1 Million Steps Into The Future

Since the PH government’s term began, I have been waiting for a big ideas to energize the people. Big ideas invite us to use our imagination. For or against, it’s just difficult to ignore them. That was the case with Wawasan 2020, and it may be the case now with the proposal to build 1 million low cost homes.

It is easy to think that 1 million low cost homes will be boring, being more of the same low cost homes that we have seen over decades past. That would be a mistake though. There is a unique opportunity for TDM and Housing Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin not only to dramatically improve living standards in Malaysia, but rekindle the kampung spirit in unexpected places.

According to the United Nations’ My World 2015 Survey, Malaysians who have completed Primary School have the following priorities (in order):

1. A good education
2. Better job opportunities
3. Better healthcare

I would argue that a well planned low cost homes development project can go a long way towards addressing at least the first 2. What follows is my imagining of how that may take place.

Central to high quality living in the numerous low cost tamans would be the community centre. Residents of the taman shall be eligible for membership in the community centre. The centre shall be an activity space for residents.

Residents of an apartment commonly have a residents’ committee that works together with the management office to run and maintain the building. This can be the model for the community centre as well.

The reason that apartments can have facilities is that usage can be restricted to residents only. Outsiders cannot use the facilities. In the past, this was not possible with landed homes. Now however, it is simply a matter of execution.

Say that the community centre membership is limited to residents of the taman and that they access amenities at the centre via an app. The app can be simple, nothing more than a forum.

However, users have to be verified residents before they can use the app. To be verified, a user requests a PIN code that is delivered to an address within the taman. To prevent mischief makers from requesting a PIN code at an address and then stealing the mail, delivery could be handled by the management office itself and require a signature on delivery.

To be doubly secure, any transactions at the community centre could be verified via SMS PIN code as well (2 factor authentication) to guard against identity theft.

With identity secured, taman residents can open up the app and scan a QR code on a reader each time that they wish to enter the community centre, just like how movie tickets are scanned.

Now, the community centre becomes a true shared resource among the community. Also, if a user ID is logged with use of each meeting room, borrowed tools etc, the incidence of abuse can be reduced tremendously. We have all seen so much vandalism that we know how important this is.

My favourite part of this idea is the food. The community centre can have a hawker centre and shops. Stalls may be awarded preferentially to residents of the taman. This raises money for running the centre, and keeps jobs within the community.

The centre may also have amenities such as meeting and seminar rooms. These rooms can be rented by residents for a token fee and used for tuition classes, vocational training, guitar classes and so on. Residents can offer services through the app, and conduct their activities at the centre.

The rooms can also be rented out to non-residents and companies for a competitive private market rate that goes towards maintaining the centre.

For small time entrepreneurs working from home, renting an air-conditioned office for a meeting may be more cost-effective than renting a permanent one elsewhere.

As taman residents visit for food, they will discover that their centre offers food, but also opportunities for training and jobs. It becomes the centre of social life for the taman.

Not all residents of the taman will use the community centre, and that is perfectly fine. No plan can engage 100% of its intended audience. Also, the centre is supported by those who use it, so this does not burden non-users.

We may find that some companies hired to run the centre are poor quality, and the residents’ committee are not able to find a capable company to take over. For this, the Housing Ministry can facilitate communication between all the tamans so high quality centre management companies can obtain more contacts.

Companies may also be given monthly ratings and feedback by residents via the app. This way we can expect service quality to stay high.

With a brief similar to this, I believe that our Housing Minister can receive some interesting proposals from enterprising local developers, and that at least can move the conversation, as well as our homes, forward into the future.

 

Hadi’s Genius

If you find yourself feeling tense and upset by the title of my post, don’t worry you’re in good company. Even as an anonymous author on the internet, I don’t endorse PAS and have no affiliation with them. Now with that out of the way, let us enjoy the latest controversy generated by the sly old trickster and PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang.

4 days ago Hadi requested a meeting with Dr Mahathir that was described as a courtesy visit. After that, Hadi revealed that there is a coup brewing within Pakatan and that PAS is prepared to step in and offer their support to Dr M.

After that Pakatan leaders and the media went bananas, with Pakatan leaders denying a coup attempt and reaffirming their support of Dr M’s leadership. The media meanwhile had a field day wondering if Hadi was lying.

