The Politics of Development Looks Different at the Grassroots than at the National Level - Essay Example

 I. Introduction Most development frameworks are basically good but there are times when these development frameworks start to undermine the existence of the people at the grassroots level. In many cases, the good intentions of the national leaders as manifested in the changes of national policies towards certain sectors of a country boomerang. Instead of fostering progress in different parts of the country, their good intentions end up creating chaos and discord (Apthorpe R. and Gasper D. (1996). Why is this so? In many cases, the reason why national policies are not responsive to the needs of the people is because these policies are crafted by people who either do not have enough information or experience to correctly respond to a given situation or they have some personal ulterior motivations to fulfill. In many developing countries like Malaysia and Vietnam, governments are ruled by a few elite members of society. Since these government officials do not truly represent the majority of the people, they tend to have narrower visions of development. In most cases, their visions of development do not really go past their own personal interests and the interest of the group where they belong to. For many politicians and government officials in both Vietnam and Malaysia, politics and governance is but a means to stay in power and protect their own interests. On the other hand, although there are also a number of people in the Vietnamese and the Malaysian governments that are for the development of the country as a whole, the efforts of these people are often misguided and do not really produce the desired impact into the lives of the people at the grassroots level. For instance, in Malaysia, the thrust of the government to unify the country resulted in the degradation of culture and diversity among its people. On the other hand, international forces play a big role in the policies that the national governments formulate. In past years, the demand for integration and globalization forces the national governments of developing countries to rethink their priorities and come up with policies that will make their countries globally competitive. The idea that a country could not survive if it does not conform to the requirements of globalization sent the governments scrambling for national development frameworks that will user changes especially in the countryside. In the effort to make their countries globally competitive, the governments of Malaysia and Vietnam came up with development policies that are intended to prepare its people for globalization and to step up productivity. Technically, the intention of these development policies are good, however, the implementation thereof are often misdirected. As the government tried to enforce its political will upon its people, the people at the grassroots level are alienated and could not relate to what the government is trying to do. In the case of indigenous people who have their own cultures and traditions, the encroachment of the government’s development agenda into their lives causes a lot of losses on the part of the indigenous people. Due to the conflicting interest of the government and the people at the grassroots level, a gap in the development agenda can be clearly observed in countries like Vietnam and Malaysia. Of course the political situation in Malaysia and Vietnam are not unique to them. The experiences of these two countries are reflected in the political status of many countries around the world. To help us understand the gaps between the national policies of the government and the aspirations of the people at the grassroots level, let us take into considerations the experiences and learning in Malaysia and Vietnam. II. The Malaysian Experience The politics of development in Malaysia is a showcase of how national policies often work to the disadvantage of the people at the grassroots level. The government of Malaysia under the leadership of Primer Minister Mahathir believes that limiting the civil and political rights of the people is sometimes necessary to create a better society (Doolittle, 2006). By creating a central government where unified rules and policies emanate from, the government hopes to promote development all over the country. a. The Bumiputra The struggle for the control over land in Malaysia can be clearly seen when the government promulgated the policy regarding the Bumiputra. The Bumiputra literally meaning “sons of the soils” is sanctioned under the Federal Constitution of Malaysia after the Malays agreed to share the political powers that they hold to the minorities in the country as a prerequisite to the granting of independence of Malaysia from the British rule. Under Article 153 of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, the government shall have the responsibility of protecting the special position of the Malays and natives of the States of Sarawak and Sabah. In defining who Malays are Article 160 of the Federal Constitution states that Malays are those who “professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language, conforms to Malay customs and is the child of at lease one parent who was born within the Federation of Malaysia before independence of Malaya on the 31the of August 1957.” The objective of the government in promulgating the policy on the Bumitputra was to restore control of the land to the Malays. The Bumiputra first came to be used in the Parliament in 1965 (Lim 1978) and this stirred a lot of controversies. According to Tan et. al (1984) the laws on Bumiputra caused a lot of stir among the people from all walks of life especially when the time this law was passed, most of the commercial establishments in the country were owned by people belonging to the minority group and are considered as Non-Bumiputra. The fact that the government accorded special treatment to the Bumiputra is as a kind of racism that reduces the situation into ethnic conflict which sparked the riots in 1969 (Lim, 1978). To reduce ethnic conflict, the Malaysian government proposed the unification of Malays. This unification movement was ushered through the by the New Economic Plan (NEP) which was launched in 1971 (Tan et. al. 1984). Under the NEP, the government gives preference to Malays in the “distribution of manufacturing licenses, government contracts and concessions to land (Doolittle, 2006).” The creation of the bumiputra policy paved the way for a new type of politics. For the UMNO politicians who have access to the government resources, this policy give them a leverage to profit from the contracts and land grants given by the government (Doolittle, 2006). Since the UMNO ruled the government, it