2008: Annus Mirabilis: The year that was... Part 2

6. The foundering disappointment of the Abdullah Badawi government
When he first took over the helm of Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi was seen as the next hope for change toward a gentler, less corrupt, less autocratic government. He did promise to clean up the act. But alas, the wheels of change under his watch, were truly grinding under the weight of ponderous inaction and torpidly unconvincing pledges—some talk, but generally no action. At least, none worthy of institutional progress.

If anything, he let his cronies, his fourth/fifth floor gatekeepers led by his son-in-law KJ, control the engine of his listless administration and the nation's projects for development. As a result the country literally stalled, with gross incompetence, venal and shameless bartering for ill-gotten gains and extravagant wastage!

It was as if the wealth and direction of the country now hinged on the grandiose if untested whims and fancies of a small coterie of young 30-something year-old Oxbridge graduates, beholden only to the ambitious Khairy Jamaluddin.

Rumours of his excesses are probably just that. But the unflattering perception became disastrous for the Premier, who seemed unwilling or unable to rein in this appealing if brazen young man (in closer circles, he had been quoted as having said that he would become prime minster before the age of 40!)

His impatience and his greater-than-life belief in himself and his worth clearly antagonised more than just the ordinary Malaysian, his UMNO brethren began to openly question and challenge his stature and his ambition. Thus, began the break-up of the cosy unity of purpose of UMNO-dominated largesse and its shattered myth of political goodwill. It finally boiled down to everyman for himself, as they wrangled for the spoils of dominance, influence and connections.

The strong 2004 electoral mandate given by a hopeful rakyat, was therefore quickly sapped and frittered away, with escalating disenchantment with Pak Lah's lethargic style of leadership. Ambitious and impatient political rivals skirmished and began to sorely test his mettle, and left in its wake, a lingering if haunting disservice to his vitiated legacy.

Some kinder pundits have equated him, Pak Lah to be Malaysia's Gorbachev—a sort of an enlightened leader who espouse a new beginning (sadly, equally nebulous in the final anaylsis), an openness, a glasnost, for greater democratic space—perhaps, they were right...

But ultimately, being benign and gently ineffectual (perhaps even a seat-warmer?), is never enough to hold on to power in this hurly-burly world of politics... Pak Lah would soon have to relinquish his mantle of power, (one which we sense he was uneasy to begin with anyway), brokered through an uneasy truce with his number two.

His tenure of Premiership is best summed up as forgettable, even as he tried at the last gasp to enact new laws (the watered-down MACC, JAC) which would lend some spotted burnish and meaning to his lacklustre administration.

Still, it is true that Malaysians were given a chance to become more outspoken, more willing to question the status quo, braver with the uncensored anonymity of free-expression aided by the mushrooming alternate media—the blogosphere, YouTube and the world wide web through the internet. So, in a sense we should be grateful.

But, perhaps, it is also the spirit of the times, the zeitgeist of a new interconnected world, where civil liberties and expectant human rights have matured with presumptuous free expression, information ubiquity and where knowledge access is de rigueur, even inevitable...

7. The ex-PM who would not go away...
Mahathir Mohamed, now Tun, our ex-Premier for 22 years, must be that permanent fixture on any Malaysian political scene, who refuses to fade away.

There is much that can be said of this singular man, but there is also sadness that having achieved so much, he has clung on to his cast-in-stone ideas that Malaysia must be the Malaysia of his own, and perhaps his only image.

There can be no doubt that Mahathir placed Malaysia on the world map pedestal. He developed modern industrialised Malaysia in the mould of strong and autocratic man of yesteryears. Malaysia is made known globally because of his untiring efforts to promote a Malaysia that Can, i.e. Malaysia Boleh!

His grandiose schemes while criticised by many of his detractors, might be temporally opportunistic, but his landmarks have become household names in the region as well as globally, e.g. the Petronas Twin Towers, Putrajaya city, the KLIA, the Penang Bridge, Proton cars.