What we didn’t hear is any statement from Dr M. The one person who can clear the air chose to stay silent. Chew on that for a moment.

If Dr M thought for a moment that Hadi was damaging his coalition, he would come out and counter the lies. It would be trivial to end the controversy.

Instead, Dr M has given PAS a free shot at DAP and PKR. He let Hadi stir up the controversy, putting PAS in the spotlight, positioning them as a desirable partner for both PH and BN. This has been pointed out by just one clear head, that is PKR Secretary General Saifuddin Nasution.

What followed was that PKR and DAP leaders have to publicly affirm their commitment to the government led by Dr M. Failure to do so is to be seen as disloyal. Seen through this lens, it is Dr M forcing the hand of disloyal elements within his coalition.

Is this a big deal? Not really. It is natural that after the honeymoon period has passed for the PH government, complacency and discontent sets in. Some people start rumbling for change privately, testing the waters with their peers. Whether or not there was a real conspiracy to begin with was never the question at all. There’s always grumbling about the leadership in an organization of any size.

The winners from this are Dr M and his erstwhile frenemy Hadi. They have both strengthened their position with a cup of tea and a few words. That’s masterful politicking.

A National Car Isn’t Really On The Cards

The mooted national car project is not about cars. It is about national pride. If you haven’t read Tun Dr Mahathir’s (TDM) blog post about Kereta Nasional, I recommend it before continuing with my post. I’ll wait.

Grandpa Lecture

How do I know that TDM is writing about national pride instead of cars? It’s there in the conclusion. “Lupakanlah sahaja Wawasan 2020“. In his last few paragraphs, he contrasts the Korean and Japanese pekerja yang “hidup mewah“, with Malaysia as “negara pengguna, penanam padi, pemancing ikan“.

If you feel a tug in your heart, it is because TDM calibrated his words to be that way. This isn’t even new. Over dinner with Malaysians while in Japan last month, he said “in Malaysia … we don’t feel ashamed if we come up with sloppy products which are of poor quality“. He is playing his grandfather card, shaming us young ones into bucking up.

Like a doting grandfather, TDM also doesn’t want to shame us to all our friends. Therefore instead of speaking the hard truths to the media, he saves face for us by publishing these thoughts in his blog instead, the most informal point of contact that he has with the public, and where his most sympathetic audience lives.

Symbolism And Cars

Now you may wonder, well if all that TDM wants is for us to do good work that we can be proud of, why go through this song and dance about a national car. The answer to this question requires a digression. I promise that it’s worth it though.

Symbolism is a powerful force. We treat the national flag and religious texts with reverence. In material terms, they are just cloth, or paper and ink, yet they mean so much more to us. Imagine for a moment how Italians feel about Ferrari, Maserati or Lamborghini while abroad. Where we admire a beautiful sports car, they feel admiration of beauty flushed with pride in their country.

A symbol of pride is what the national car project is meant to be.

Negative Association

Now for the cold hand of reality. The idea of a national car project is a non-starter. Proton by now is associated with poor quality and cronyism. The degree of resistance to the national car project reflects the strength of that association.

It surprises me that TDM’s awareness of symbolism stops short of seeing how Malaysians view Proton today.

If you have read me before though, you know that we want to be constructive here. Ranting is for the old Malaysia. Building is for the new Malaysia.

The principal problem for the national car project is that so little is known that detractors are free to slap on everything negative that they want to it. They slap on Proton, slap on build quality, slap on corruption. These bumper stickers are all that we can see right now.

If TDM were indeed serious about initiating a second national car project, he can talk up the possibilities of such a project. Electric cars. Self-driving cars. Nationwide charging stations. iOS / Android compatibility. The greatest tool wielded by a leader is attention, and these are exciting topics. Best of all, talking to the media is his free market research tool. He just has to talk, and see what the news and social media says after.

You may ask why he hasn’t done so already if he is so keen on this. It would immediately give us something to talk about and counter the negative associations. Throughout his blog post, there is no hint of what this project would look like. It might be that he really isn’t that serious about a national car, using it as a focusing tool on national development.

I must confess that the thought of our nonagenarian Prime Minister shaming the whole country into collectively raising our game at work to be hilarious. We probably haven’t seen the last of this idea so stay tuned for more tales from the Tun.

