'Malaysians mad about power'

By Patrick Lee - Free Malaysia Today,

PETALING JAYA: Malaysians are power-crazy. The prospect of power means everything for them. That's the conclusion of political observers and an organisational study.
“(Malaysia) is a society that worships political power,” said Professor James Chin of Monash University.

“Everyone wants to have power, because when they have power, they can do whatever they want.”

Chin said this after being asked on Malaysia's high Power Distance Index (PDI) ratings, which were gleaned from a study done by Dutch organisational sociologist Geert Hofstede.

According to Hofstede's website, in a study covering over 50 countries, Malaysia and Slovakia both reigned as the world PDI champions with a score of 104 each.

In comparison, Malaysia's immediate neighbours Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore were rated at 78, 64 and 74 respectively.

High PDI scores included countries such as those in the Arab world, Russia, China and the Philippines. Democratic countries such as Japan, Australia and Canada were among those with lower PDI results.
Higher PDI ratings not only showed examples of unfair power distribution, but also revealed that a society's leaders and their followers allowed these practices to continue.

The study also argued that people in countries with high PDI ratings tended to display their rank openly, and had accepted class divisions within society as the norm.

Whatever the boss says, goes

When asked if Malaysia's PDI ratings were surprising, Centre for Policy Initiatives director Lim Teck Ghee said, "I expected Malaysia to have higher scores than longer established democratic states.”

“But I did not expect Malaysia to be ranked behind China, Mexico and the Philippines.”

Unlike Lim, Chin appeared nonchalant about the readings. “It just reinforces what we know about the problem,” he said.

“The idea of a hierarchy is very strict in Malaysia. So whatever the boss says, goes.”

Lim told FMT that cultures with small PDI scores were not only more democratic in nature, but its people also tended to relate to each other as equals.

"In these societies, there are strong institutions that foster equality," he told FMT. "Ordinary people see the right to criticise those in power as their inherent right."

Lim said that Malaysia's high PDI rating allowed ordinary citizens to accept power that was either autocratic or paternalistic.

"This has been the political and cultural baggage that we have inherited," he said, adding that the ratings were also influenced by ideologies built around "constitutional" positions.

"So long as there are such ideological positions at work, there will be elite groups that see unequal power relations as the norm and seek to preserve it for their own interests."

"We may be a democratic society in name," Lim said. "But in Malaysia the tolerance and acceptance of inequality is even higher than in many less democratic societies."