NEP: Strengthening the Strong, Weakening the Weak

Since its debut in 1971, the National Economic Policy, many have observed that the policy has not liven up to its expectations. But, in my opinion, if there are no such thing as the NEP, it would definitely be a different story today. I believe that the Malays is as strong as the other races in term of economic sectors. Heck, the Malays are international traders during the era of Sultanate of Malacca. I believe that the reason that the Malay are not strong in the economic sector today is due to the National Economic Policy. The NEP has somewhat strengthening the already strong and weakening the already weak.

I would like to make an analogy of the National Economic Policy to this fictional story. Imagine in a house where you have a father and two sons. In bringing up his two sons, the father notices that the second one seems to be much more independent and usually do everything on his own initiative without much relying to his father for any support. The second child also excel in academic. Meanwhile, the adult child are totally different story. The adult child does not show any initiative in life and very much dependent on the support of his father. So, being a good father, seeing the development of his two children, he will try to balance this out. Seeing that his second child can survive on his own, he puts more attention to the adult son. The support is putting more tuition money for the adult son, buying him more gifts to encourage him to excel and also pampers him more as to shows his encouragement. The second child is not given much of his attention because he knew that the second child is already well off. And seeing this development, the second child gets even better in academic and life even though he is not rewarded as much as his brother. But deep inside, he felt a bit of resentment to the biased treatment by the father. This makes him even harder to excel in life just to show to his father who is better among the siblings.

The father thought that by giving extra rewards and attention, the adult child will change his behavior and finally be able to live his life to the fullest. But, the opposite occurs. The adult feels pampered and becomes even more dependent on his father. He become even worse in academic because he knew even if he gets bad results, the father will always be there for him to bail him out. Even when he is out in the world and setting up a business, he will know that even the business fails, the father will always be there for him. For him, there will always be a safety net and therefore the treatment by his father have make him even weaker than before. He is totally dependent on his father and worries that if the father is no longer there he will not survive on its own.

Meanwhile, the second child who already making out on its own never relies on his father. He knows that his father will only give preferential treatment to the eldest and therefore for him there is no safety net. Therefore, he must succeed in life. This has make him stronger and more confident in living his life. Therefore, not being pampered by his father has somewhat build his characteristic to be much stronger than his brother.

This analogy is a simple analogy if to compare with the total obejctive of the NEP and also the NDP. But, policy and human relationship is always correlated. We are all human basically. The policy will always remain a policy if there is no human to implement it. Humans are complicated. And therefore, in making sure a policy does not backfire is by understanding the pscychology of the human being.