Under the erroneously simplistic impression that national service will bridge racial divisions, Malaysia is now implementing a system of mandatory national service. The system is not a draft, since those who are called up will not engage in military training or be deployed overseas. Rather, the system is more like a bizarre marriage of boot camp and an Outward Bound course; this year, 85,000 eighteen-year-olds will undergo three months of training, which will include physical exercise, community service, and what the BBC ominously calls “lessons in nation-building.”
  
The official national service website eerily juxtaposes an image of uniformed and bereted young men engaging in physical training next to a photo of a young woman happily feeding tea and cakes to the elderly. This, apparently, is the face of tomorrow’s happily racially integrated Malaysia.

An article in today’s The Star, a Malaysian newspaper, was cautiously and diplomatically optimistic about the program.

The BBC, however, offers a more insightful analysis of the situation. The BBC notes that there are serious rifts that fall along racial lines between the nation’s Malay, Chinese, Indian and tribal communities, and that these racial and ethnic divisions are reinforced by race-based economic policies. The new system of national service will do nothing to speak to these race-based policies and the resultant atmosphere of tension and racial inequality.  

While it may be the case that the droves of teenagers corralled together during their national service will foster friendships that cross racial divides, the fact will remain that race-based economic policies still will be firmly in place when these teenagers return from their three-month hiatus from quotidian life. National service may foster personal relationships that are blind to race and ethnicity, but the government will continue to operate with an eye to racial differences.

Mimi Hanaoka