Malaysia Day came and went but there were 3 highly insightful articles about our country, and where we are headed. Incisive but will the powers that be listen? We do not seem to value being progressive or competitive. Sad because we have so many resources. Is it a mindset thing... well, obviously. Is it because our make-up is different from other countries ... well, yes and there are challenges which are unique to us as a country, but certainly not so difficult as to impede our progress as a nation. The hardest part is over ..... come on people!!!
Do read the articles by David Wu, Zaid Ibrahim and Lim Kit Siang ... and somehow hope someone is listening.
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By David Wu
Malaysia Today - A Reality Check
Long read but this post, essentially a comparison with China, is based on facts, true stories and personal observations.
In 1989, my late father and his two brothers visited their father’s birthplace in a small village just outside the city of Taishan in China. Traveling to China then was not a straightforward matter unlike today due to restrictions imposed by the Malaysian authorities. That was only 30 years ago.
To obtain approval from the authorities for travel to China, my father had to provide proof of correspondence with existing relatives there, among other things. I believe he had to show at least three years of correspondence for the application to be considered. He finally managed to obtain the approval and the rest, as they say, is history. China was just about to open up then, if I’m not mistaken.
My fifth uncle, a renowned and pioneer Malayan surgeon, traveled with my father and their eldest brother. He related a story to me not too long ago about a conversation he had with a Special Branch senior officer over a game of golf years ago. In it, the SB chap mentioned how the authorities were relaxing the requirements for ethnic Chinese Malaysians to visit China. One of the reasons was so that they can see for themselves how bad things were in China and with that experience would perhaps learn to appreciate Malaysia more. We were a rising Asian tiger then and China was, well, poor. That conversation took place just 20+ years ago.
By the time my father and his siblings visited China, we already had Proton cars and were well on our way towards Vision 2020 - the target date to transform Malaysia into a developed nation. China was still mired in poverty and Tiananmen Square happened.
I dated a Singaporean girl who eventually became my wife in the early 90s and during our early courtship, I travelled with her family to Hainan island to visit their relatives there. Their kampung was poor and relied on overseas family members for financial help to repair their homes or build toilets. We were there incidentally for a wedding too and I vividly remember a goat that was tied to a tree. The goat eventually became part of the dinner on the wedding night. I also recall a cousin who was about to leave the village for greener pastures in Beijing. He was going to train to be a stockbroker then. I do sometimes wonder if he’s a wealthy man today. Who knows?
I relocated to Singapore soon after my daughter was born. I remember the early Pei Du Mamas (study mothers) who were given special resident passes to accompany their bright children who were selected to study there by the Singapore government. To make ends meet, these aunties would find work, mostly in massage parlours. They couldn’t speak any English, were rather uncouth and having underarm hair was the prevalent fashion for them then. They were looked down upon.
That was only around 20 years ago.
Meantime, Malaysia was still scaling new heights for herself. By then, not only were we making cars, we were home to the world’s third longest bridge and the tallest buildings in the world. Today, the Penang bridge doesn’t even count in the world’s top 30 ranking (ironically dominated by Chinese bridges) and the twin towers have long been dwarfed.
Ironically, Proton is also now 49% owned by the Chinese, who coming from having no car industry to speak of then are now making some nifty ones of their own today, one of which I rode in recently in China but can’t even place the name of the make. A very swish SUV it was too, complete with all the fine trimmings that wouldn’t be out of place in a continental model.
Look at China today.
In a little more than 20 years, it has gone into orbit and at a pace that is truly frightening. Corruption is tackled with an iron will and it won’t be long before the much derided ‘Made in China’ labels morph into ‘Made by China’. Well, you only have to look at Huawei to get an idea.
When I was in Beijing for the first time recently, I was completely taken aback by its unbelievable development. Mind you, Beijing is an old city therefore the immaculate state of the city today is nothing to be scoffed at, more so given the size of the behemoth that it is. Clean, organised, and surprisingly quiet for a giant metropolis given their wide usage of electric vehicles. I had expected mayhem and bustle, instead I found pristine when I arrived, I kid you not.
