What Malaysia needs
Actually, Malaysia wasn't doing as badly as what most Malaysians perceived. Malaysia is still one of the most dynamic economic power in South East Asia, despite more than 20 years of economic mismanagement: a testimony to the resilient of the citizens and the wealth of the country natural resources. Malaysia still have the potentials to become one of the Asia Economic Powerhouse if it sorts out some of its internal political, societal, and cultural woes.
Whether Malaysians admit it or not, Malaysia is slowly loosing out to its neighbors. Singapore is decades ahead of Malaysia in terms of social and economics development, and Malaysia is fast falling behind Thailand, while Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam is fast catching up with Malaysia. In terms of Purchasing Power Parity Gross Domestic Products (PPP GDP) Malaysia is already behind all of its neighbors listed above.
Let's look at some Purchasing Power Parity GDP figures, the table below sum up the figures:
| Country | GDP (in billions) | Per Capita |
|---|---|---|
| Malaysia | $165 | $6,648 |
| Singapore | $172 | $39,952 |
| Indonesia | $1,038 | $4,356 |
| Thailand | $520 | $8,000 |
| Vietnam | $263 | $3,100 |
| Philippines | $467 | $5,365 |
Looking at the figures listed in the table should awake all thinking Malaysians. We are blessed with rich natural resources, so then why are we so far behind Singapore and are now falling behind Thailand?
The answer to the question is obvious to me. We were too occupied with our individual communal interests that we have not developed the most important resources of the country: Human resources.
The reason that why Singapore is so much more advanced compared to Malaysia is so obvious that it's glaring at us right in our face: Human Capital development. While Malaysians are arguing over issue of "Ketuanan Melayu", the Singapore government were busy attracting our talents over. It should be apparent that ex-Malaysians were the one that help Singapore to develop and become the advanced nation that it is today. While Malaysia is pre-occupied with bumiputras, scores of non-bumiputras were lured to Singapore, Australia, U.S., and other Europeans country with better treatments and opportunities offered.
When Lee Kuan Yew were talking about how Singapore could compete with the developed Nation like U.S. and the rise of China to attract the talent pool available in South East Asia, our Tun Dr Mahatir is talking about Malays loosing their political power with no regards whatsoever to the plight of the non-Malays (Senoi, Semang, Kadazan-Duzun, Dayak, Kayan and other orang asli included).
What Malaysia needs is not the like of Tun Dr Mahatir who churns out racist rhetorics. There are a whole scores of political and societal issues that are plaguing Malaysia in an increasing globalized world. So Malaysians need to look beyond the narrow lenses of racism and start focusing on uniting as one to compete with the rest of the World, as Malaysians.
The critical issues that are plaguing Malaysia are as listed below:-
Lack of Freedom of Speech
This is improving with the current Datuk Seri Abdullah administration. However, the opening up of spaces for public discourse is only temporary as there were no concrete steps in the legislative branch. There are too many laws enacted to stiffened public discourse and too little law enacted to protect freedom of speech. To list them out, there are the Official Secret Acts, the Printing Press Acts, the Seditious Acts, and the Universities and Colleges Acts. The government and the ministers continue to justify these laws with the arguments that people of Malaysia just can't be trusted with freedom of speech as they would abused such rights to libel and hurl false accusations against the government. The problem with their argument is that they are exactly the same excuses used by the communist party to curtail freedom of speech in China.
In contrasts to the scores of laws that denied Malaysian citizens their freedom of speech and expressions, there were no laws enacted to provide and protect such basic basic human rights in Malaysia.
In all developed democratic countries, they have laws that uphold their citizens freedom of speech and the public rights to know like for examples the whistle blower protection acts and the freedom of information acts.
In the California state, they have what they called the Brown Acts where "The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created."
In Malaysia, we have no such laws provided. We need such laws to be enacted and the government of Malaysia needs to enact such a law to show to the people of Malaysia that they are genuinely serving the people. Without the freedom of information acts, all talks of good governance, transparencies, and accountabilities are mere rhetorics with no substances. As corrupt politicians will continue to hide behind the official secret acts, while continuing with their shoddy deals to siphoned off public funds in the millions.
Laws that curtail freedom of expressions must be repealed or, at the minimum, reviewed to minimize its scopes. Official Secret Acts should not be used to charge people for revealing lopsided contracts signed that are against public interests. The printing press acts should be repealed as the acts as it stands now only serve those in power. The day that the printing press act is not repealed in Malaysia, there will not be good governance and there will not be independence of the three branches of democracy in Malaysia. Media scrutiny is the best check and balance against any form of abuse of powers, conflict of interests and corruptions in the legislative, executives and judicial branch. With the printing press act, there will never be true media scrutiny.
The most urgent issue Malaysia needs to address right now is brain drain. Let's be honest, the biggest push factor of brain drain in Malaysia is its racial discriminatory policies and practices. As a normal Malaysian citizens, what we could do is to reject all things that are racist in nature, UMNO, MCA, and MIC included. They are political parties that formed from a racist ideal.
To be continue...
