Affirmative action - explained by a 5-year-old

Why does Lim Guan Eng, the current Chief Minister of Penang, appear like a breath of fresh air? It is because he does not allow emotion to trump logic, save for his emotional outburst in waiving fines when he first took office.

The emotion of the previous government was to allow the bumiputera to overcome economic relegation and reading into his speeches, it happens to be the sentiment of the Chief Minister too. The difference is the previous government did not ask itself whether affirmation action actually helps the bumiputera but instead if it feels good to overcome his relegation.

The Chief Minister asked a logical question. Does affirmative action help the bumiputera? Does it help him when he wears an invisible sign that reads 'affirmative action got me where I am'?

I am reminded of a father of two, who agreed that families do practice 'affirmative action' when raising children, in that parents do give a quiet leg-up to the weaker sibling, but he qualified that as a matter of public policy, firmness, equality and meritocracy are the family rule. The weaker sibling is not given the impression that the little push to help his handicap is 'policy' let alone a right. This is the core issue that gulfs the typical liberal and conservative mindset, evident between Singapore and Malaysia.

Conservative Singapore does feel compassion as much as the liberal Malaysia but the liberal throws it up as public policy while the conservative engages 'affirmative action' through private and indirect routes. A Singaporean Malay said quiet leg-ups are evident, for instance in health-care and land matters, but via indirect routes such as government linked foundations and NGOs.

In essence the Singaporean said, affirmative action is antithesis to public policy. It is designed for the inanimate, such as a racecar that lacks a particular feature and given a few rows up the starting grid. It is not compatible to the animate given that even a toddler instinctively floats when thrown in the deep, which brings me to a five-year old named Siti, referenced in the title of this post.

Little Siti was able to explain how meritocracy trumps affirmative action.

At a Hari-Raya party last week, the little girl told me she wants to be Prime Minister when she grows up. Her parents, both UMNO members standing beside her, were flush with pride.

I asked Siti “If you were Prime Minister what is the first thing you would do?”

She replied, “I would give food and houses to the homeless in Leboh Ampang. I pity them.”

I said
”Wonderful, but why wait until you are Prime Minister. Come over to my house, wash my car and do Christmas spring-cleaning and I will pay you 10 ringgit. I will then fetch you to Leboh Ampang and you can give a homeless man 10 ringgit to buy some food to eat and save towards his new home”

The little girl looked up to her parents, pondered for a while and replied, “Uncle, why don’t you ask the homeless man to wash your car and spring-clean your home and pay him the 10 ringgit?”

I replied “Siti, you are amazing. You spoke like a budding Singapore politician - in fact you echoed our new Penang Chief Minister. You welcomed meritocracy and trumped affirmative action.