Bijan The Bangsat Merchant

It looks like former PM Najib has no intention of going gentle into that good night. Irrespective of your opinion of him, we can all agree that he isn’t one to give up easily. With charges formally filed and the UMNO presidency out of his grasp, a lesser man would be broken.

Instead of hiding, Najib is admirably soldiering on. He has been speaking to the media where he made his “bangsat” prediction, and has discharged his duty as member of parliament for his hometown Pekan, being sworn in at the Dewan Rakyat and even being afforded a seat next to new UMNO president Zahid.

As a result, I believe that Najib will continue to be politically powerful. Let me explain.

Najib’s prediction that Malays will “bangsat” is a savvy calculated political move. By this, I mean that it will benefit him politically. Like finding a wallet on the ground, you get free money if you don’t return it, and you get gratitude and social validation if you do. Win-win! Let me explain further.

If someone asks “How often do you wet your bed?”, the correct response is to take offence and say “Never!”. Similarly, the bangsat prediction by Najib invites a discussion that assumes an answer that he likes. If you engage at all, you find yourself wondering what bangsat looks like, how deep are we in it on a scale of 0-100? The moment that you start wondering about this, the prediction has done its work. You are hooked. It is top class persuasion.

On top of setting up a frame of mind, the bangsat prediction benefits also from confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is easily explained this way. Recall Donald Trump calling Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary“? After you hear it, you can’t help seeing more and more evidence that  reinforces the impression. When I hear a scandal involving “crooked Hillary”, I recall the moniker. When I hear a report about her poor health, that also reminds me of “crooked Hillary”.

Every time that our Malaysian government gets accused of doing something unfavourable to our Malay community, the bangsat prediction gets a little boost. Nobody is exempt from its effects, on either side of the political divide. Unlike most throwaway soundbites, this prediction gets stronger with time.

This bangsat comment is powerful political alchemy of the highest order. Throughout his tenure, Najib has hired world class political and branding consultants. Looks like he still has top people on his team, and is positioning himself to be a martyr to the cause.

On Vulpine Ninja & Syerleena

Vulpine Ninja is a popular Malaysian cartoonist who was doxxed for making a comic that put Malay Muslims in a bad light barely a day ago.

A week ago, Penang state assemblywoman Syerleena Abdul Rashid received a death threat in the mail. This was due to Facebook posts alleging that she would attack Islam and JAKIM for the DAP.

Both incidents reflect the intolerance that exists in some quarters of Malaysia. Sometimes it has to be said. I condemn bigotry and hate in all its forms. They have no place in a civilized society like ours.

There are some people who are dyed-in-the-wool racists and religious bigots. The fortunate thing is that they are few (in any society). However, if we want to live in a society where we are free to think and say what we want, we accept that these people will also enjoy the same freedoms.

I am an optimist. Almost all of us are good people. The few bad ideas out there will gain traction if we, the majority, allow them to.

To prevent this from happening, we need to tip over the fence-sitters, the vulnerable. These are the people who have the most reason to accept bigoted beliefs. They may have been victimized by a boss of a different race, or perhaps grew up religious and been taunted in college for it. There are many ways to suffer, more than my imagination can muster.

There is no rational argument that can sway their beliefs. Each time someone stridently tells them that they are wrong, another brick is laid in their mental wall. They used to feel slightly ashamed and small when criticized, now they just lay another brick.

In fact, with time the barbs from their detractors become harmless. The wall is too good. There is no empathy for their tormentors. They enjoy the sport of the argument. In effect, they become trolls.

We have all faced our share of internet trolls in our life. Do you avoid them? Ignore them? Explain to them? Argue with them?

If, like me, you are tired of fruitless arguments online, try my method. I avoid arguing with people who have no interest in having an actual conversation. Those are unproductive. Unfortunately I don’t have a rule to help you identify when this is true. With a little practice though, you can figure out quickly who are genuine conversation partners and who are just waiting to trigger you.

The number one most powerful thing that you can do is to ask questions. “Why” is your scalpel. You want to reveal their beliefs and you can only make a tiny incision in their mind. They have to voluntarily widen the cut and remove the different tumours.

With the tangle of emotions and facts unleashed, you have to apply a surgeon’s care to reconstruct their thoughts. Paraphrase their thoughts back to them. Keep the emotional content intact. When you successfully mirror the emotional content of their words, however awful you find it, you invite more sharing. More sharing is more harm removed.

