ON May 6, news broke out that half the ethnic Chinese Malaysians polled by a study wanted to emigrate. Not wanting to fall on either side, I decided to look this report up and read it.

The study, sponsored by the CIMB Foundation and conducted by the Blavatnik School of Government and the Department of Experimental Psychology from Oxford University, showed some very weird results.

For example, the polled ethnic Indians actually perceived that there was fairness of economic policies and that government was protecting their interests, much higher than the Chinese perception.

At the same time it showed that none of the three ethnic groups were satisfied with their economic situation when compared to others. As per the report:

“… the Malays felt equally relatively deprived when comparing themselves to the Chinese and Indians… while both the Chinese and Indians felt most relatively deprived compared to the Malays.”

The report continues to state that this mindset was in both the urban and rural areas.

Similarly, it also details that 2/3 of the Indian and Chinese respondents felt discriminated against by other ethnic groups. And yet, almost half of the Malays felt that they were discriminated against as well.

And then came this statistic. The study found that “15.5 percent of Malays, 48.8 percent of Chinese and 37.3 percent of Indians reported a stronger than average desire to emigrate from Malaysia”.

This is compared to “27.6 percent of Malays, 23.4 percent of Chinese and 52.5 percent of Indians willing to participate in collective action”. This goes to show that many have simply given up hope and just want to leave.

To this I say very simply – please do, and good luck. Be sure to look at New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

That is, unless you know French or German, or are willing to undergo a 3-month government-sponsored language class in Denmark, as detailed by Marie Claire former editor Helen Russell in her book titled The Year of Living Danishly.

There are a few reasons why I’m saying this – primarily due to the constant eye rolling I go through when people say such things and stay on year-after-year with the same threat of leaving.

The second reason being, if we want to talk about putting happiness of individuals first, then by all means we should encourage them to do what they wish to achieve such a goal. So let’s do this.

The country won’t lose a thing from a demotivated citizen – but we can increase their motivation for at least a period of time until they actually achieve the prerequisites to leave.

That being said, why not? After all, government change is slow to come about, especially with the Opposition politicians in total disarray and having abandoned Sabah and Sarawak yet again in their so-called unified “dream team”.

Thus, let Malaysians leave to seek greener pastures.

But at the same time, we do need an open, revolving door policy when it comes to allowing foreigners to migrate here, and set roots here. This includes the Nepalis, the Bangladeshis, the Pakistanis, the Indians, the Mainland Chinese, and even the Filipinos and Vietnamese.

Heck, we need to allow such an open system preferably for all countries under the ASEAN umbrella and to tweak whatever policies involved to cater to this. With globalisation, the idea of protecting and asking for affirmative action in the form of front serving staff in restaurants is both ludicrous and outdated.

We must allow diversity from migration of peoples with lesser performing nations, to be able to set root right here in Malaysia. You would see this same concept applying if you went to Shadwell, London, or even Houston, Texas.

It is truly this simple - Malaysians leave for greener pastures, we offer greener pastures for others to come in. It can be greener pastures in the form of economic opportunity, personal freedom, and even government support and funding for sciences.

That last one is even being pushed by newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron in a video on Facebook, enticing climate change scientists to come over to France from America and everywhere else.

Similarly, Canada has such a good reputation of bringing in their immigrant population, they are targeting 337,0000 newcomers in 2018, even after having more than 20% of their population born overseas. This is, according to Jonathan Tepperman’s The Fix, thanks to Pierre Elliott Trudeau - their current Prime Minister’s father.

So by all means, if Malaysians do choose to leave, work hard, save up, and make the move. The country, the people in the majority, the government, can’t keep up with your wants and needs. Change is slow in coming about.

Thus, if you can afford it, do make the shift and take the leap. There will be no grudges or bad faith in doing so, because your happiness comes first. – May 12, 2017.

* Hafidz loves to ruffle feathers and believes in the EA Games tag line of challenging everything. Most times, he represents the Devil’s Advocate on multiple issues.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.