Brain Drain or Hemorrhage?
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/nst/Sunday/National/20061217092321/Article/index_html
Shocking news indeed.
Image courtesy Economist.com
However, it’s still not THAT surprising considering that a weapon was waved around in domestic politics. Come on, do British politicians (our colonial administrators) unsheathe a sword in party meetings? Heh, the keris-wielder is unfazed by all the hype, but let’s imagine what will happen if, say, the MCA Youth uses a sword to rally its people. Three guesses at which people will be stirred to rage first and bark out criticisms at the loudest. Hopefully, for the sake of peace and stability in M’sia the rest of the political groups will not be drawn into this chauvinistic display.
Come to think of it, people usually draw weapons to declare war. Since there’s no foreign aggressor(s) at our doorstep, I wonder where the enemy is. Also given that our truly multicultural nation has a tinge of multisensitivity (fine, it’s more like paranoia), you know what’s gonna happen next.
If we have 19,500 enquiries in a working week, what is the total when multiplied by 52 weeks? Even when assuming that only 1% of this new total migrates, that still adds up to potentially 10,000 families. And don’t forget, we already have a significant emigration figure.
In Lee Kuan Yew’s book, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, 1965-2000 he recounts this incident.
"When I told Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Razak in the early 1970’s that Malaysia was suffering a brain drain, losing many well educated Chinese and Indians to Australia and New Zealand, he replied, "This is not a ‘brains drain’. It is a ‘trouble drain’; it drains trouble out of Malaysia".
If the ruling elite still hold this paradigm, I’m hesitant to look ahead for the future of our country.
While you’re at it, you might want to read The Economist’s Putting the malaise into Malaysia. Since there’s no libel suit filed against it, I guess it’s accurate enough.
