Challenges to Malaysian Pluralism

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Challenges to Malaysian Pluralism

• Göran Collste, Centre for Applied Ethics
• Workshop on Identity and pluralism
• Linköping 2008-06-16/17

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Malaysian pluralism
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• Interfaith Commission (IFC)
• Article 11
• Every person has the right to profess and
  practice his religion

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Affirmative action in Malaysia

• Preferential treatment of Malays
• profess Islam
• habitually speak the Malay language
• confirm to Malays custom
• have roots in the country by way of birth or
  descent.

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New Economic Policy

• The core of the policy was to ensure
  preferential employment of bumiputras in the
  professional and industrial sectors an to break
  the colonial mould of confining the Malays to
  rice farming, fishing and other low income jobs
  (Omar, 2005, p.23)

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Definition of affirmative action

• a conscious governmental policy to enhance the
  living conditions of a specific disadvantaged
  group through favoured actions like subsidies and
  quotas.

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Justification of affirmative action

• a way to rectify for past discrimination or
  suppression. (corrective justice)
• a means of achieving social, economical, cultural
  and political equality. The aim is then to raise
  the position of a disadvantaged group
  (distributive justice)
• an aim of affirmative action is to promote
  economic development. Then, the idea behind
  affirmative action favouring a specific group is
  that the existence of disadvantaged groups in the
  society is an obstacle to economic development
  (utilitarianism)

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Discussion

• If only Malays and if all Malays were socially
  and economically disadvantaged compared to others
  then the moral and ethnic ground for affirmative
  action favouring Malays would overlap. But that
  is not the fact. There are Malays who are
  wealthier than some Chinese and Indians and there
  are Chinese and Indians who are poorer than some
  Malays.

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• Malaysia is dominated by an Asian associational
  culture stressing the importance of communities
  rather than the individual. If the comparison of
  economic and social position is based on
  ethnicity rather than on individuals one could
  argue that the Malay group is economically and
  socially disadvantaged and, hence, according to a
  principle of equality they should be benefiting
  from affirmative action.
• However It is not the group that experiences
  suffering or inferiority, it is individuals.
  While it is individuals who suffer and are
  underprivileged it is also on the individual
  level that the comparison of economic and social
  standing should be made.

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• the definition of Malay, i.e. the group
  benefiting from affirmative action is not
  fundamentally based on ethnicity but on tradition
  and religion. To be a Muslim is one of the four
  necessary conditions for being favoured according
  to the scheme of affirmative action.

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Conclusions
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• Affirmative action can be morally justified
• But, is affirmative action based on religious
  affiliation morally justified?