Three years ago, when I cycled in the southeast of China, I was already in awe of their seemingly insatiable appetite for construction. Imagine travelling between say, Alor Setar to Butterworth on the old trunk road only to find Simpang Empat, Kota Sarang Semut, Guar Chempedak, Gurun, Bakar Arang filled with new high rise apartment blocks. That’s probably the best way to describe what I saw as I rode past pockets of little towns there.
The Chinese presence globally was also felt during my cycle around the world. They are just about everywhere, building roads, railways and other infrastructure for other countries. It’s quite scary, to be perfectly honest, and there is not a shred of doubt left in my mind that we are looking at the next colonial master, albeit in the economic sense rather than military, if she wasn’t one already.
Now look at where Malaysia is today.
25-30 years ago, we were up there. As mentioned above, we even wanted the ethnic Chinese Malaysians to go visit China so that they can see for themselves how terrible things were then. 25-30 years ago, we still spoke English. The Chinese didn’t. Today, the Chinese are making great efforts to speak more English while our own proficiency has taken a dive. Even the lady at the airport’s taxi stand in Beijing spoke English. Not perfect, but more than passable. Give then a few more years and I shudder to think. Who knows, French or Spanish next?
I met my 10 month old Chinese grand nephew in Taishan recently. The age gap between him and his elder sister is 10 years. I jokingly asked my nephew and his wife why have a child again after so long and was stumped by the answer. The family has a new member simply because the Chinese government changed the one child policy to a two child policy. Well, I suppose if you’re gonna conquer the world, you might as well have more people to serve that purpose.
So while the Chinese and other SEA nations are forging ahead (it already cost RM1400 to buy 10000 baht today), we are stuck in the same old same old unproductive narrative of race and religion. While others are seeking real knowledge we look for more religious education. While others are familiarising themselves with new languages, we want to reintroduce khat on a national level yet can’t even decide if it’s art, compulsory, optional or not.
Let’s not even talk about innovation and technology.
Sorry, but we can’t even yet look at every citizen as Malaysian today, at least in good spirit. All we seem to be really good at today is politics. And speculating who’s the next Prime Minister after electing a 92 year old who incidentally was at the helm during those glorious years. How sad is that?
We still hear of the Chinese being told to go back to China. Really? Be careful what one wishes for. But REALLY, how truly sad is that?
And with the directive from the religious authorities that Muslims may no longer hold joint prayers with folks of other faiths, any notion left that we are a moderate Muslim country went right out the window. Heck, we can’t even get being a moderate Muslim nation right.
How sad is that?
Forget China, we will never get to where they are today nor where they will be in the foreseeable future, but at least keep up with our neighbours. Countries that we used to visit because they were cheap have already overtaken us and we are still singing ‘Setia’ and watching corporate sponsored feel good festivity videos about how we once were?
Sure, those videos are nice, but we need to stop lying to ourselves. Our country is in dire health. Someone took less than 30 years to dominate the world yet we, being independent for 62 and up there once, are still talking about integration while actively segregating communities?
We have many Malaysians who do brilliantly abroad but the focus is invariably on their ethnicity or if female Muslim, is she wearing a headscarf. Or not. I mean, seriously?
What on earth is in the water which we drink that makes us so utterly deluded? Ridiculous, even.
I am not sure which frightens me more - that China is marching ahead at full steam and that our neighbours are leapfrogging us, or that we have fallen so far below the perch we once so proudly stood on.
Oh, and there’s that little island south of the border, lest we forget.
I love my country with all my heart, am a super proud Malaysian and loathe to criticising her but we need a reality check or we will have very little to be proud of someday apart from nasi lemak and teh tarik. As it is, we’re not even proud of the kebaya so pardon me if anyone should find this post an inconvenient truth.
#malaysia
By Zaid Ibrahim
“ The problem is really more serious than that."
For the past 40 years or more the Malays have been cocooned away from the real world.
A friend who used to be Chairman of a very large Malay corporation that survived almost completely on government handout projects and concessions said that the skill sets and the work ethics inside his organisation "have nothing to do" with the real world outside.
The entire Malay ecosystem was carefully nurtured to keep them away from mixing with the real world.
Be it in business, education, social interactions, RELIGION, politics, language, sports, art and just about anything human beings do everyday.
The common theme in all these areas of "endeavour" were lower standards. Lower the bar.
For over 40 years the Malays have been dumbing down - at a time when the other non Malay communities have been making better strides and when other countries have been making giant strides.
