YOU didn't fare too well in your SPM. You did good, but not enough to get attention, not enough for it to make an impact upon your resume. You're the eldest in your family of five, which means making it in the current economy also means doing it yourself, blazing the path with no elder siblings' footsteps to follow.
You've missed out on the vocational training your younger brothers are now taking. Sure, the skills upgrading courses for youths are available but seem too heavy a burden on your schedule to undertake at a time when you need to already be making money.
Previously you had tried working as a low-grade mechanic in an independent Shah Alam garage. You worked on bumpers, your head spent under cars all day, knowing full well that you'll be paid late. The living standards were cramped and the journey back to the kampung was always a hassle. The friends you made gave you no real incentive to stay. It just wasn't home.
Now, you're working in a 24-hour convenience store, just a few minutes from your neighbourhood 'masjid'. You work the night shifts from 11pm to 7am because the pay is higher; just a little above RM1,000. Family gatherings are tough to commit to because you would be drowsy and tired.
Take the scenario above and add to it three children, a spouse and the constant struggle to provide for them. You could even be a single mother. This is the life that millions of us are facing. It is tough, it is unkind. But, these daily heroes still get up every day. They still move forward with the belief that this system, Malaysia’s system, is capable of providing them success if they continue to work hard.
The urbanisation of our economy has prompted job-seekers to move to the city. It’s a more crowded lifestyle. Their families in turn get stretched and separated. Disappointed and homesick, these breadwinners return home dejected, having to start from square one.
There has been a lot of discussion on the 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) recently. For those who do not depend on it, we debate on the viability of this initiative in creating an economically-independent Malaysian psyche. However, to those who do depend on it, for the millions who live the reality we saw a glimpse of above, the dire necessity of these funds render irrelevant any talk of ideological progressiveness.
But, as clear-cut as the goals of BR1M may be, our addiction to politicking has made even a simple programme such as BR1M a point of argument. Perhaps BR1M is to Malaysia’s what the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is to America; a straightforward initiative that benefits all, yet one that is so politicised that now we have the opposition even talking of eradicating it.
Redistributive policies refer to an economy-wide attempt to shift wealth, income and resources to the ‘have-nots’ in order to maintain wealth equality. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently issued a major report warning that rising levels of income inequality are threatening to undermine global economic growth. One of the proposals the IMF encourages is actually direct cash handouts to the poor.
The use of cash transfers was first introduced around a decade ago when Brazil established the Bolsa Familia or "family allowance" programme. Families earning below US$60 a month were given a yellow Bolsa Familia debit card that contained a fixed amount of money each month (roughly US$127) depending on the number of children in the home.
The results in Brazil have been dramatic. According to a 2013 study by The Institute of Applied Economic Research, Brazil has since reduced extreme poverty by 89 per cent over a decade, lifting 36 million families out of poverty. With declining infant mortality rates and rising school completion records, participants of Bolsa Familia are making strategic decisions to invest in the future of their families.
Even in Japan last August, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet approved a 13.5 trillion yen initiative for cash payouts to low-income earners. According to Abe, this plan
was more than just compensation for the poor, it was “a strong economic package draft aimed at carrying out investments for the future”.
Yet, Malaysia’s effort to similarly help its low-income earners has spurred talk among the opposition of eradicating this aid if they come into power. How we reached to such an irrational level of antagonism of anything the goverrnment does is baffling.
Perhaps Stephen Colbert, after Trump won the US presidential election, explained it best when he said that politics is never meant to be fully consumed because we are only really meant to choose sides every few years. He joked that politics was designed to be boring so that the rest of the time, we would be able to actually talk to one another, to debate maturely and not have to worry about who is on which side or what label we stand for.
For the years there is no election, we are supposed to forget about choosing which side we're on. We're meant to keep an open mind, to see both sides of any issue. In Malaysia, we have become too addicted to the poison of politicking that antagonising each other seems the norm, that somehow we aren’t allowed to concede that the other side is doing something good.
In our division, polarisation and fear of one another, we’ve become susceptible, just like America, to electing someone who can be so detrimental to the progress of our country, someone like Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, or someone who takes orders from the former premier who stands to take away essential initiatives such as BR1M, by claiming that it is a form of bribery.
What the US, Japan, Brazil and many other democratic nations outlined is a 'common sense reality' to engage in re-distributive policies. These measures are direct, quick and can very much deter us from going down a path of economic inequality that is likely to be the base for greater social and communal animosity.
The writer is Umno Youth vice-chief and an Umno supreme council member.