The asking and mirroring may continue for a while. Like me before, you will feel tempted to interrupt at times. After all, you are talking to someone whose views are unacceptable to you. When you want to interrupt, don’t. They are excising the bad parts of their thoughts on their own. Let them speak.

You often won’t get more than a few replies amidst the back and forth. Let that be. There doesn’t have to be a neat conclusion or a long talk. If the opportunity arises, you may conclude with a summary of the emotional core to their words.

Seeing you paraphrase their long-suppressed angst is relief. You have successfully bled out some poison from a suffering person. You might well turn out to be the only person on the “other side” who has shown empathy for their situation that day. Think on that.

You may wonder, what about telling the other person that they are wrong? There are vile thoughts out there that should not go unchallenged. Even paraphrasing them feels awful. You have to set this person on the right path.

Without your realization, between your expression of empathy and your grasp of the arguments, your empathy is more persuasive. You already have set this person on a different path. Perhaps not the path that you were looking for, but a better path than what they were on before.

If your conversation partner wants to know your opinion, you will be asked, and when you are, remember that it is because you showed surgical questioning and self control first.

Jedi Mind Tricks And The UEC

At long last, Malaysians are focusing on the topic of Education! For too long we have been arguing over whose Facebook posts are more offensive, while our children play Temple Run all day.

Now that… oh wait, oh it’s still about race? Not again. I was still enjoying Maszlee’s Star Wars fandom moment. *Sigh* fetches fresh quill from backyard chicken.

The UEC finds itself in the crosshairs of politics again. Sensible people have said that the UEC is already being accepted globally. Melaka’s Chief Minister Adly Zahari has said that his state’s acceptance of the UEC is not about race. Former adviser at the Education Ministry Dr Teo Kok Seong has chimed in saying no, like the A Levels it shouldn’t be accepted. This is without even getting to Perkasa President Ibrahim Ali who has threatened war if the UEC is accepted.

As far as I can tell, the Chinese independent high schools in Malaysia are well-run, have entrance exams that admit the most intelligent children and give them a solid education (please correct me with a source if i’m wrong). If some of our bright Malaysian youth want to obtain a tertiary education at home, where they can mingle with other Malaysian youth through some of the most important years of their lives, I say go for it.

Some might say that this denies Malays places in local universities. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any stats on this. It doesn’t look like we have a shortage of university places.

As Sherlock Holmes knows, sometimes it is the dog that did not bark which is our clue. If we had a shortage I would have expected to see calls for more universities to be built, and calls to uphold Bumi rights.

What I’m about to say might be the most unusual statement of the UEC problem that has been seen so far. I haven’t seen any media portray it this way.

The UEC certificate acceptance problem is a persuasion problem. The resources to have the UEC students enrolled exist. The obstacle is a racial view of the world.

In such a situation, here is how you would go about persuading people to accept the UEC in the wrong way.

Najib Ignorance & Arrogance Saw Over 95% of Chinese Voters Chose Harapan – Only Extremist & Racist Would Feel Inferior Over UEC Recognition

We don’t have to think about the truth value of this headline today. Instead let’s think about how spectacularly ineffective it is at changing the minds of people like Ibrahim Ali. It shames him and those who share his anxiety. That’s just bad persuasion. I don’t even care if the accusation is true. I just want to successfully change minds. I want solutions, not insults.

I came up with a headline that can do the opposite job. Imagine if this quote were attributed to Dr Maszlee:

UEC Holders Can Come Brush Up On Their Malay, Learn From Faculty And Their Fellow Students at local universities.

It strikes the right chords. UEC holders do in fact have to learn in Malay, so that is factual. They do have to learn from faculty, and they will likely learn a thing or two from their peers in the normal course of things. On the other hand, it allows defenders of Article 153 to see that their team is in charge. UEC students are going to learn Malay, learn from their Malay teachers, and learn to live with their Malay peers. You know what’s better than working alone to defend your language and way of life? Get others to join in!

Before somebody criticizes me for being a simpleton, I will do it myself. No a one-liner from Dr Maszlee won’t change Perkasa’s mind overnight. I am pointing a way to persuasion success. Once you know the direction, you still have to get walking.

