January 23, 2013
New Book by Dr. M Bakri Musa: Liberating the Malay Mind
SYNOPSIS by ZI Publications: In Liberating The Malay Mind, Dr M. Bakri Musa maps with clarity a path towards a liberated Malaysia by carefully examining the country’s past and evaluating the current Malay obsession with Ketuanan Melayu. This book explores the ways in how special rights and “sons of the soil” privileges bestowed have inhibited the Malay people from forging an educated, dynamic and globally competitive Tanah Melayu.
Dr. Bakri examines Malay culture through the prisms of history, psyche and religion and details the steps necessary to liberate the collective Malay mindset through free access to information, an enlightened education system, and engagement in commerce.
With this careful navigation, and not by pinning hopes on the political amulet of Article 153, Liberating The Malay Mind forges a way towards a self-sufficient Malaysia, able to turn crises into opportunities, and challenges into inspirations.
“Unlike our political merdeka – which was granted to us by the British – our liberated mind can not be bestowed. We have to strive for it. Then we will be Tuans even elsewhere other than Tanah Melayu.” says Dr. Bakri.
About the Author: Malaysian-born M. Bakri Musa, a California surgeon, writes frequently on issues affecting his native land. His credits, apart from scientific articles in professional journals, have appeared in Far Eastern Economic Review, International Herald Tribune, Education Quarterly, and New Straits Times. His commentary has also aired on National Public Radio’s Marketplace.
He is the author of The Malay Dilemma Revisited: Race Dynamics in Modern Malaysia, Malaysia in the Era of Globalization, and An Education System Worthy of Malaysia and Towards A Competitive Malaysia.
Safely beyond the reach of Malaysia’s censorship laws, he writes freely and without restraint, save for common courtesy and good taste.He spares no individual or institution, easily skewering the sacred cows. He aims his dart at the most hyper-inflated targets, easily and effectively puncturing them to reveal their hollowness. These range from the obscenely ostentatious Malaysian weddings to special privileges, and from Prime Minister Mahathir to youths who do Malaysia proud.
Din Merican: the Malaysian DJ Blogger 
Well done, Dr. M Bakri Musa!
When Dr.Kamsiah and I met Dr. Bakri in Los Angeles two years ago he told us that he was coming out with another book, this time on the Malay mindset. I am proud to say that he gave me the opportunity to read the manuscript and make editorial comments and suggestions. His previous books are very popular with Malaysian readers and I am sure his latest, Liberating the Malay Mind, will be on the best sellers list in our country. It is well written and brutally frank. Its release by ZI Publications is timely.–Din Merican
The Malay Mind?? Wasssat? Is that the mind of one poster who goes by the nick ‘Cherokee’ who walked into this blog a number of threads earlier and poured venom on the bloghost demanding the bloghost apologise for merely expressing his opinion when he did the same? We can all do without that kind of mind.
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Bean, Cherokee does not know me. I am not afraid to stand by my views. This is because I think before I write. On the sembah issue, I can say that bowing is Japanese. Mahathir adopted it because he was looking East towards Japan and Mitsubishi with the help of consultant Kenichi Ohmae of McKinsey. As a result, he gambled on heavy industries (Perwaja, Proton etc)at the expense of taxpayers. The rest is history and the Malays including me were all suckered.–Din Merican
Melayu boleh sekarang!
My FOREMOST wish to Dr. Bakri is to make this book reachable to the masses NOW i.e both bahasa and English in ebook. Its important for the young generation to unshackle their minds to explore beyond our shores.
The Malay muslims who have travelled get to see Islam unbounded by cultures.
Who brought Islam to Malaysia? Arabs? What about the muslims who came from China in the 14th century under Admirals Cheng Ho (Zheng He) who himself is a muslim from Yunnan. Datuk Prof Khoo, our historian should be shameful of not knowing history well. Just go to Quanzhou i.e. beginning of Maritime Silk route……..all histories of Zheng He are there. If he knows how to read and speak Mandarin then he can be further enlightened by deeper truth.
The muslim cemetery in Quanzhou from far looks like normal Chinese tombs but on closer inspection, everything is in Arabic. The famous old mosques/cemetery site along Tumen Street is Moorish. Its next to the General Kwang Kong temple. However in Quanzhou and the rest of China where there are many muslims, one cannot tell the difference because all are yellow skin except that in NW China, the Chinese there are blue eyed, high nose and darn exotically pretty women.
