Policies Favouring The Malays Have Something To Do With "Soaring Crime"?

"..some say the country’s ethnic-based policies that favor majority Malays are partly to blame...(for soaring crime in Kuala Lumpur and urban areas across peninsular Malaysia).."

This is a line from a New York Times article - "Wave of High-Profile Crime Have Put Malaysians on The Defensive" by Thomas Fuller.

Now, how do you make sense of that sentence?  -- that "ethnic-based policies" favouring the Malays are partly to blame?

Fuller must have meant the New Economic Policy. What else could he be referring to?
The NEP was introduced in 1971 and we know why it was introduced, don't we?
And how long ago was that?

Fuller, in the second para of his article, acknowledged that Kuala Lumpur used to be "considered one of Asia;s safest cities".

And yes, I'm sure he meant that KL had been that during the time and duration the NEP and related policies were put in place.


But, he was discussing the current situation.

So, what is the connection between "ethnic-based policies favouring Malay" and "soaring crime" in KL et al...

What a load of bull!

Fuller attributed it to  "some" people...

So, he must have spoken to some Malaysians.

What kind of Malaysians, I wonder? You can't quite tell but among the people he quoted were  DAP's Tony Pua and two from the National Defense University of Malaysia - criminologist Teh Yik Koon and professor Ahmad Ghazali Abu Hassan.

But none of them actually blame these policies for the soaring crime although the good professor was quoted by Fuller to have  suggested that the "system of preference for Malays should be modified to address inequality within our society, without identifying race.”

Ahmad Ghazali said ethnic Indians were particularly in need of help and that he still believes  that poverty is the root cause of the rising crime.

Here is the article:

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia’s population has tripled over the past four decades. Its largest city, Kuala Lumpur, a place once so sparsely populated that it looked like a botanical garden, has exploded into a cosmopolitan metropolis of shopping malls, luxury hotels and sprawling suburbs.


But with modernity and urbanization came an unwanted corollary: a soaring crime rate that has blighted Kuala Lumpur, previously considered one of Asia’s safest cities, and other urban areas across Peninsular Malaysia. It is hard to find someone in Kuala Lumpur today who does not have a story about a purse snatching, a burglary or worse.

“Whatever defense we put up is not enough,” said Chong Kon Wah, a British-trained engineer who was burglarized twice at his home in the Kuala Lumpur suburbs and robbed once while in his car — all within 10 days in August.

Residents in middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods have begun to gate their communities, often without local government permission. And the demand for personal guards has soared, with the number of certified security companies nationwide more than tripling over the past decade to 712 from 200, according to the Security Services Association of Malaysia, which trains guards.

Read the full article HERE.