Malay Leaders’ Shameless Lack of Dignity (Takde Maruah)
M. Bakri Musa
October 3, 2023
The recent blip in the local news about the son of former Religious Minister and longtime Federal Mufti Zulkifli Albakri receiving zakat funds to pursue religious studies in Jordan drew a yawn from me. That reflects less of me, more on the current entrenched lack of shame (takde maruah) among Malay leaders of all stripes, religious as well as secular.
That this involved zakat funds (tithe) meant for the poor should have caused an uproar, but even that fact did not. On the contrary, both Albakri and the religious officials who approved the “award” went at great length to justify their actions. That reveals the extent to which our norms and values (including religious) have been degraded.
I would be generous and compliment that young man, as well as his father, had he (the son) pursued Quantum Physics at Caltech or Harvard. However, this was a scholarship for religious studies at a third-rate university and in the Third World to boot. Malaysia should not be sending her students there. Besides, Malays need another Islamic scholar like we need another rainy day during the monsoon season.
I see so many children of Malay elite getting government dole. As such my threshold for shock is high. That notwithstanding, let us call Albakri’s son’s case for what it is, a “scholarship” or “study award” it is not.
How did our community get degraded to this shameful stage?
Then consider this. Long before that perennial and loudest self-professed champion of berdikari (self-reliance) and Ketuanan Melayu (Malay Hegemony) Mahathir Mohamad became Prime Minister, he had a thriving private medical practice. That notwithstanding, he put all his children on the dole by their attending government residential schools, thus sparing himself what other parents had to pay: tuition fees, room and board, as well as textbooks. Likewise their university education, sanitized as “scholarships!” All these while running up and down the country exhorting Malays to emulate the Chinese by being self-sufficient. Today at 98 years old and rejected by voters, he changes his tune. Mahathir now blames pendatangs (non-Malays) for our sorry plight.
I am no longer shocked by such revelations as with Albakri’ son. Instead I choose to remember the rare exceptions when Malays break from this “waiting for government handout” mentality. Years ago, a senior minister’s son who had just graduated from an Ivy League university confessed to me why he did not return to Malaysia. He was on his father’s ‘scholarship’ and as such was spared such an obligation. He feared that whatever achievements he made in Malaysia would forever be tainted as a consequence of his family ties. Refreshing perspective! Many a Malay Oxford graduate would exploit that relationship.
Six decades ago when my youngest sibling was awarded a university scholarship, my parents asked her to decline the offer. Instead, they paid her way. We had been blessed to have all her older brothers and sisters getting scholarships, my late father reasoned, that it was time to give others the chance. My parents were then close to retirement. Nonetheless with a Malay schoolteacher’s salary, even with both working, that was a struggle, but my parents managed it. I was never more proud of them.
Once a physician in government service chided me for criticizing Malay professionals sending their children to these expensive fully-subsidized residential schools.
“It’s fine for you to say that, Bakri. You are in private practice and in America to boot. Remember how lousy your pay was as a government doctor back in Malaysia!”
Agreed! So the exceptions would be for those Malay professionals in public service. Give their children scholarships but only if they were to attend top universities, and pursuing other than revealed knowledge and prophetic traditions.
Many years ago on the occasion of his son graduating from an elite university, I complimented my late friend Ahmad “Kim” Sabian, a retired furniture salesman. He and his wife Rose were well known to generations of Malaysian students here in the San Francisco Bay Area for their wonderful satay. I congratulated him (and his son Hisham), remarking that he had one up over those Malay ministers back home in that he did it without having to depend on MARA or some such bodies. Kim could hardly hold back his tears. Those tears were less of joy, more a sense of self-pride and accomplishment.
It is this sense of accomplishment and self-pride that we must instill in our people if we Malays were to have our rightful slot in this world or even Malaysia. Endlessly shouting that Malaysia belongs to Malays would not do it. Save your breath!
I am certain that in his next khutba, Albakri would at great length quote chapter and verse on the importance of giving zakat. However, it would never occur to him to even contemplate the flip side of that, that is, the reciprocal obligation of not consuming precious zakat funds.
Tunjuk lah maruah sikit! (Show some self-dignity and self-pride.) You owe that to yourself, your children, and most of all your congregation and community. During this Maulud Nabi when we are asked to emulate our Prophet, s.a.w., Mufti Albakri should ask himself whether our Prophet, s.a.w, would do or approve of what he (Albakri) did.
The only redeeming feature to this whole shameful saga is that there was someone in that Religious Department with a modicum of integrity and self-pride. He emulated our beloved Prophet, s.a.w., in that when he saw evil being perpetrated, he did the right thing. He leaked that information in the hope that it could be stopped. It did not. Nonetheless his action gives me hope.