is not surprising that their agenda of getting more privileges for the people belonging to their class will prevail even to the detriment of the people belonging to the minorities. Those who are in power have easy access to the privileges stated in the policy regarding Bumiputra. On the other hand, where the people in the government have ulterior motivations why they come up with specific development agenda, the people in the grassroots communities also have their reasons for accepting or pretending to accept the policies of the government. Many people appear to be willing to accept the policies of the government because this act could give them access to resources. People learned to manipulate the government political machineries to get what they want. For instance, during elections in Malaysia, it is common for people who seek for a government office to give out bribe money to people to vote for them (Nitto, 2004). Money politics is very common popular in Malaysia that people who would like to have access to resources would support a candidate from who they can get the most personal favors. Non-bumiputra learned fast that “money politics” can help them override the barriers of being non-natives. By supporting government officials who can give those favors, the rich non-bumitputra still managed to get what they really want. In many cases, people who want to influence the policies of the government to their favor would openly support a winning candidate. As the candidate assumes his government post, the people who showed him support will now be the position to reap the benefits especially when it comes to timber licensing agreements and exploitation of natural resources. Note that in Malaysia, logging is a very important business that whoever gets a contract to exploit these resources will surely earn lots of money. By riding on the privilege of the bumitputra, people get access to the timberlands and forest of Malaysia. In the end, the government’s bid to protect the rights of the “sons of the soil” is derailed because of money politics. Even among the ranks of the people who are considered as bumiputra, one can observe a certain kind of inequity. The bumitputra belonging to the indigenous groups namely the Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia and tribal people of Sarawak and Sabah who do not have or have limited access to the UMNO never really get the kind of protection that was accorded to them by the Federal Constitution of Malaysia (Crouch 1996). The upper class bumitputra especially those members of the UMNO are still the ones who directly benefited from this policy. b. Impact of the Government’s Development Agenda on the Indigenous People The Iban in Batang Ai Lubok Antu District in Sri Aman Division, Sarawak were natives to the place and have occupied these lands for many generations. When the government stated building the Batang Ai damn, the Ibans were forced to leave their long houses to make way for the building of the damn (Osman 2001). Although the Ibans were given a resettlement area and were given compensation so that they can start a new life, the damaged caused by their displacement is too much compared to the benefits that they derived from the incident. Were the Ibans who are part of the bumiputra benefited from such legislation? Others may say that the Ibans were given protection through the resettlement project but the truth is, as a native tribal group, they should have been given priority when it comes to their ancestral lands. However, since the government sees the construction of the damn as part of its development agenda, it ignored the rights of the Ibans to stay in their ancestral lands. On the other, logging in Sarawak is becoming a big problem that is encroaching into the ancestral lands of the tribal people. Since the government controls the issuance of permits to loggers, the local people in the area turned to meta-legal means of stopping the logging companies from entering the forest and cutting down trees. In defense to their land and their democratic rights, the people erected barricades to prevent loggers from entering the forest. Unfortunately, the government sees logging as one of the most lucrative businesses in the country that it ignored the rights of the Indigenous People to protect their land and the forest. Since the economy of Sarawak is heavily dependent on the logging industry, the Malaysian government wanted to preserve the status quo and let the logging companies continue its activities. As result of the government’s policy to support the businesses in the country and in its bid to stop the people from putting up barricades, the Sarawak State legislative Assembly amended the Forest Ordinance, “making it punishable by a two-year jail term and a fine of $6,000 if a person set up a structure on a road constructed by a timber licensee or a permit holder” (Osman 2001). The implementation of the amendments in the Forest ordinance of the area resulted to protest and the arrest of some of the leaders of the Indigenous People. III. The Vietnamese Experience Vietnam is a communist country and is considered as one of the poorest countries in the world today in terms of per capital income. The economy of this country is still largely agricultural. In terms of the relationship between the national government and the grassroots, there is gnawing gap between the policies of development of the government and the actual situation in communities. Often times, the interest of the grassroots communities are compromised by the policies that are issued by the government. a. The Crisis In the Uplands of Vietnam The government structure of Vietnam is highly centralized that even the most remote village have its own People’s Committee and party cell which is directly connected to the higher-level organizations structures (Rambo and Jamieson 2003). This complex structure is capable of transmitting streams of information and instructions from the central government in Hanoi to the people even in the remotest villages. Although this high centralized and complex structure may have it benefits, this system could be quite stifling to the local people at the grassroots level. In Vietnam, the people strongly rely on the central government to guide towards development. They are not free to chart their own courses of action. The Vietnamese government is of the opinion that the policy process is a linear progression of setting the agenda, discussion of the problem, decision-making on the solutions of the problem and the implementation of the solutions formulated (Thomas and Grindle, 1990). In actual practice, the political leaders in Ha Noi would send somebody over to take a look at the problem and then present their findings to the government leaders for