85,000 Malaysians have been chosen for the first national service draft, and minister tells them not to complain
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia has drafted 85,000 teenagers for a new mandatory national service scheme and has told reluctant recruits not to be 'softies'.
Young people will find out from today whether they have been chosen at random by a computer search that used quotas based on gender, ethnicity and location.
The draftees will have to take part in three months of basic military training as well as community service, and will take lessons in leadership and responsibility starting next February, Defence Minister Najib Razak said yesterday.
'There is no escape. The scheme will not only benefit the nation, but it will benefit participants personally,' he told a press conference.
Officials said the plan will help to stem religious extremism and instil patriotism in mostly Muslim Malaysia's young people.
But critics fear it will be used to indoctrinate participants with pro-government rhetoric and steer them away from the fundamentalist Parti Islam SeMalaysia.
Recruits - who were drawn from a pool of 480,000 people born in 1986 - will be placed in 42 camps nationwide, Datuk Seri Najib said.
He said teenagers would be able to call a hotline as of today to discover whether they had been selected.
Responding to doubts by some parents and teenagers over whether the scheme was necessary, he said officials had planned a 'productive' programme that would not be a waste of time.
It would be shorter and less physically demanding compared with national service training in many other countries. Datuk Seri Najib cited the example of neighbouring Singapore, where every able-bodied male must do at least two years of full-time military duty. Afterwards, they undergo annual training for 13 years.
'Singaporeans don't complain,' he said. 
'Don't tell me Malaysians are such softies to be complaining.'
Most of those chosen have just graduated from high school and those who plan to further their studies will have the next several months free.
But many resent the national service scheme because it will prevent them from taking up temporary jobs or travelling on vacations.
The scheme is timed so as not to conflict with the tertiary academic year in Malaysia, which starts around June.
Recruits enrolled in foreign universities where studies begin earlier may be able to appeal.
One teenager, Tee Ann Jie, said the scheme should be voluntary. 'National service is not going to accomplish anything but cause frustration and intense displeasure,' he wrote in a letter published at the weekend by The Star newspaper.
'Forcing us to do something is not the way to endear our country to us.' -- AP
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wow. i din noe singaporeans dun complain!
last para sounds familiar?