Vietnam has announced that they will be manufacturing their own car the Vinfast.
But it is a private sector effort with no taxpayers funds involved. The CEO and top managers are American, ex General Motors. The Vietnamese have already displayed the car at the Paris Auto Show.
Hiring American CEOs, displaying their cars in Paris - what does that mean? The Vietnamese are seeking out the outside world and saying "We are coming to join you". And they are doing this without taxpayer funding - meaning it is market driven.
In Malaysia we went the other way. We wanted to develop our country 'in our own mould'. This was a misnomer. What it really meant was 'We want to develop the Malays in their own mould'.
The mould had a very simple design. It was an all encompassing Malay / Muslim cocoon. No other light, sound, smells, taste and even fresh air could get into the Malay / Muslim cocoon from the outside. This has been going on for over 40 years.
The others, especially the Chinese and some Indians (not all) did not want to be part of this cocoon system. They have been clever and more fortunate. From very early on the Chinese caught on that the national education system will be going into the cocoon mode.
Hence they invested heavily in their own education ecosystems.
They have held on tightly to the 1300 Chinese language primary schools in the country. And it has been successful. When compared to the government's "cocoon system" Chinese education has been much more successful in that they produce young people who can become productive citizens in the economy.
Since the beginning of time, there are only 61 Chinese language secondary schools in Malaysia ("independent" Chinese schools offering the UEC certificate). Which has always been politicised.
But there are bigger elephants than independent Chinese schools being born everyday. For example the Chinese have gone big into private schools which offer the O and A levels, etc. They are known as "international schools". There are now a sizeable number of these "private international schools" in Malaysia offering primary to secondary level school education. Many of these schools are run by the Chinese folks. The majority of the students, teachers and principals at these private schools are all Chinese. They are doing a good job, serving the country's needs quite well. Non-cocoon education system.
There is another huge side effect to this "Malay / Muslim cocoon". Which is what I want to talk about today. And that is about leadership.
Anywhere in the world, in any system of government whether a democracy, monarchy, communist dictatorship, socialist dictatorship, authoritarianism, Islamic theocracy, Hindu monarchy etc the leaders and the leadership WILL and MUST reflect the value system of the people or the society in that country.
1. Societies that are prone to violence and do not do much to curb anger and violence will produce leaders who will rely on violence to rule. Because that is what they understand.
2. Societies that do not like to listen to different points of view (especially about religion) will produce religious charlatans who will exploit the "no thinking zone".
3. Societies that have cocooned themselves away from the outside world or from people other than their own kind will produce leaders who will manipulate their "fears of the outside". This is NO rocket science.
4. Societies that do not compete will produce leaders who will frighten them with the "dangers of competition".
I can keep on going but the leaders of any society will and must reflect what goes on inside their own society.
Their leaders will and must be fully soaked to the skin and bone with that society's norms and value systems.
Kalau value system bagus, pemimpin pun bagus.
Kalau value system tak bagus, pemimpin pun tak bagus.
They might have been born cerdik but they will never become pandai. Cerdik is the intelligence that you are born with. Pandai is the learning that you acquire.
In a cocooned environment, their cerdik people grow up to be 'tidak pandai' leaders. Because they have been denied an environment where they can compete and learn. They grew up inside a cocoon.
So can we expect 40 years of cocoon indoctrination to produce 'world class' ledership? Not likely.
Look at this screengrab here. Its an old Tanzanian folk tale. There was a flood and the river overflowed. The fish were swept into the submerged grass. A group of monkeys decided to "save" the fish. They picked up the fish carefully and placed the fish on high, dry ground.
This is what we are seeing in Malay society today. After over 40 years of being cocooned and growing up in a religious and racial slum, where ALL the standards have been lowered, we are now seeing their leaders who exactly reflect the lower standards of Malay / Muslim society.
This is the nail in the coffin. After 40 years of the airtight and watertight cocoon, now they really and honestly think that the rest of the world outside the cocoon is wrong. That indeed life inside their cocoon is the best in the world.
Their religion is the best despite its violence, hate, ignorance and poverty.
Their social norms are simply the best despite very strange aberrations in behaviour and the looming breakdowns in Malay society. (This is a very serious issue - please do not dismiss this lightly.)
