“Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance.” (Proverbs 1:5)
A famil friend (Malaysian) will be graduating from a local university soon. She is an extremely bright student and will be doing her pupilage under a top law firm here. She already made up her mind that she will apply to become a Singapore citizen once she commences working here. Later I came to know the main reason behind this is that she is afraid to be enlisted under the Malaysia National Service scheme.
She first received the enlistment letter when she was in Junior college. She wrote back to tell them that she was still studying and they accepted her explanation. She thought the case was closed, and then the letter came again when she was first year in the university. They have obviously treated her case as deferment, not exemption. Fortunately, she still had the excuse not to be drafted. Now that she is going to graduate soon, she is worrying the enlistment letter can come anytime, and this time she has no excuse to give.
The Malaysia National Service program (reduced to 3-month currently from the initial plan of 2 years) commenced in 2003 and conscripts 18-year-od youths that are randomly drafted. The objective is to foster friendship between young people of different ethnic groups, and develop patriotism among the young generation. It is also meant to address the concern that various races were increasingly polarized along the racial lines. Draft dodgers are subject to fine, and/or jail. As of June 2008, there have been 17 trainee deaths, one convicted rape case and one sexual assault complaint, besides other cases involving food poisoning, racial brawl, and harassment.
If I am in her shoes, I too will not want to be part of this program, especially as a woman, given lack of transparency and poor records of how they managed things over there. However, it is a loss to Malaysia if there are many people who are bright and talented like her choose to settle in another country for the same reason. Many Malaysian themselves are doubtful of the program and think that that it is a sheer waste of taxpayers’ money (about RM$500M per year) for it is impossible to achieve the objectives of the program by just putting the youths together for three months. It has to start from day one when they go to school. I understand from my friend who is teaching in a Secondary school in Malaysia that nowadays students of different races do not mingle with one another, unlike our time in the 70s where we enjoyed visiting each other during festive seasons.
If I am in her shoes, I too will not want to be part of this program, especially as a woman, given lack of transparency and poor records of how they managed things over there. However, it is a loss to Malaysia if there are many people who are bright and talented like her choose to settle in another country for the same reason. Many Malaysian themselves are doubtful of the program and think that that it is a sheer waste of taxpayers’ money (about RM$500M per year) for it is impossible to achieve the objectives of the program by just putting the youths together for three months. It has to start from day one when they go to school. I understand from my friend who is teaching in a Secondary school in Malaysia that nowadays students of different races do not mingle with one another, unlike our time in the 70s where we enjoyed visiting each other during festive seasons.
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