Bodek culture that’s afflicting the civil service

Bodek culture that’s afflicting the civil service



From Murray Hunter

Malaysia’s brain drain is twice as high as the world average, costing the country a loss of academics, medical practitioners, engineers and research scientists who are tired of the corrupt political system, lack of a fair and rules-based organisational environment and the absence of meritocracy.

While racism plays a role in a culture dominated by ethnic Malays, at the heart of the problem is the practice of excessive servility to gain favour from superiors, known by its Malay word “bodek”.

This was identified by former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his successor, Najib Razak, who vainly attempted to fix it through government transformation programmes.

In 2018, Mohd Shukri Abdull, then head of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, warned that it “was ruining the country”. In that year, the World Bank, in a report, criticised the Malaysian civil service for its lack of accountability, impartiality, transparency and openness.

Inelegantly known as brown-nosing, “bodeking” is the greatest single organisational dysfunction within Malaysia’s civil service, compromising the quality and integrity of management along with protection against corruption.

The Dutch cultural anthropologist Geert Hofstede ranks Malaysia the top country in his Power Distance Index, which measures the extent to which the less powerful members of societies and organisations within them expect that power is distributed unevenly and accept it.

Feudal roots

This has deep cultural roots with the Malays who, over hundreds of years, have accepted a hierarchical and feudal structure headed by sultans or rajas. Throughout recorded history, Malay society has not only accepted authority, but gone to great lengths to seek acceptance from those at the top of the social hierarchy.

Malaysia is only one of two countries where monarchs award titles to citizens and these are highly sought after. The British, during colonial times, knew of the prestige and power of the monarchs and incorporated the Malay royal class into the government and constitution.

Society today generally accepts royal, political and administrative positions of authority as being the top of the social totem pole. Those who revere and respect will seek to gain acceptance, seek favours and identify with their leader.

Those who dislike their leaders will covertly disrupt and undermine their leaders through clandestine actions, sabotaging their authority.

Possibly, the ultimate example occurred when those around former prime minister Najib Razak, before he called the general election in 2018, including his own ministry and the police Special Branch, predicted he would win.

This time, Najib was caught out. However, the “bodek” culture protected Najib earlier during the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) financial misappropriation scandal, with those in the know keeping quiet to stay in favour.

Private empires

Senior civil servants become so dominating and powerful that they are able to shape their departments and agencies into their own private empires. Many departments follow the agendas of their heads, rather than organisational missions. They implement their own ideas, procedures, systems and programmes, only to see them dismantled when a new person takes over.

This leads to the discontinuity of programmes, procedures, and systems.

Loyal employees usually follow directions unquestioningly. This enables tenders to be manipulated, purchasing procedures skilfully by-passed, and the use of budget allocations at the leader’s prerogative without accountability.

These errant practices usually stay out of the notice of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission(MACC), simply because no one is willing to report them. Even though the MACC may be aware of some corrupt practices, they cannot get any insider evidence for investigations, charges, or prosecutions.

There are thousands of white elephant projects abandoned around the country, with planners and their groups having profited and moved on.

Misinformation

Government reports, presentations and proposals are prepared and written to put issues in the most positive light. Most reports and presentations now focus on providing glossy projections to hide the reality.

Statistics are routinely skewed, with the national poverty rate grossly under-estimated by bureaucrats for many years to make the government look good at eradicating poverty.


Deep within Malaysia’s “bodek” culture is the imperative that it’s wrong to criticise or contradict a superior, particularly senior ones. Peers would also see any disagreements or contradictions as selling out the group. Those who correct or disagree will be ostracised. There is strong peer pressure to sit in a meeting, agree or be silent so as not to show up others.

Ministries and agencies are locked in a Groupthink siege, filtering information to include only what subordinates believe the boss wants to hear.

Too much time, public funds, and too many resources are put into creating events, programme launches, and openings to glorify and please superiors. This “bodek” culture can also be seen in agency, department, and faculty WhatsApp groups, with responses to superiors overfilled with words like tahniah (congratulations) and hebat (fantastic).

Destroying productivity and creativity

The energy and emotion put into continually placating superiors is draining and the difficulty in putting up new ideas when superiors already have an agenda suppresses the diversity of ideas within the civil service.

The culture of silence is embedded in students at schools, where they are deterred from asking questions.

Such practices destroy morale and motivation within many departments and agencies. This is what makes Malaysian administrative leaders powerful, above criticism, and influential with those over who they have direct authority.

The civil service is one of the nation’s most important resources, one that manages the country, rather than the executive. Consequently, the culture and resulting health and effectiveness is of vital national importance.

The practice of “bodeking” needs to be eradicated. It’s a cultural cancer that needs immediate attention. It’s a necessary reform that the so-called Pakatan Harapan reform government didn’t recognise. None of the last three short lived governments have mentioned a single word about it.