Hijjas bin Kasturi delivered the following address to over 50 alumni of the University of Melbourne at an alumni gathering at the Royal Selangor Visitor Centre in Kuala Lumpur on 24 May 2008. The event was hosted by Mr Ian Renard, Chancellor of the University of Melbourne and also several deans of schools, including the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, Professor Tom Kvan.
Even though it is many decades since I was at the University of Melbourne, it was an important period of my life and I am honoured to have been invited to speak this evening to a new generation of Alumni.
We are amongst the privileged few to have had a university education, and not just any education… but at one of the world’s top ranking universities. Some of the alumni in Malaysia have gone on to have outstanding careers, starting with Tun Dr Ismail, who studied medicine there after World War II and who went on to become a key figure in Merdeka politics and in the first Malaysian cabinet where he was a champion of a multi-racial society. There are many other examples, in politics, the judiciary, business and government, which makes one think that perhaps their experiences in Melbourne developed their leadership qualities and equipped them to go out and make a difference.
Asian families have always placed a high priority on education, and I was the first in my family to have the opportunity to go to university. A good education is seen as a partial guarantee for the future, especially for poor families. When I finished school in 1955 there was just one university, the University of Malaya, in all of Singapore and Malaya, and of course I failed to make the grade to get in. Now there are over 20 public universities in Malaysia alone, as well as 15 private and 4 foreign universities. This rapid physical development has perhaps not been matched in quality development, but hopefully this will happen in the future so that coming generations of students will be able to have a quality education here at home.
But those of you here tonight have benefited from not just a good education, but the experience too of living overseas, being forced out of your comfort zones into a completely new environment. I have known Melbourne since the 1950s and how it has changed radically over that time, and which ever period you actually lived there would have opened new doors for you, too. More than merely attending University, Melbourne alone was as much the experience that shaped your attitudes and responses. As a boy from war torn Singapore, I was stunned by the honour system of buying a newspaper at the railway station… why no one stole the money was an early lesson for me in civil society, and I’m sure all of you experienced similar examples of culture shock that forces you to put your own way of doing things in a different perspective, and it is perspectives of change that I want to talk about tonight.
Some of you may have had scholarships to Australia, others were there thanks to your parents’ hard work and sacrifice, but however you got there, you now have an obligation to repay. We all owe someone for the privileges we have enjoyed. I personally owe to the Australian government and the people of Australia, as I was given a Colombo Plan scholarship when there was absolutely no one else offering a helping hand. Only three scholarships were given to Singapore that year, and one of them was for architecture that my boss in the Singapore Housing Trust recommended me for. Without any doubt, without that scholarship my life would have been completely different: possibly I might have ended up as the senior draftsman in the Housing Trust, as without that education my prospects were very limited. Instead, with that scholarship and education in hand, I came back to a newly independent country that had no money but lots of optimism, and by the time the building booms began in the ’70s I was in the right place with the right skills to have a career, make money, raise a family and be successful. Thanks to Australia.
To give you a little of my own history, I came back in the early ’60s, worked in Singapore for a year, before being bought out by MARA college to start a school in architecture and design. I worked there for 5 years, before establishing a professional practice of my own. Doing that “national service” was important, but it did not repay what I had gained.
So I still owe something, even at this late stage of my life, because this is a debt that can never be completely repaid… and the same applies to you. Your education hasn’t just provided you with a meal ticket, but it has equipped you as a citizen of Malaysia with a better intellectual understanding of your world, giving you the responsibility to help others and to develop the nation. I know the idea of developing the nation has become a boring refrain, especially over the last year of anniversary celebrations, but development is what we need if we are going to match what Australia has shown is possible. Our education system needs developing, so does our health care, so does public transport, just as the environment needs more consideration, and there is a slew of social issues that need to be addressed regarding social equity and justice… I suspect every field that we work in today needs the experience and vision that we have brought back from Australia, in particular from Melbourne, to truly develop Malaysia to hold its head high in the international arena.
