Malay Problems vs Malaysian Problems – Part 1

Happy new year ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the Gutshot podcast. I'm Shamso your host Sam. This is my good friend Saiak Bali. Hello. Happy New Year. We are back again. Um and we are going back to our normal routine. We hope you subscribe and like and comment on uh our topic today. I think it's going to be uh something you will enjoy and uh take something out of it. uh we're going to talk about Malay problems versus Malaysian problems and I think um there's a a lot of uh distinguishment between the two and a quite a number of critical matters that people need to

think about and hopefully take away from it and hopefully the policy makers will pay attention. Say shall we start with uh maybe uh leadership? Yeah. Okay. as a as uh as a kicking point to this particular discussion.

Okay. Thank you. Well, uh everybody has problems and uh in a multicultural country, multi-racial country, every every single group has got its own problems. But of course, uh the Malays at least on the peninsula, the majority. So, uh there are there is such a thing as problems that are problems that are unique to the Malay society. There are uh problems that are general throughout uh throughout all other Malaysians.

We also have problems that are unique to other other communities but other communities are uh minorities. So uh what affects them may not impact the rest of the country as much as let's say problems faced by the Malay people because uh we all live in the same ship. We are sailing in the same ship. We live in the same country. what affects one community will definitely affect the other communities sooner or later. We cannot live in silos because we live together. So, uh sometimes we can identify a problem that is specific to one community and the same problem may not happen to another

community. So what do we do about it? Do we just ignore them? Do we just say that this is not my problem, it is a problem of the other community or do we start pointing fingers and say that my my problems are caused by by your community that's you know so these are things which we should talk about.

Uh I mean the the the title sounds a bit provocative Malay problems versus Malaysian problems. I think the title actually should be expanded a little bit more but then it may get too wordy. It should be Malay problems versus Malaysian problems versus the problem of the Malay politicians, which is what I think you meant by uh leadership.

Yeah. Because at the end of the day, uh a lot of the problems in a community if they persist, okay, let's qualify this problems that have persisted over decades, you know, if they keep persisting, that is a failure of leadership.

I agree. Absolutely. It's a failure of leadership. So uh when the leadership does not know what is uh what to do you know perpetually or rather they know what needs to be done but they don't do it

because of other motivations. Yeah. Political motivations the power equations the political patronage things like that then uh they may not be interested in really solving certain certain problems you know because some of the politicians they thrive in chaos. Imagine if they solve all the problems then what will they do? So they realize that they need this chaos for them to have a role to play that they they come out to be the heroes of the Malay people but they don't solve the problems you know the problems are perpetual they don't really fully get solved um so they have this

insular thinking you know and they put up barriers uh the politicians the leadership they tend to look at things like us against them you know that uh there are people out they're out to get us. So this is the kind of angle that they pursue. Uh so what it what it all uh hints at is that they do not really solve uh uh problems because the problems are persisting over decadesh. It is an incapacity to determine what needs to be done exactly. Maybe we can we can discuss some uh specific uh examples and you know it'll become clearer what it means.

Well um let's go before we go into the example I I just want to uh put my two cents into this whole uh leadership politics and all that. I find that um polit politicians in general as a matter of uh rule are risk averse. That's one and that's both uh Malays and Malaysian. They are so risk averse because uh making changes uh actually uh uh provide uh the risk of actually not solving a problem. So they rather have the problem persist rather than solve it. Okay. Um and the question that you the the point that you have about pointing to the other people as being uh the enemy is it has

always been a tradition of uh a lot of uh political leadership which is instead of pointing the finger at yourself. It's easier to point the finger at others, create hatred, create jealousy in order to move up into either popularity or voting.