action. The government leaders based on the reports which are often incomplete formulate policies that are supposed to solve the problems at hand. However, the good thing about the case of Vietnam is that despite the fact that the decision-making process is often centralized in the hands of the leaders based in the nation’s capital, there is always a space for local actors to integrate their ideas into the policies of the country (Dang Phong and Beresford, 1998). In most cases the policy-actors often composed of the low-level cadres and village leaders do not really get to participate in the formulation of the policies but they are often involved in the implementation process (Kerkvliet, 1999). The loss of the autonomy of the people in the upland is compounded by the fact that they no longer have control over the resource in their backyards. In many villages in the upland, modernization has encroached into the way of life of the people. Where before the people in the uplands can exploit the natural resources around them in accordance with the customs and traditions of their forefathers, the centralized policies of the government on the utilization of the resource limits the access of the people to these resources. The policy that defines that everything that is found naturally within the territorial boundaries of the State belongs to the state gives the state the full control of these resources. Since the local people in the upland no longer have control over the resources around them, they are not forced to follow the development agenda of the government which encourages them to embrace modernization. Since it is the policy of the government that people should adopt modern technology and to get involved in the market economy, the lives of the people in the uplands of Vietnam shifted from subsistence farming to the production of goods for sale (Rambo and Jamieson 2003). Before, one can only find traditional equipments that are used to till the soil in the uplands but one can now find modern equipments that are used in non-farming activities in these areas. Farm to market roads have been opened in the uplands of Vietnam in the last few years facilitating easy access of the people to the common markets in the lowlands. Although one might be tempted to say that the people in the uplands of Vietnam have advanced in the last few years, one cannot help but notice that the people in these areas are not really better off than they were before. The growing dependency of the people on modern technology introduced to them by the central government created a sense of marginalization among the people (Rambo and Jamieson 2003). Where the before the people in the uplands have their won identity, now they measure themselves by lowland standards and found themselves inferior to other people. Since the development policies of the government were uniformly implemented among diverse groups of people, a sense of gross inequality happened. Instead on the different sectors becoming partners in development, these sectors suddenly found themselves dependent on the more superior group. As observes by Rambo and Jamieson (2003), “the ability to meet the needs of an increased upland population is dependent on the introduction of new productive technologies and the opening up of new opportunities to exchange resource with other regions.” What happened along the way? Clearly, the development policy of the government had backfired in this case. When the central government took control over the natural resources in the upland, it too away the main source of livelihood of the people. On the other hand, when it introduced modernization to the uplands, it took away tradition and the sense of identity. b. Politics and The Environment The Environment of Vietnam is very much degraded that the government came up with policies prohibiting the exploitation of certain types of resources. The move of the government to protect the government is well and good but it also had some serious negative impact on the people at the grassroots level. In Quang Ninh, the coal mining is considered as the largest industry. This coal mining activities in this area had the support of the national government but the local government of Quang Ninh favors the tourism industry. Because of the conflicting interest of the offices involved in this situation, there disputes arise. The coal mine is polluting the water and causing loses in the tourism industry. To end the controversy, the central government stopped the operations of the coal mines in the area and consolidated the operations of the minds into one big company. Smaller companies that were not absorbed in the big company were forced to close down or shift to another business. In saving the environment, hundreds of people lost their jobs. Since many people are out of jobs, the crime rate in the area increased (Sinh 1998). Technically, the closing down of the coal mines was a good move on the part of the government but the problem here is that the government acted without really taking into consideration the impact of such act will be on the people at the grassroots level. Again, is this case, the stakeholders were not consulted as to what is the best course of action to take. It can be said that right from the very beginning when the central government promulgated the policy on land use planning in the country, there was already an absence of clear showing that the stakeholders were given the chance to give their inputs. The fact that the central government retains control over the exploitation of local resources made the issuances of permits for the utilization of natural resources questionable to say the least. Note that the central government located in Hanoi in this case is not really in the right position to determine what is good or bad for the local people in the area. The policies of the governments all over the world are greatly affected by international policies. A clear manifestation of the negative impact of shifting policies of the government can be clearly seen in the Ba Be District of the Bac Kan Province (Zingerli, 2006). The Ba Be District of the Bac Kan Province is primarily an agricultural community. Since Vietnam is an agricultural country, the focus of the government is on agricultural intensification. In early 80s, the intensification of agricultural production started in Ba Be District. Unfortunately, the intensive agricultural activities in this area posed a threat to the Ba Be National Park which is the home rich biodiversity (IUCN, 1999). Due to the pressures exerted by outside forces for the Vietnamese government to promote environmental accountability, the government shifted its priorities this area from intensive farming to nature conservation (United Nations in Viet Nam, 1999). The