We talk a lot about being a caring society but in reality the talk is not matched by our behavior. Malaysians, surprisingly, have been ranked amongst the rudest by an international study on tourism, and you only have to ask for help in a department store to know that this is true. We talk about Malaysia truly Asia, about our multi-culturalism and inter-racial respect, but the fact is that these things have to be re-invented by each generation. I went to school in Singapore, so of course I had lots of Chinese friends who are friends to this day, but this is not the experience of young Malays today. Something has to be done about it, and it’s not just the government that has to resolve this problem, it is we as individuals who have to make a difference.
You are among the future leaders, you need to play your part, and you will be rewarded, but it is not always a financial reward. To help others, either providing your skills and services free of charge to worthy causes, or initiating change and new ideas that will provide benefits beyond mere money, these are the important things. Take an active role in developing a civil society, you can influence policy that will have an impact. You can play a role in seeking social justice for those who don’t have the benefits you enjoy. Start thinking about something else apart from consumerism and when you are going to buy your next BMW… think instead about your global footprint and how you can change things. It must start with you, because you are the most educated and privileged in our society and it is up to you to show the way.
I was very disturbed at a recent meeting with Malaysian architecture students in Melbourne. Most of them expressed a wish to stay in Australia because of the high rewards that are offered in professional positions there compared with here, and the belief that the life style there and personal security is much better. I am appalled by such self-serving attitudes, and want to rectify the perception that Malaysia cannot offer a good life and adequate rewards. I have told my own children that whatever they do here can have a major impact, whereas if they were to stay in Australia or the UK, they will not be able to have anything like the same influence on social and business outcomes. There you have no social connections, here you do; there everything has been done already, here it is all waiting to be done… and that in itself offers a level of fulfillment that working and living overseas can never match.
The usual Malaysian response to need is to consider the family first, and yes this is important, but it must go beyond that. The patriarchs of our wealthiest families in previous decades started charities that built schools, orphanages and hospitals, purely because this country had given them the opportunity to build a good life for themselves and they wanted to repay their debt to society; but what has happened to this culture of philanthropy? Who now is starting foundations to help the poor? How are our newly rich entrepreneurs expressing their gratitude? Yes, in Australia there are tax benefits if you form a foundation, whereas here we don’t have that incentive, but that is exactly what needs fixing. someone in tax law should start lobbying for better incentives for charity, and our entrepreneurs should be made to feel obliged to get up and make a difference. We have all enjoyed a good business climate for the last few decades, we make money here in Malaysia, but we want to live in Australia because the lifestyle is better… sorry, count me out on the last item.
Don’t get me wrong; I love Melbourne and Australia, but I don’t want to live there… I am Malaysian and I must pay my debt here. Australia gave me an opportunity, but I came back here to make a difference, and Malaysia gave me that chance. What I want to stress to you is that you can make a huge difference here rather than there, and that alone shapes the quality of your life in terms of satisfaction rather than just your pay packet, because it is not just personal satisfaction at issue here, it is the fact that we all owe someone for the opportunities that were given to us and we have an obligation to reciprocate: do something to help someone else, or generate change that you believe in, just get involved, and distance yourself from those who urge you to migrate so you can enjoy the Australian life style. In the end, life is more than going to the beach and playing golf, and I assure you that you are more likely to find true happiness and fulfillment here, at home, in your own culture and place, where there is so much needing to be done and where indeed you can make a difference.
You are the ones that have to change whatever it is that you find undesirable in this country. You are among the future leaders, and you must play your part, and you will be rewarded, not just financially but in knowing that you have effected change and betterment, because at the end of your life this is what matters most: what you have done, not how much money you made or how many lifestyle holidays you have taken, but where you have made a difference, especially now, when the pace of change is beginning to accelerate. The recent elections and political developments here are opening a window where all the outstanding issues that have been ignored for too long will come to the surface, and it is your turn to re-tool society and the professions for a new age. That is what I want you to think about.
Thank you.