Yeah. Right. So that's very much a general political problem. Okay. It exists in all communities if you were to ask me. Okay. But specific to Malay leadership, I find that um one of the biggest problem we face is uh is the the ability to be uh or or or the ability to come up uh from the masses. a leader that actually wants to serve the people uh instead of their own interest, you know, and the way you see that is very simple. If they don't champion um if they don't champion race uh religion uh or let's call it um territorial or

parochial interests um they don't come up or they believe they don't come up right now. I think this this is one thing about uh about Malay leadership that concerns me that has been going on for a long time and that's part of the problem of what what we face here is we don't have a leadership we don't get the leadership that says hey let's all let hey Malays let's look at ourselves what do we need to fix in within ourselves within our own community within our own structure that is going to propel us as individual and us as a society. That's that's one thought on my mind.

Yeah. I'd like to uh I'd like to provide some details. I'd like to talk about before I forget, I'd like to talk about the taffy school system. Yes. And also the lowcost housing, right?

Both of which involve Malay people. Uh but uh before that, I just want to expand a bit further on uh politicians championing issues just to get the votes. I'm talking about Malay politicians. You see, there's always a big fuss about land land uh that you know Malays are going to lose land or Malay land ownership under threat and things like that. And then you have these issues on Malay reserve land you know the development of Kongaru or the redevelopment of Kongbaru. Uh you have issues of uh land grabs which is always appears in the in the media and the politicians uh played up a lot. I

just want to say that you know when you talk about uh let's say agriculture plantation land the entire agricultural sector in the country especially plantation agriculture it's only about 2% of our GDP you know it's a it's pretty well I mean 2% is still a big number but it's it's quite insignificant compared to other sectors of the economy which contribute much more towards our GDP manufacturing uh property and development and things like that. But the amount of attention given to this 2% of the economy that that revolves around land ownership especially Malay ownership of land is

always overblown you know so it is beyond its proper proportion they like to blow things up but actually it is as as part of our economy you know the plantation agriculture is about 2% or less you have this issues on Malay reserve land you know I have a theory The Malay reserve land was enacted by the British. People tend to forget that in way back in the 1930s. I think uh and I think the British had a little trick up their sleeve. A lot of Malay reserve land is in the interior. In the east coast, in the non-federated Malay states along the west coast, you have less

Malay reserve land and you have more land that is on freehole title. So when the British enacted the Malay reserve land enactment throughout the rest of the country, it immediately pushed up the value of the freehole titles which of course the British owned and British control cuz you had to pay tax land tax to the land office which goes to the British. So by restricting other land in the peninsula under Malay reserve actu which means it cannot be bought by other than Malays it first of all it suppresses the value of that Malay reserve land but it also pushes up the

value of the non-mallay reserve land. So it was a simple trick you know to increase the value of the land which over which they had control. uh unfortunately until today you find that in states which have huge acreage of Malay reserve land the development is very poor. The typical example is in the east coast states where even not only Malay reserve land people who are not born in that state non-residents non residents of that state you cannot even buy land without approval of the state executive council. How is that going to promote investment, people moving into the state with funds to

build houses, build supermarkets, factories, whatever when the pro it is almost it's difficult is the best case is difficult to to own property or you might just be turned down. So until today their development their development is very weak because of this strangle hole they have in their minds about Malay reserve land. So this is a price you have to pay. You can control this. You see that I want to control this by by by racial identity but the cost is then the development is stunted. So you have to decide which one do you want. Whereas uh in other parts of the

country where there's more freehole titles and non-malarities of land you see that the the development is at a very rapid clip. So these are the things these are okay we were talking about Malay problems versus Malaysian problems. So this problem is unique to the Malay community. What is the long-term prospect? How you going to solve this? Because as time goes on with the increasing development uh in the country especially along the west coast the land value increases is spiraling up you know just like Pinang and Joho pretty soon pretty soon we might match

match Singapore you know. So when that happens uh you find that uh the GDP will be will be extremely skewed towards uh land ownership towards land holdings which can be bought and sold and transacted and developed very very quickly and very smoothly and efficiently. So this will create a bigger and wider imbalance between in uh land ownership and the value of land between Malay reserve land and uh and not Malay reserve land. So uh this is something that uh we should ponder, we should think about, you know, because uh you're not going to solve this issue uh unless we make changes to the Malay

Reserve Land Act. Um should it be abolished? We can discuss this. We can debate this. But there are other ways of skinning the cat. Bottom line is you should not fetter fetter. You should not put handcuffs on transacting on land assets because without land you cannot move an economy and if you don't move the economy you cannot move the society.