framework of conservation is exclusionary thus people in the area were deprived of the opportunities to earn a living. Addressing the problem of the environment is a complex political process (Blaikie and Sadeque, 2000) and should be limited to simply preserving and protecting the natural resources. Technically, environmental policies will always come into conflict with interest of the people at the grassroots level especially when these people can no longer attain food security because of the lack of access to land (Nguyen et. al, 1995; Slaats et al, 2002). Unfortunately, in this case, the government did not provide for an alternative form of livelihood the displaced people in the area (Zingerli, 2006). IV. Comparison between the Malaysian and the Vietnamese Experience The policies of the governments of Malaysia and Vietnam may some similarities. First, both countries have highly centralized policies. Note that in both countries, the central government has control over the natural resources found within its territorial jurisdiction. Since the central government has control over the resources, the local people in the area are deprived of access to the resources which they used to freely exploit for their own use. Since the central governments of these countries can issue permits and licenses to those people or companies that they feel are qualified to exploit the resources of the land, the rights of the Indigenous People’s in the area are often ignored or neglected. The second similarities of the policies of the two countries are that they are mostly in favor of the business sector to the detriment of the environment. In Malaysia, the government strongly supports the logging industry while in Vietnam, the government favors agriculture. On the other hand, both countries are strongly influenced by the outside world. In its bid to keep abreast with globalization, the policies of these countries become centered on modernization and neglected the development of local cultures. The experiences in the Iban village of Sarawak, Malaysia and in the uplands of Vietnam show how the policies of the government kill culture and tradition. What is the difference between the policies of the two countries? While the policies of the two countries are very much similar in many aspects, Vietnam proved to be more democratic in its policy formulation. Note that Vietnam has a highly centralized system where the government can reach even the most remote areas of the country. This system of gathering information proved to be useful especially when it comes to promoting the welfare of the people in the area. Note that in the case of the coal mining industry and the case of Be Ba national Park, the fact that the government is more or less updated of what is going on in the are helped a lot in coming up with solutions to problems. Note that the small councils in the different villages in Vietnam facilitated consultation among the people. Although the leaders in the villages are not really made part of the policy making process they are given a chance to air their opinions on the matter. Furthermore, since they are involved in the implementation of the policies, they can influence the course of the implementation thereof. The localization of the implementation of the different policies of the Vietnamese government is very important in giving the people a sense of ownership over the policy. On the other hand, Malaysia may have a highly centralized system but the fact that the representatives that are elected to hold government positions mostly belong to the bumitputra it is not uncommon that only the interest of the bumituputra is given much attention. Note that “money politics” is very common in Malaysia thus; it is not uncommon that the elected officials are often beholden to the people who supported them and put them into power. Since the policy making process of Malaysia is in the hands of the few elected officials, it is very easy for these elected officials to twist the policies around to suit their needs. On the other hand, since the implementation on national laws and policies in Malaysia is highly centralized, the central government can dictate the villagers on what they should or should not do (Doolittle 2006). Note that in the case of the village of Tempulong in Malaysia where the government forced the people to embrace the Gerakan Desa Wawasan (Village Movement Towards Vision, henceforth GDW) program of the government, the people did not really quite accept the program of the government. According to a woman in the village “They are telling us what things should be done, but not asking us what we need or want.”(Doolittle 2006). Instead of seeing a way to improve their standard of living, the people in the village of Tempulong saw the effort of the government as a form of interference in their daily lives. Another difference in the situation in these countries is that the people in Vietnam are less aggressive in their opposition to the policies of the government. The fact that Vietnam is a communist country may have something to do with the fact why people in this country are more likely to accept the policies of the government without so much protest as in the case of Malaysia. Note that in Malaysia, the enactment of some of the most controversial policies in the country led to civil disturbances. The enactment of the policy on bumitputra certainly causes a huge unrest in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. V. Conclusion Studying the politics of at the grassroots level can help us understand why some government policies are successful in some areas and why they are not acceptable in some areas. The case of Vietnam and Malaysia clearly showed us that when it comes to policies of the government, one policy can never fit all. The people at the grassroots level have different needs according to their location, their present resources and skills. If a government policy is uniformly implemented in a very diverse environment and situation, this policy will not really work out as expected. Studying the politics lead us to a very important conclusion that sustainable development can only be attained if the government adapts a participatory approach to development (Pretty, et al, 1995). Consultation with the different stakeholders is very important if we are to come up with policies that are suitable to the needs of the people who will be subjected to it. By letting the people participate in chartering their courses of action, the government can ensure the commitment of the people to that policy. Furthermore, by letting the people participate in the policy making process, there will be lesser chances of protest against the policies of the government. 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