This is a test of the powers of persuasion wielded by our Jedi Dr Maszlee. Will his Jedi mind tricks prevail? Or will our hero have to go back to moisture farming on Tatooine?

Being Malaysian Makes Me Angry, But That’s OK

At least once in every Malaysian’s life, we will hear of someone we know who plans to leave Malaysia because of the entrenched racism, cronyism, religious fundamentalism and anti-science attitudes. As a Malaysian abroad, this is something close to my heart as well. I feel sympathetic anger for all the outrages endured by those who choose to leave.

The reason that I write about this now is because I was inspired by fellow Malaysian Christopher Teh’s post. I felt that a response is necessary as I too have felt the same sentiments.

Before I get down to it though, I found these tidbits that I found spending too much time on Reddit. Guess the places for these stats below:

1. This world famous city has half the population of Kuala Lumpur at 900,000. However, it spends nearly the same amount as Kuala Lumpur on keeping the city clean (~USD$60 million), and shockingly has half of that going to cleaning syringes and human poop off the streets.
2. In this study (relevant chart), it was found that the 10 countries with the highest rate of participation amongst women in STEM fields were not western industrialized democracies. In fact, 2 of them are our neighbours. The causes of this paradoxical finding are still a puzzle for social scientists.
3. This famously civilized country has one of the highest number of recorded acid attacks per capita of any country in the world, and the figure is expected to rise further.
4. In this famously unreligious country, less than half of adults believe in evolution without a divine creator (about the same as Malaysia). Conversely, in this poorer highly religious country, 85% of students agreed  with the strong statement that “Millions of fossils show that life has existed for billions of years and changed over time.”

Did you guess all the above correctly? If you didn’t that’s all right. I wouldn’t have either. Does it change how you feel about Malaysia? If it didn’t that’s also all right because that’s not how human beliefs work. We don’t change our minds in the face of evidence, and that’s a fact of life.

You might ask what does this mean for Christopher Teh’s beliefs about Malaysia and her backwardness. It means that everything Christopher complains about is correct. I too agree with his grouses. However, they need to be put in context.

When we view the problems with Malaysia in isolation, we are tempted to criticize and condemn. We feel angry to be associated with all the backwardness. As if it is a personal insult to each and every one of us. Christopher feels that nothing less than a complete overhaul of our society will do. We have to throw out baby, bathwater, and kitchen sink too. However it doesn’t have to be this way.

It was Gandhi who said “Be the change that you wish to see in the world“. Instead of bemoaning the ways that Malaysia is awful, use the the anger to fix your small slice of Malaysia for the better. Let it suck less in one small, specific way. Maybe we will eventually overhaul our society. But to get there, we have to build consensus for a change, common ground that all Malaysians can agree to. Let the small changes stack up.

If you came out of this awkward, uncomfortable experience with a softer attitude towards Malaysia, and more forgiveness for the myriad flaws that she has, I would say that you have come out ahead in life.

Some might say that I’m naive to think that small actions accumulate. Others may say that we are too entrenched to change. To the former, I say I have science on my side. 10 percent adoption is all that is needed for a new idea to take root in society. To the latter I’d like to remind them of this and this. The real world is neither naive nor pessimistic. It just is. Step outside the mental prison of pessimism. Live in the real world.

It’s no exaggeration to say that we all want to live in a Malaysia that is more harmonious, and offers more opportunity for all. Maybe we can’t all be martyrs, but every one of us can be fighters.

4D Chess In Malaysia’s Trial Of The Century (2/2)

(continued from part 1 here)

Bail

This desire for credibility extends beyond the Bar too. Criminal breach of trust and abuse of power are serious crimes. Bail isn’t automatically offered, as it is for minor crimes like vandalism. However, it looks like the prosecution didn’t challenge the bail decision.

It’s the right move too. Challenging bail would only feed the suspicion that the case is politically motivated.

Gag Order

Unlike bail, the gag order from judge Sofian was opposed by the prosecution, who argued that it was a restriction on free speech. This looks like a token objection. There are all kinds of restrictions on speech in Malaysia that we accept for the sake of peace. Citing free speech would not sway the judge.