Well um I still have to talk about ties and the low cost. Hold on a second. I I want to inject on this. I think uh cuz I was talking from a macro standpoint. You just brought a micro subject on it, right? But actually um what I see is is the macro policy making of being saying that you know I'm going to protect you by actually keeping this Malay reserve titles because this I need to protect you and be your champion

which was enacted by the British. Okay. I don't think the British wanted to protect the Malaysian right but at the end of the day from um this is how it's sold today or has been sold over the last you know since independence right but if you have a leadership as I mentioned before that are not scared to say we need to make a change ourselves right my proposition is very simple abolish it because why you need capital People who come immigrant community are not concerned about whether they own land or not. What they want is to own capital and create a growth in capital.

Right? So this is what we are talking about. If you have a source of capital that cannot be easily uh bought and sold and actually cannot be um cannot be developed because you have restrictions like this. what you are doing is actually just penalizing the owner of that particular capital.

The the typical example is the Kamongaru question and you see it has created so much controversy to me. You can solve the Kongbaru question overnight in 5 minutes, 5 minutes flat. You know, all you got to do is issue titles to the land owners. Freehold titles. You do what you want.

Yeah. That's it. If I have a freehole title in Kamaru, I have a friend who owns a significant chunk. If you have a freehole title and you can do whatever you want, you you can go ahead and join venture with any developer. You can sell the land, you can build your own property, whatever.

The market will work with you to develop it. The market just like water finds its own level. The market will sort things out. But here the politicians, the Malay politicians especially, they're politicizing it. They're using it to get Malay votes. They're doing all kinds of quite insane things. You know the bottom line is you know if you just let the people have the freedom it's their land. Give them the say what they want to do this Kamong Baru problem would have been solved like

a long long time ago many years ago. Yes. As Dr. Mahade would say the Malaysia would would would lose their land. What will they do? What will they do with it? Okay. If they can build their own skyscrapers, go ahead. If they cannot and somebody else can and they go into a joint venture or they get paid, why not?

And this comes to actually right to the next example you want to talk about. Okay. Which you're talking about the taffy school, right? So if you have that cap asset that you can actually monetize,

you can't eat the land. You cannot eat your land. Correct. So but if you have prepared your people to actually be able to be entrepreneurial to be able to think critically all right on how they're going to monetize and then use that capital that they have gained at a multiple of what it's worth okay then they can look at do I go into business how do I invest this money all right that comes to the other part of uh the Malay a problem which is the psyche, the mindset, the knowledge base that is required in order for you to thrive in the in in the in in a modern commercial society.

Say let's move into that particular uh education subset. Yep. Well, we're discussing Malay problems versus Malaysian problems. This is it. These are the issu examples of issues that are unique uh problems that are unique to the Malay community which uh has been uh selfimposed and now has been compounded by the Malay politicians. The leadership the leadership is compounding these issues. I want to talk about lowcost housing and the taffi schools uh they are connected. You see the lowcost housing has come up in Malaysia uh after the urbanization rapid urbanization especially of Koala

Lumpo, the Clang Valley and Slango and of course uh the northern zone around Pinang and now Joho. But this this is very largely uh the the problem is is uh concentrated around Koala Lumpo, Clang Valley and Slango because a lot of people have migrated into this part of the country from all over. So uh a lot of uh Malays uh used to live in the squatter areas. The great uh Datu Harun the former Mantra Vasa of Salango many years ago brought in Malays by the truckloads and bus loads and uh they populated uh Koala Lumpuro and the Clang Valley and they first lived in a lot of squatter areas. the a

