Recently, a politician said that Malaysia should follow Turkey style, a quite developed secular country whose majority of its citizen is Muslim.
Turkey which is the ‘bridge’ from Asia to Europe since long time ago resist the influence of wahabism from Arab and strike to become a succeful secular country. However Turkey is not wholly secular in every governmental aspect, and for example, the government control the mosques and its staff.
Turkey may worth a ‘follow’ in some parts but not in all aspects. It is worthy for me to pick up some points from Andrew Mango’s “The Turks Today” to allow us to understand what really happened in current Turkey and we can have a comparison with Malaysia.
1. Ratio between boys and girls in primary school is quite balance with girls slighly lower than boys, but the gap widen in secondary school. Women labour force in year 2000 is only at 24 percent. – The opposite happened in Malaysia, where girls conquered most local universities.
2. Polygamy banned in Turkey but it does happen in some section of its society. – It is almost the same among non-Muslim in Malaysia. Many Malaysian included politicians have mistress out side, Tun Ling Liong Sik told us about this.
3. The judiciary system is unable to solve much of the cases that most of the ‘prisoners’ in Turkey are not convicts but are being put into prison while in trial process. – Thank God, Malaysia is much better, but there is much for us to accomplish.
4. Jail in Turkey is also unable to accommodate all the prisoners, that government will granting amnesty to prisoners from time to time in order to empty some spaces for new prisoner. - Seldom heard of amnesty in Malaysia, but it do happen from time to time but not in a big scale as in Turkey.
5. Conscript and compulsory military service is applying to Turks. The military is a pressure group in the society. - National service in Malaysia is full of controversy but I think it is still on the right path.
6. Many Turks like to seek job opportunities (never mind with lower wages compare to locals) in neighbour Europe countries who offered a better after service benefit. – Same situation in Johor or maybe Southern part of Pennisular Malaysia, where Malaysians like to work in Singapore.
7. Turkey ordered state owned banks to supply credit to farmers, investors and small traders without consider their ability and willingness to pay back. It is a kind of social consideration and a move to boost the standard of living and economy of certain part of the country.
Malaysia did the same thing actually, SME bank for small and medium enterprise, PTPTN to offer loans to higher learning institutions while Bank Pertanian to farmers. I do not know what happened to the loan offered by SMS Banks and Bank Pertanian, but we do know about PTPTN. As reported, many graduates refuse to pay the loan, after they already use it to pay tuition fees, buying laptop, CDs, DVDs, MP3, MP4 etc.
As developing countries, Malaysia and Turkey share a lot similar thing. We in different extent share the same problems concerning religion, extremist, judiciary reform, corruption (black economy) and impact of globalization. The way we hand some problem, is also similar with Turkey.
Some foreigner might look at Malaysia and Turkey as Islamist, it is true because although Syariah law is not applicable but majority in both country is Muslim, and Islam is playing important part to shape the country.
In political aspect however, I rather use the word conservative but secular.
Turkey which is the ‘bridge’ from Asia to Europe since long time ago resist the influence of wahabism from Arab and strike to become a succeful secular country. However Turkey is not wholly secular in every governmental aspect, and for example, the government control the mosques and its staff.
Turkey may worth a ‘follow’ in some parts but not in all aspects. It is worthy for me to pick up some points from Andrew Mango’s “The Turks Today” to allow us to understand what really happened in current Turkey and we can have a comparison with Malaysia.
1. Ratio between boys and girls in primary school is quite balance with girls slighly lower than boys, but the gap widen in secondary school. Women labour force in year 2000 is only at 24 percent. – The opposite happened in Malaysia, where girls conquered most local universities.
2. Polygamy banned in Turkey but it does happen in some section of its society. – It is almost the same among non-Muslim in Malaysia. Many Malaysian included politicians have mistress out side, Tun Ling Liong Sik told us about this.
3. The judiciary system is unable to solve much of the cases that most of the ‘prisoners’ in Turkey are not convicts but are being put into prison while in trial process. – Thank God, Malaysia is much better, but there is much for us to accomplish.
4. Jail in Turkey is also unable to accommodate all the prisoners, that government will granting amnesty to prisoners from time to time in order to empty some spaces for new prisoner. - Seldom heard of amnesty in Malaysia, but it do happen from time to time but not in a big scale as in Turkey.
5. Conscript and compulsory military service is applying to Turks. The military is a pressure group in the society. - National service in Malaysia is full of controversy but I think it is still on the right path.
6. Many Turks like to seek job opportunities (never mind with lower wages compare to locals) in neighbour Europe countries who offered a better after service benefit. – Same situation in Johor or maybe Southern part of Pennisular Malaysia, where Malaysians like to work in Singapore.
7. Turkey ordered state owned banks to supply credit to farmers, investors and small traders without consider their ability and willingness to pay back. It is a kind of social consideration and a move to boost the standard of living and economy of certain part of the country.
Malaysia did the same thing actually, SME bank for small and medium enterprise, PTPTN to offer loans to higher learning institutions while Bank Pertanian to farmers. I do not know what happened to the loan offered by SMS Banks and Bank Pertanian, but we do know about PTPTN. As reported, many graduates refuse to pay the loan, after they already use it to pay tuition fees, buying laptop, CDs, DVDs, MP3, MP4 etc.
As developing countries, Malaysia and Turkey share a lot similar thing. We in different extent share the same problems concerning religion, extremist, judiciary reform, corruption (black economy) and impact of globalization. The way we hand some problem, is also similar with Turkey.
Some foreigner might look at Malaysia and Turkey as Islamist, it is true because although Syariah law is not applicable but majority in both country is Muslim, and Islam is playing important part to shape the country.
In political aspect however, I rather use the word conservative but secular.
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