Press Conference

After the hearing, both prosecution and defence held press conferences. However, after being heckled, AG Tommy Thomas canceled his press conference. AG Thomas does not seem to have issued any statement to the press after that either. This left the field wide open for Shafee’s defence team to speak to the waiting press.

Gag Order According To Shafee

At his press conference, Shafee came across as fair and professional. His clarification that the gag order affects both camps equally was masterful persuasion. In lesser hands, the explanation would have been something like “we must not let my client be tried in the court of public opinion“. In truth, the gag order mostly benefits the defence, but it was positioned to look like it affects both sides equally. That is some clever positioning.

1MDB Task Force And AG

In what looked like another prepared point, Shafee told the media that the 1MDB task force should not be advising the Attorney General, citing the Federal Constitution. He also said former AG Tan Sri Patail’s participation in the previous 1MDB task force tainted his independence. Here, Shafee’s intentions are clear although the persuasion technique seems rudimentary.

In saying that the tainted task force and AG must act independently, he means to put public pressure on them to act impartially and separately. If they can be portrayed as collaborating unfairly, that may give the defence an advantage. However, this gambit relies on public perception of bias to work. As a member of the public, I haven’t found his remark to be persuasive. I call this a miss.

Silver-Tongued Shafee

Shafee concluded with a shot at the credibility of the prosecution. Since the case will be heard again in month on request of the prosecution to prepare, Shafee took an easy swipe at his opponents, asking how they could be prepared to press charges since July 2015 if even today they aren’t ready to proceed with the case.

Of course, the two matters may be totally unrelated. Shafee cleverly conflated the case built by AG Patail with the case built by AG Thomas to deliver a stinging putdown. This couldn’t have been a prepared point. The preparation time topic only came up during the court proceedings. Shafee’s tongue should be illegal to unleash in public.

Overall the defence team did a good job getting what they wanted. They got bail, a gag order, as well as full control over the media narrative even at this early stage. Even without talking at all about the case, I’m looking forward to round 2.

4D Chess In Malaysia’s Trial Of The Century (1/2)

The opening sequence of Malaysia’s drama of the century has just concluded. Though he is the centre of attention, the action isn’t conducted by former PM Najib. Also, I am not interested in a speculation of guilt or otherwise. After an account of the events, I think over the actions of both sides purely from the perspective of public persuasion.

Events Recounted

On the day of the arrest, Najib was taken to the KL High Court and charged with Criminal Breach Of Trust and abuse of power. At the hearing, the issues of bail and a media gag order were also raised. Even though the charges are non-bailable offences, judge Sofian allowed bail at RM 1 million. However Najib was allowed to leave after posting half that.

A temporary gag order requested by the defence was also granted. According to Shafee, this is to ensure a fair trial and avoid any prejudgment.

Calls For Recusal

If you thought that the gush of news around the trial ends there, you would be mistaken. Before judge Sofian even had a chance to sleep on the case, he was in the news the following day for being linked to UMNO through his brother Mohd Soffi Abdul Razak, who is the Benta UMNO state assemblyman and Pahang state executive councillor. The Bar urged the judge to recuse himself from hearing the case as his ties to UMNO may influence his decision-making.

Credibility

With the events laid out, now we can get down to what all of this means. The controversy about who conducted the arrest as well as concern about the judge’s independence highlight the Bar’s high interest in this case. The Bar president George Varughese said it best himself, opining that

“the rule of law demands that justice must not only be done but it must be seen to be done”.

There is a good reason that justice has to be seen to be done. It is for our benefit, as Malaysians watching the proceedings. Regardless of your political position, we can all agree that we want a fair trial following the letter of the law. A credible legal system is a foundational bedrock of our society.

(continued here)

What BTN Taught Me About Confirmation Bias

A couple of opinion pieces surfaced on MKini and The Star these few days on the controversial Biro Tatanegara program. Long derided as a training ground for young racists, it’s reputation has gotten so awful that Kelantan and Selangor have banned civil servants and students from attending its camps.

With all these accusations flying around, you would expect that there would be slides uploaded of these racist presentations, videos of the racist songs sung, and tearful confessions of past participants who have come to regret their participation in this camp of hate and bigotry. I set about looking for juicy evidence of this camp of hatred.