very famous one is in Panta Dalam um who I'm very familiar with because I did started my business there with my wife and uh now now because land is at a premium all these uh areas have been redeveloped okay so the people who previously lived there they didn't own the land they were just squatting there of course they had to move out and uh government policy and also developers they have built they built this uh lowcost housing for these people to house them all the people who uh who were what do you call this uh what dislocated now they were they were pushed out and these are lowc cost

housing usually apartments they go up 15 floors 20 floors and they're usually two room apartments we call them flats two room flats you know and uh 30 years ago maybe the people who moved in there they were young people with young families small kids and all that

but after 20 years and 30 years and 40 years you find that whole families have grown up and children have become adults and teenagers and all that and they're still living in a cramped quarters you know imagine a family of five people six people sharing two rooms you know so uh this has created a lot of issues a lot of problems uh this a lot of negative issues overcrowding uh children u you know they leave the house because the house is too crowded they go out and mix with you know friends and there's gangs being formed they get involved in um really not good

activities drug activities uh and then there are other things happening like uh incest, moles and things like that because of overcrowding. So this has created its own problem. Again this affects a lot of Malays urban areas especially Koala Lumpur Clang Valley and parts of Slango. Uh because of that's where the Malays migrated from their home states and they have come here. They do not have the traditional extended family support of the village. You know the campo. Yeah.

In the village you have the extended family. Correct. And in the village you have land. So it's easy to take care of your family. It's easy to make well just build another extension extension. You can grow stuff, you can feed your family and things like that. But when you're in an urban environment, all that has disappeared. That ecosystem is no more there. People are left to fend for their own and you live in an urban area. Husband and wife have to work. It's very difficult to run a family on one income. More often than not, both husband and wife have to work.

When the husbands and wives have to work, who takes care of the kids? So, this is where the the the people are happy nowadays. You know, some some time ago, not very long ago, my wife, you know, we go for walks in the morning in the park and then my wife had sat down for a while and a lady came and sat down beside it. They just started having a a chitchat, you know. So, the lady was describing her family. She was very relieved. She says she's got like three kids. The elders has been sent off to a boarding school. She actually said sent off, you know. And then she says the

second one has been sent to a religious school also a boarding school. The third does not want to go. and she was like not very happy that the third child doesn't want to go simply because she works, her husband works and they find it difficult to manage family and sending the kids off to boarding school is is seen as a relief you know it makes life easier for them. So this is where the taffy schools which we mentioned came up. The Tahi schools many of them are like daycare centers. You can send your kids there for a very minimal payment monthly payment and you just

leave them there. So the taffy schools will put the kids in a room one room shared by 20 kids 30 kids. Meals are provided but I don't know what exactly is a meal. And uh it's a place where you send children away. M

that's how I look at it and then you know TAI schools have created so many issues I don't know whether I can repeat all of those things but the negative press coming out of tapi schools and all the so many negative things that have gone that are happening in the tapi schools again misbehavior aarent behavior fire hazards and are they getting a use useful education in the taffy schools and there are thousands of taffy schools many of them are not registered not licensed, not properly regulated and so on. But but why why are there so many taffy schools? There is a demand for

them just like why remember we discussed in the earlier podcast why are the lone sharks such a huge industry in Malaysia because we have screwed up our banking system and the loan sharks fill fill up vacuum. They provide a needed service. the TAI schools are providing a needed service because uh urbanization, urban families, urban living, urban poverty is a problem. When I say a problem, we're talking about Malay problems now. It affects a lot of Malay people. One solution is to send your kids to the Taffy school. So the Taffy schools will not go away. They are here because they

they they fill a vacuum. They help parents who are under a lot of stress. uh to take care of their children. It's it's it is a permanent daycare center. Say okay. In a way in a way

which which which other communities do not seem to have I'm going to get to that. I I'm just going to interject on that point. Okay.

