ORAL HISTORY
Young Malaysians are the saving grace of the country:
Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz
Perdana Leadership Foundation had the chance to converse with Malaysia’ s longestserving Minister of International Trade and Industry, Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz, as part of our Oral History programme. Once dubbed“ Rapid Fire Rafidah” for her quick verbal responses, Tan Sri was incredibly patient with us as we got her to recall the past. The conversation was conducted in Tan Sri’ s home, a warm sanctuary filled with artefacts from her travels abroad, and in that interview, Tan Sri shared with us her thoughts on life, work – past and current, and her views on Malaysia. Along the way, we also found out about the values and attitude that drive her.
The interviewers for this dialogue were Professor Dr. Mohd Shahwahid bin
22 PERDANA MAGAZINE 2016
Haji Othman, Professor of Economics at Universiti Putra Malaysia, and Associate Professor Dr. Normaz Wana binti Ismail, Associate Professor of Economics at Universiti Putra Malaysia.
The following are excerpts from the conversation. The full dialogue will be published in book form, with audio excerpts on our website.
DR. MOHD SHAH WAH I D You earned a degree in Economics from Universiti Malaya( UM) then became the first Malay woman to obtain a Master’ s degree in that subject.
TA N SR I R AFIDAH A Z I Z Well, there were very few Malays who studied Economics at the time! Malays didn’ t really like to study Economics, especially amongst the women. I became the cover girl of Wanita 1 and many other magazines when I got my Masters in Economics but instead of feeling celebrated, I felt sad and depressed. Do you know why?
It’ s because students from other ethnic groups had already achieved PhDs, yet we( Malays) only had our first female Master’ s degree graduate in Economics. We were far behind. My benchmark weren’ t the Malays but other ethnic groups. I thought it was depressing that Malays had only one female Master’ s graduate at that time. This is why I feel that we must never lower our standards. Nowadays, I tell people not to be content with small achievements. I learnt at quite a young age that we must always set higher standards and benchmarks. Our achievements must be benchmarked
1 A popular women’ s magazine in Malaysia