 84% of Kiwis, 100% of Koreans, 99% of the British, 45% of Thais, and 38.4% of Turks are university-trained.

As a result, the bulk of our workforce is unable to position themselves in higher-earning jobs. The bulk of our jobs involve the lower portions of the industry value chains.

How are we then to move our economy into higher GNI territory, and inclusively move the majority of our population into higher income brackets? Current practice of relying on one-off mega construction projects will not ensure Malaysia move into high-income status, and stay there for the long run!

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