Urbanization affects everybody to a certain extent. I mean probably the migration uh the non-Mlay communities were more urbanized uh probably the Indian communities were less urbanized uh compared to the Chinese community but uh irrespective we have had a growth rate of population um from from the 70s onwards right So why does this not really impact let's say uh the non-Mlay community as much in terms of shipping off their children away and then having them uh be actually housed right in the same clam conditions that uh they were shipped out from and then um given

a a learning uh basis that may not have any productive uh uh result at the end of their school year or at the end of their school years right so why does that not happen in the in the Chinese community for example

the the let's call them the immigrant communities okay Chinese and Indians as I mentioned earlier the Malays have a huge ecosystem they could fall back on which is the the the extended family system in their villages and towns where they come from in the in the in the states in the in the provinces where they come from. The immigrant communities did not have that. Once they came they migrated to to this country from their homeland. That's it. They lost touch with you know everything uh their society everything. The support base was just not there. They had to

fend for themselves. So they've been here now for a while. It goes back maybe a couple hundred years easily. And uh so they've had that long of time amount of time to to uh to what do you call this adapt adapt to the situation where you do not have the support group you don't have your village here you don't have extended families here you have to survive on your own so they've had more time they have had uh to evolve and they had to face uh the situation uh in this country as a result of which you know um they they they have to work harder to sustain themselves. They have to make a

living. And when you do that, you have less time to have uh more children. So we know that by now uh a lot of non-Mlay uh communities, Chinese and Indians, they have less fewer children than let's say the Malay community. So when you have fewer children, uh it is easier to take care of them. It is you you can spend more resources on your on a fewer children. Resources means money. So for the same amount of earning capacity let's say between a a Chinese family and a Malay family if the Chinese family has less kids than the Malay family of course the expenditure on the

children will will be more so they can spend they can use that expenditure your your question why do they do how do they do in schools the comparison how they uh uh scholastic achievement education they can spend more money per child on tuition uh school textbook books, other activities, music classes, whatever. You know, they have more resources because they have fewer children. But Malay families traditionally have more kids because it is also encouraged to do so by the religion. Uh and Dr. Mahade once said we need 75 million people. uh oper opi it's extension of opraasi pano which

was another issue uh al together on civil service which maybe we'll talk about uh but uh the non-Malay communities especially today urban non-Malay communities have fewer children Malays who are urbanized now are also having fewer children because that's the nature of urban living anywhere on the surface of this earth when a husband and wife have to work. You live in an urban environment. You have to pay the bills. There's no extended family. You have to take care of your own kids. So, you have to send them off to the daycare. You have to send them to school. So, the

more kids you have, it's going to be more difficult. It's going to stretch your resources, your time, your energy, and your money. So, people in urban environments do tend to have uh smaller families. And among the non-Mlay communities, this has been going on for a longer time because they are cut off from their society. They don't have a backs stop. They don't have huge families can who they can take care of their kids. The Malays still do. The Malays still have an attachment to the village to the society at home the Kong but when you live in uh in urban centers

uh that also has you don't have access to that. So send the kids off to the tapi school and things like that. But uh that that's the issue the the per capita expenditure which you can spend on your kids of course it becomes it goes down when you have more children uh which is what less kids among the non-Malay communities or smaller families gives them that um advantage of being able to spend more on their kids which results in different achievements education and other achievements. ments between uh non-Malay families and Malay families. So it is all boils down to uh how much

time how much money you can spend per child per child you know. So that makes a big difference. I would think that actually yeah if we have um but I mean the Malay society has also in terms of fertility rate has also gone down now

uh it's a phenomenon all all over the world once you go into urbanization but we have a generation uh or two at least if not yeah and that becomes systemic within the demographic in terms of uh the younger set of people that has gone gone through this particular experience. Um and it's still going on uh at this moment because uh this set of uh uh two or three generation um that come out from the 80s uh have been producing these kids you know our our generation and the generation after us a bit. So um I think this is you don't hear this in parliament. You don't hear this being

talked about in uh political podcasts, right, by politicians. You don't hear politicians talk about it. And this is the problem I have with Malay leadership. No, they like problems. They like chaos. Then they can say that I'm your hero,

but I'm not going to solve your problem. Perpetual chaos. Yeah. And and then they will tell you, you need more religion. Right. So then we cut. So so then there's the the solution for them is to provide u uh a free for all cuz it's cheap. Okay. Um and anybody can go into this camp um and u you know and provide this uh child care uh child care facilities in the um uh in the facade of religion. Right. so that you can have more children.