They can ignore everything else (and even despise everything else) because it is outside their cocoon.
Those who do not agree 'can leave the country'.
So you see the miserably failing Minister of Education Maszlee saying unbelievably dumb things like the "Chinese should watch Upin and Ipin to learn Malay". This is too stupid to even comment about.
In Port Dickson, the Brader spoke about using his own car to send his daughter to the university. That is all he has to offer. There is not much else going on inside his cocoon.
Rafizi kept playing up personal issues (where is your dasar / vision bro?)
By the way, can Rafizi show some audited accounts for all the money collected by Invoke? Some transparency would be good brader Rafizi. Talk is you have some difficulty showing an audit of what happened to all that money you collected.
Asyraf Wajdi once said (I was present) that Islamic banking can still function because the Malays do not know High Court Judge Justice Abdul Wahab Patail's ruling "against" Islamic banking.
Asyraf Wajdi has also just lost the elections. Their collective incompetence has seen UMNO being kicked out of government after 63 years.
And the religious cocoon Pis-Pus guys are kissing up to the Malay cocoon UMNO guys. As you can see in this montage:
At our government hospitals, water is leaking into the oxygen lines in the wards.
In government departments the cafeteria is still the center of the universe - not the work desk.
Soon after being appointed, the new Mayor of Kuala Lumpur visited the hawkers (warong folks). To show solidarity? The tikus population in Kuala Lumpur will certainly rejoice. They will continue enjoying the endless supply of food scraps thrown into the longkangs and the drains by the warong hawkers. Indonesian warong operators will also be very happy.
Government "seminars" / conferences still begin with long winded introductions, 10 am pisang goreng breaks, 12 pm lunch breaks and 3 pm curry puff breaks.
So how does the cocoon deal with these obvious failures, the obvious non performance and the increasing criticism?
Thats easy. Just shout louder, make more threats, show more anger, the so called tough language. More racist and religious posturing. Its just sad camouflage, a weak cover up for the cocoon's failure.
I strongly and firmly believe the Malays can be turned around. In about 15 years max.
Before that can happen, we must crack that cocoon.
_Syed Akbar Ali at 4:59:00 PM_
_syedsoutsidethebox.blogspot.c
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We can come up with the most wonderful acronyms and top class power point presentations ... can we have an effective half yearly report/assessment of the viability and effectiveness for e.g. NCIA, SEDIA, ECERDC, SCORE and dozens more wonderful units.
LIM KIT SIANG ON THE RISE OF VIETNAM (AS A WAKE UP CALL FOR MALAYSIA)
The latest news is about Vietnam climbing in the ranking of best countries in which to invest this year, surpassing other Southeast Asian nations such as Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.
A recent report by the US News and World Report ranked Vietnam eighth out of 29 economies, up from 23 last year.
Neighbouring nations of Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, meanwhile, stood in 13th, 14th and 18th positions respectively.
According to the report, Doi Moi (renewal) economic policy reforms beginning in 1986 have helped Vietnam’s transition to becoming a more modern, competitive nation.
Vietnam’s continued efforts to lessen international isolation are shown by joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2007 and participation in free trade negotiations with the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2010.
It is also a member of the United Nations, the Asean Regional Forum and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, among other international organisations, stated the report.
The ranking of the best countries to invest in by the American media company draws from the results of a global perception-based survey and ranks countries based on the highest scores among nearly 7,000 business decision-makers.
The decision is made based on a compilation of eight equally weighted country attributes, including corruption, dynamics, economic stability, entrepreneurship, favourable tax environment, innovation, skilled labour force and technological expertise.
10-year moratorium
This news should be a wake-up call for Malaysia, and all Malaysians should be asking why it is not Malaysia, instead of Vietnam, which is topping this ranking, especially after the historic change of government in the 14th general election on May 9 last year.
Unfortunately, Malaysians have been too engrossed with race and religious issues which have been dominating the social media in recent months., with fake news and hate speech aimed at inciting racial and religious polarisation.
I would call for a 10-year moratorium on fake news and hate speech for Malaysians to concentrate on making the country a top world-class nation in the next decade.
Instead of fighting and competing with each other, Malaysians should be competing with the rest of the world to become a world-class nation in as many fields of human endeavour as possible.
LIM KIT SIANG is MP for Iskandar Puteri.
