The acquisitive society

The Acquisitive society? 

" I think the Chinese getting food for their Bumi Latuk..who must jaga status..cannot Q & fight for food.So itu Cina tolong sama itu Latuk kasih cari makan"

Every year, we hear the same story about the ugly Malaysian. At open houses, people scrambled and dashed for the food. Adults behave like undisciplined children. If the PKR people think, they are immune from the ugly Malaysians, think again.

At the recent Hari Raya Open House at the IT City, there was the same mad scramble for food. You would think these people are starving refugees. My friend's children were queuing up for duit raya. Only to be told, we have no more money to give out. No surprise as adults too were lining up to get raya money.

But I will leave it to others who can tell better stories than I about the ugly Malaysian. As for me, I want to tell the story about people's acquisitive tendencies. Since it is commonly believed, that the basis of a prosperous society is an acquisitive society. A society that has a lower quotient of acquisitive tendencies will undergo a slower pace of economic advancement. It is further believed that the deficiency in acquisitive quotient can be corrected by cultural engineering.

Sometime ago, I read what a sociologist named Judith Djamour wrote about Malays. She did some research on Singapore Malays in the 1940s and 1950s. what she wrote was used by the Singapore government in devising policies to handle its Malay population.

Of particular interest was Djamour's interpretation on the differences between a Malay and a Chinese. The Chinese, says Djamour considers the acquisition of wealth as almost an end by itself. So he becomes an indefatigable worker and a keen businessmen.

So the Chinese is always in attack mode. Business, social interactions, competing for parking bays and eating.

The Malay on the other hand attached importance to easy and graceful living. He doesn't see the acquisition of wealth as an end by itself and so avoids becoming an unrelenting worker and a less keen businessman.

So the Malay is usually in a passive mode, diffident, hesitant and withdrawn.

It is only now that I can picture clearly the significance of these two different character types. I am not at all pleased with the implications of the picture above. I am asking myself, could the two differences cited by Djamour be reflected in the way we reach out for our food? Could it be, that a simple act of acquiring food in a competitive environment, where thousands and thousands of people are looking for the same thing, forces the basic acquisitive instincts to be put on display?

The Malay with one outstretched hand is less acquisitive than the Chinese with two outstretched hands?

Shall we say then, the Malay does value graceful living more and the Chinese aren't shy to show his acquisitive tendencies?

Further, how shall we Malays make the acquisitive tendencies our second nature?