I found 2 interviews with participants online. 1 interview was with a former participant – Arif Johny Abdullah on The Nut Graph, in which I understand that he says the activities were good, but the motivations were racist. I am skeptical of mind-reading claims. We humans are not equipped by nature to understand what others are thinking. The best that we can do is to judge a man by his actions, not his words. I took his words on board but continued to search.

Another interview by the excellent Nut Graph was with former participant Mohd Khalid Mohd Nor. In his camp, 40 out of 120 participants were non-Muslim Malaysians. Participants were not separated by gender or race for almost all the activities. On the final day though Malay participants were assembled in the surau and given a talk about Ketuanan Melayu.

One way to look at this is that the camp was really about nurturing racism in the participants, and that the non-Malay attendees were an oversight that had to be subtly kept away for the main message.

Another view is that the organizers got the suitable lecturers about nationalism that they could. Nobody excluded non-Malays because it wasn’t intended to be a pro-Malay indoctrination camp. When the camp facilitators found out that one speaker intended

In my quest to unearth the steaming pit of racism at the heart of BTN, I discovered that it has a bunch of essays on the website, and despite thorough browsing I haven’t seen any racist titles. They have a bunch of titles about Gagasan 1Malaysia, which is actually propaganda, but pro-Malaysia.

From the BTN website, I took the time to read their publication Akasara Patriot, which is a collection of essays by Malaysian academics writing on nationalism, history, race relations, Islam and so on. They touched upon even the deepest hurt of our country from 1969, and they spoke about patriotism as the basis for unity.

If someone were to read the same essays looking for evidence of racist doctrine, I suppose that they could find it, but it would take substantial leaps of faith, like arguing that patriotism really is a code word for insidious racism. For my part I found it hard reading but fair, like when a parent sits you down and tells you about the hard truths in life.

So my Googling and reading has taught me this. A former participant felt that the activities were good quality. The reading material provided free on the website is written by professional academics. It fosters a sense of nationalism, an important ingredient in having a cohesive nation-state. At this point I’m almost in favour of it.

I know that you probably feel deeply uncomfortable right now. How can a whole slew of progressively-minded Malaysian commentators who have been lambasting the BTN for years be wrong? Where is the racist propaganda on the website? Where are the damning presentation slides? Where are the tell-all accounts by former participants of the awful activities? For an allegedly irredeemable racist institution, it does a terrible job of living up to its reputation.

I have a theory about how BTN came to be seen as racist. It seems that from time to time, there are stories about what goes on at one of these BTN camps, where perhaps a guest lecturer lets slip a racist view, or a nuanced opinion is reduced to a racist soundbite. It happens. These little incidents inform our public view of the body, which then get picked up by virtue-signalling politicians because, hey, they’re politicians.

If somebody dares speak up in defence of the BTN, they get painted as the cartoon racist villain, and that sticks all too easily.

The anecdotes from BTN camps, and the lack of a defence by anyone in power for its curriculum, are the perfect combination of ingredients for confirmation bias. The more time goes by, the more racist out-of-context soundbites we hear. The more racist the organization seems, the less anyone will defend it publicly. And then this adds to the body of ‘evidence’ that proves our pre-existing belief.

Now is a good time to pre-empt a point I can already sense brewing in your brain my reader. If the BTN isn’t racist, why does it seem that the program is tailored for a Malay audience? Islam is a major topic, and that turns off potential participants who aren’t Muslim. That’s a valid question.

Frankly, it is to be expected that non-Muslim Malaysians would find BTN courses, with their religious content, unappealing. It isn’t a surprise. However, for a large portion of Malaysia, Islam is a pillar of their life and a motivator for good and selfless deeds. Should the curriculum be changed to increase its appeal to non-Muslims? I honestly don’t know. Does the religious tone make the program racist? I doubt it. If you have a powerful motivator like religion to support your nation-building efforts, why wouldn’t you use it?

Most importantly though, the outcry over the BTN shows the destructive reflex that is overwhelming our reason now. There is a healthy budget allocation for BTN and quality activities on its books. What is stopping us from co-opting the BTN for a modern nation-building project? There is great symbolism in seeing Malaysian youths attending a model UN conference. Also, learning and respecting each other’s cultures at a critical time in their lives, all this represents a terrific opportunity.

Let’s be frank. Hate for the BTN has blinded us to the opportunity for a modern 21st century nation-building project. Let this be the last time that hate blinds us to a better future.