Yeah. But these are these are real issues you know because uh these are again as I said these are issues that are unique to one community which may not which may not we may not see in another community and it has an effect it affects everybody.

It affects well first of all it affects the progress of one community visa v the other community. uh they progress at different rates or they what we have these uh imbalances differences are there these are the reasons well one of the many reasons behind these imbalances and why they happen and then uh what you just said it affects everybody.

Yeah. If you have a neighbor who's got problem sooner or later your neighbor's problems will affect you regardless of uh who you are or what race you are. Not just that, if uh if your neighbor is richer, he's paying taxes and you're not paying taxes because you're not you don't have the money to pay the taxes and it doesn't involve you and then it goes into a pool uh in the neighborhood. Okay, your neighbors are actually then funding your welfare. So in in such event, I would make sure that I will not do anything to prevent my neighbor from paying taxes. I would assist him as much as possible

so that he keeps paying more taxes because I get some of those taxes. Yeah. Which sometimes the people don't understand and the politicians play it up. Yeah. They they don't they do not understand that taxpayers are so vital to the health of the entire nation

of the whole country, you know. So, uh you're right. Uh one group pays taxes and the other person may not pay as much taxes. uh instead of being thankful to the people who pay taxes, they tend to put up barriers and obstacles and all kinds of things, you know, which which try to impede the taxpayers,

not realizing that you're poking yourself in the eye because it is their taxes that helps everybody. I I I I think um I mean there's a double there's a not a double sword. I think that's a wrong way to put it. It's more like there's a you are actually being stabbed more than twice with a three knife. Okay. Uh with a three-bladed knife, which is uh you don't have a place to put your kid um because you need to go to work and then you stuff your kid into this uh daycare center that is being fed uh with uh religion. And that comes to that part which is uh why do malaise are so

so obsessed with having this religious um education. I it didn't happen when I was growing up. I don't know about your your history. No when I was in school we had uh I didn't have religious studies uh for some time but finally when we had religious studies it was just one period a week.

Yeah. Now I think religious studies uh take up a substantial amount of uh class room hours per week. I think it's more than 5 hours per week. Oh, I I I did a quick calculation the last time. It takes uh they have more hours than uh

science and math. Science and math. Yeah. So um I think uh we have to rethink we have to rethink this. Talking about religion. Okay. We have so many religions and religious communities in this country. What about um other religions in Malaysia? We have the Buddhists, uh the Hindus, the Tawis, the Christians, you know. Uh what about their religions? Does it help them in in achieving success in society? Does it impede? Does it is it an obstacle or does it put up well if you want to use the word obstacles does it make life more ownorous? Uh and especially does it does it cost more money?

Does your religion make you cost you more money? You know do you have to spend money uh arising out of uh religion? Yeah. uh in whatever way you know it it just increases your cost because of certain religious u precepts or whatever that you have to obey uh let's take Islamic banking a lot of people they I mean it's based on religion it's called Islamic banking but you know for a while uh I think even now there's there was a higher cost uh to uh Islamic uh banking finance there's a cost to it

I think now bank nagara has regulated and try to made it make it like there's no um financially there's not much difference between the conventional conventional financings conventional finance or banking versus Islamic banking uh but there's in certain certain aspects there are the cost in uh involved in Islamic finance uh well they used to be higher so again the point is does your religion lower your cost or does it increase your cost just just to live your life and be a person or is there no difference between in terms of cost when you observe your religion and the next fellow in another

religion you know let's talk let's take about the talk about the halal halal food halal stickers they add cost yeah certainly it adds cost you know uh which other religions do not uh suffer the same level of cost So what I'm saying is that there's a cost to everything. Everything boils down to money. So does your religion add to the cost of doing things of getting things done. So we have to keep all this in mind when we because over time over over over days, months and years and decades these costs will add up and accumulate and it will become it can become quite a big