Also in China, inter-faith marriages are not uncommon though most hans worship the REMEMBI and couldn’t care less of temples and church. The mosques in Beijing is almost unnoticeable to our Malay friends because its just an architecture but inside just the same way of islamic congregation.
Unshackling the stereotype is important so that malays can advance to the same level playing field. Otherwise how else to be calle 1Malaysian. But if more Malays can achieve that then Atif is everywhere. Did the Malay Dilemma further shackled Malays into dependency ? If it does, then the author had done a disservice to the Malay community. Going by the times, it seems to be achieving that effect. I have not read Dr. Bakri’s work. Perhaps his visit to the Malays Dilemma had found that bondage further tightened and his book was written to show the light. That being so, then let us salute him.
I congratulate Bakri Musa for having succesfully carved out a career out of Royal and Malay bashing.
___________
Bean, I am not sure if Dr. Bakri is bashing anyone. The book is certainly a critique of discriminatory socio-economic policies of the Ketuanan Melayu government. It also offers some interesting and constructive ideas for change to make the Malays less dependent on a nanny state via education, mindset change, and entrepreneurship.Liberating the Malay Mind is, therefore, about building a resilient, open and competitive Malay community.–Din Merican
It’s quite simple really.., ask an Arab or Indonesian Muslim who has no vested interest in this country, what is ‘right’ with UMNO-BTN’ed Malays. There’ll be absolute silence.
Ask anyone, except an UMNO Malay or Pas die-hard and you’d probably get the same non answer. Bangladeshis, Pakistani, Keralan Mamaks and Hamas excluded.
Stereotyping? Profiling? Labeling? Why, where, when and how?
Dr. Bakri, like those too few Malays, do their race and country proud – they are the true inheritors of ‘lampu ajaib’ of Tunku Abdul Rahman and Onn Bin Jaffar – not the pretender who stole it as Tunku reminded even until his last-dying breath.
The pretender won for a long time, gained great wealth and success, and the true light dimmed but STILL THE PRETENDERS COULD NOT TAKE OVER – THEY STILL NEEDED THEIR COVER – TO HIDE IN THEIR SHADOWS. EVEN TODAY, THEY TRY BUT STILL HAVE TO HIDE.
Their fight was and is not in vain, still lives, failures, set-backs., are nothing to be ashamed of because its NOT for material gain – it was for a matter of principle, for matters larger than temporary wealth, power and money – for soul, for spirit for things EVER LASTING – for our children, for our future, for THAT which is truly Malay..
To be Malay in fact is to accept that difficulties is inevitable, if its easy inevitably it will come with a heavy price. The blessed land afford them some easy ways, but difficulties can only be postphoned NOT avoided. Cherish it when its easy, never to take it for granted, when it becomes hard, then take it as a warning easy times are over and its time to stop the excuses..Be grateful, there is warning, be grateful the horrors can be avoided. Pain and failure are but temporary on the way to true self. Try and try is what matters, the journey and truth is what matters in the long run..
A Malay friend of mind related to me that the most irritating to be a MALAY in Malaysia is that ” you belong to the community and loose your individualism “. Premium is paid to conformity on the basis of so called race and religion . But the reality is that the message is only for the downtrodden masses. Be part of the feudal elite and you can enjoy a Jackal and Hyde existence !!!
“Mahasiswa, pemikiran nya di bonsaikan”
What an apt description of the sorry state of Malaysian public universities
“Mahasiswa, pemikiran nya di bonsaikan”
In English, this means
“University students, their thinking have been bonsai-fied”
(as in “bonsai” from the Japanese language)
Yes, Liberating the Malay Mind, like the liberated Chinese!
Liberating the Malay (in the Southeast Asian region) minds can only be done through deep learning and breaking away from their encrusted thoughts brought about by religions , and political dogmas and rhetorics – partly engineered by past colonial masters.
Malays as a race must know by now, that they form the largest population is Southeast Asia, only if they manage to unshackle the clapse of religions and international politics from their cutlures.
They would be then a proud race whose traditions would go back thousands of years instead of hundreds of years. Being a proud race means they would have a confident view for long-term achievement, not going for short-term caustic fighting among themselves.
Only then, there can be liberation of thoughts of the Malay race, generally.
Checked with Popular bookstore in Johor Baru, they do not have them