u it can become a mountain you know it's not just a mole heel. they can add up to become quite a mountain. I I mean and then you realize that you are lagging behind those people who didn't suffer the same cost. I would say that if you talk about uh just the two um the two u the two examples you put up right um if it is a freefor all uh in terms of uh there's no difference between Islamic financing and there's no difference between um

conventional conventional right then there's no reason for even having an Islamic financing okay so if however I be a I'm able to capture a market on Islamic financing that becomes uh that becomes what you call um a captive market, my cost is definitely going to go higher for you because I'm going to make more money on you.

It's a it's a it's a monopolistic monopolistic situation. So I I don't I I can immediately say okay that it is going to cost you more. All right, because why? You are a captive market. Okay. For whatever reason either for the the uh the restriction is put by yourself or the restriction is put by the government that you have to take Islamic banking in order to be what we have now today Sharia compliant. Okay. So that's one part of in terms of cost of doing uh cost of money or cost of uh um cost of living uh for the Malay community. The other part is um when you talk about

um what was that you were talking about after finance uh say schools I know um after finance. Oh halal certification. Okay. Absolutely. I mean hal certification we used to not even we just go to a shop and if we feel you know uh the word is um yak which is confident that's halal.

No. Did our did our grandparents eat non- halal food? Do they do they have a do they have a certificate? No, we didn't have all this. I mean, did our grandparents,

you know, the old during the British, you know, we were under the British, did we did they did did they not know what to eat? Yeah. So until you need this certification and now you know it's is a money-m um machine and uh and that cost is always passed over to the consumer and that consumer is um is inevitably going to be the Muslims which are the Malays. On average, on average, eating halal food at any uh Muslim restaurant in KL, either Malay restaurant, Mama restaurant, on average is much more expensive than eating at the Chinese restaurant. Now, I'm not saying I eat a Chinese restaurant.

My Chinese friends tell me, they say that your the food in a Malay having Muslim food in a Malay restaurant or mama restaurant is so much more expensive than eating in a Chinese having lunch in a Chinese restaurant. They can have chicken rice for like I don't know 7 8 ringgit or whatever nowadays. Whereas you know if you have a regular meal at a Muslim restaurant is much higher. Uh there are reasons for this but among them is the various uh certification issues that are that are needed which adds to the cost. It adds to the cost. Uh okay we're talking about Malay problems versus Malaysian

problems. So again these are things that seem to burden one community more than another community. Now over the years over decades it it piles up. It adds up. the cost that you pay every day, you know, the higher cost that you pay basically makes you poorer. So over weeks, over months, over years, after 20 years, you realize that, hey, I have less than my neighbor who's, you know, of another religion or race because they have less um restrictions. They have well, they have less compliance issues. So uh these are the things that we have to ponder. As you said, the leadership,

the Malay politicians relationship, they're not going to go into all this because they look at it as votes for them and they have been politicizing these issues for a long time. They are the ones who been who have been uh for example crowing about um Islamic financing, Islamic banking and so on so forth without really looking at the details. There have been cases where you know people bought houses usually terrace houses uh you take a housing loan housing loans go out 20 25 years some people took the Islamic uh financing some to do conventional financing same house same same margin of

finance maybe same monthly payments but uh sometimes it has happened that those who took conventional financing they finished paying their loans whereas their neighbors who took the Islamic financing they were still paying uh usually off by one or two years. So the conventional financing people they they paid less. Now these are the first generation Islamic loans. I the things may have changed by now. As I said Bayara has done a lot to make sure that there is no real difference uh between the Islamic banking system and the conventional banking in terms of

financing. But though I disagree because I personally having some issues with certain loan that I have now uh you know the you know redemption of title after you settle the loan uh it's an Islamic loan. So they showed two sets of numbers

the redemption figure one was lower than the other. So we asked them why why do you have two? So one is according to the computation which we can see in the app uh when you go into the account and the other one was the redemption figure the official redemption figure which they gave to the lawyer which is higher. So then they say they will do the there's a name for it. uh is something to do with was it IRA or something where they will discount it and then it'll it should become you know the same but uh we are still waiting for that information how much will discount the

thing is it is not automatic it is at the discretion of the the bank of course now as I said bank has gone in and made regulations that so that it's transparent and it's there's no there's no difference between conventional and Islamic

but nevertheless in a conventional system you don't have to worry about all this it is automatic because it's calculation so so again what I mean is that all these things uh raise the cost there's a cost to it in terms of money in terms of time in terms of energy in terms of restrictions what you can do what you cannot do which impedes your development which impedes your growth and as a communitywise it impedes the growth the development of of an entire community visav your neighbors because we live in a multicultural society. So that's why we have this differences that don't seem

to go away because there are differences among us. Uh we need we need uh equal equalizers you know equalizers. So how do we equalize things? Do we pull our neighbors down or do we push ourselves up? Well, do we free the shackles that we put on ourselves or do we shackles everybody on everybody?

Yeah, that's another way that's another aspect of this that we got to think about cuz uh if you ask me that is what has been happening which is that we started shackling ourselves and then we shackle everybody else. So uh we have to be we have to be careful about this thing that when we have issues you know we have to look at it carefully and we have to decide are these universal issues universal problems does it affect everybody equally or is it uh affect one community specifically not just a Malaysia other communities also have issues because then we have to we have

to formulate specific ways to solve the the problem one size cannot fit everybody. So sometimes you may have to solve the problem of one community using methods that are specific to that community. I'll give you another example. I wouldn't mention which community but there's another minority community where they are also economically disadvantaged and uh there is uh there are people the young people the young guys do tend to get involved in crime violent crime gang violence drugs and things like that now so uh why why is it that so many of young people from that community or or

numbers of them uh have this problem right? Uh because they do not have opportunities, they do not have economic opportunities, they do not have as many uh opportunities to further themselves in education, higher education, things like that. So they fall through the cracks. When that happens of of course it happens that they end up in all these negative activities, criminal activities. So you can solve the problem quite and then and then it affects everybody.

If the guy breaks into your house at night, he he could be anybody's house. Uh so it affects everybody. If he robs a bank or if he robs a jewelry shop or or robs any kind of a store or petrol station, it affects everybody. It affects the safety of the entire country. You can solve the problem very easily by identifying what is it that prevents them from joining mainstream society being normal productive members of society. What holds them back? What prevents them? And you address that problem. Do they need opportunities? Do they need more education opportunities?

Do they need assistance at a certain age part in their life? You you intervene and solve that and then they'll have a better chance of not becoming a criminal when they become 19 years old or 20 years old or 25 years old. So we if you can identify specific issues affecting a specific community and and intervene at the right moment, we can solve a larger problem for the entire entire country. Maybe the opportunities has been closed out because you need to pre provide more opportunity to

we have we have to look at each and everyone community and see how we can help. This this uh this attitude of it's not my problem it's very bad because we all live together

and when one community is at a disadvantage it's going to affect the other all of us ultimately. So we really have to as a as a multicultural society as a as a community as one community living in one country we are all one society we really have to look out for our neighbors which I'll be honest it's not happening in this country. Oh no. I think I think if you ask me to a certain extent

I think we have siloed you ask me right this silo way of thinking um need to need to be taken away because um um there is a universal problem um of that every community has if you look at it from a universal standpoint. Okay. Education is education. The question you have to ask is what kind of education? Opportunity is opportunity. The question is are we providing opportunity

enough opportunities for all our people on an equal basis. Correct. Right. So I think um there's a bit more we're going to go we're probably going to go talking about, you know, again that learning environment, right? uh our uh the the culture of our communities uh for example. Okay. So um let's do this. It's going to take a bit more time.

Um let's stop this at part one for this discussion at this point. Um, we'll come back again uh at part two uh in a short