But alas, his other legacy isn't so sparkling or benign, but may be even more painfully enduring and inimical. In his determined quest to modernise Malaysia and uplift the indigenous Malays in particular, he began with unique bold ideas which were beneficent. As a result Malaysia's hard core rural poverty had been drastically reduced, and a sizeable middle class had been created.

However, many of these quickly became blemished as these created a spectacular if exclusive brand of government-linked corporations, and government-aided multimillionaires, very closely tied to or even dependent on the leadership's patronage system.

He did well in removing the scales from the eyes and the parochial mindset of many bumiputeras. He gave them a much-needed self-belief which is undoubtedly important and laudable, for which they can at last become more confident and conscious of their self-worth. He must be credited for having unabashedly promoted the Malay agenda so that as an ethnic group, they can confidently become more fully engaged in the business and affairs of the nation and its development—and hence, could compete on equal footing in this globalised world.

Thus, in times of plenty, when the economy was growing at a vigorous clip, there was enough wealth to be spread around, and every Malaysian appeared to benefit. Hence, in many ways he also made Malaysians of all races, proud to be Malaysians, because of his visionary leadership. But his continued sanction of this affirmative action has also created a subclass of dependency, of crutch-mentality and easy handouts, of rentier capitalism and political largesse.

He also brooked little opposition, challenge to, or restraints on his style and his power, believing that as popularly-elected Premier and government, he had the mandate to rule without interference from the constitutional royalty, the oversight judiciary or the minority opposition. His idea of majoritarian rule appears to be one of absolutism.

His brand of power politics and autocratic rule unfortunately and systematically emasculated these same institutions—the judiciary became beholden and capitulated; the royalty had its wings clipped, and the pliant police were offered unfettered power in exchange for its unquestioning loyalty. Corruption and political patronage practices reached its height, and UMNO-supremacist ideologies pushed to its ultimate arrogant peaks.

Following the March 8 election debacle, he openly led the huge chorus of criticisms casting his blame on the weak leadership of Pak Lah and his family connections. Since then he has all but undermined our hapless prime minister. He has since found a new dimension to his once silenced voice—the resurgence of his acerbic tongue through his immensely popular blog chedet.com!

It appears that Mahathir has issues of not being able to forgive or forget, as he relentlessly pursue his Machiavellian vengeance on whoever crosses him... At 84 years old, he continues to remain as sharp and as artless as he had always been. Until Pak Lah leaves the scene, there is little doubt that Mahathir will continue to badger him and his administration, pulverising whatever little that's left...

As he has already commented, as long as he is alive, he will not keep silent when he feels things are not going his way, neither would he allow Malaysia's fortunes and gains (which he had bulit up over the decades) to be 'jeopardised'. I foresee that Dr M will continue to figure prominently in the coming 2009, health and God willing!

2008: Annus Mirabilis: The year that was... Part 1

2008 must rank as one of Malaysia's most defining years, and perhaps too... for the world.

Here are the top events from my lenses:

1. The March 8, 2008 Elections.
For us Malaysians, 2008 must be ranked as one truly momentus Annus Mirabilis, for indeed after 51 years of shackled and distracted timidity, near half of all Malaysians, Malays, Chinese, Indians, Others, one and all, rose from the ashes of UMNO-dominated politics to decide that enough was enough. We were finally emboldened to think the previously unthinkable while overcoming the racial taunts and threats of disorder. In its wake, this spawned a new Malaysian political order.

The ruling Barisan government lost 5 states to the rag-tagged opposition parties, and shockingly lost its two-thirds majority trump-card. That night, the national TV channels were hopelessly shell-shocked, incredulous that the ballots were going against the government, that they refused to telecast timely disclosures, and purposely delayed the electoral results with idiotic racist commentaries by some pathetically out-of-date personalities. Recounting and postal ballot loading were insufficient to recast the foregone results, fortunately, and despite the odds, some 48% of the voting rakyat had given the opposition its unprecedented 82 seats out of the total 222—truly a most famous victory!

The opposition, whose loose coalition still managed to capture the imagination of change-minded citizens, who are simply put, fed-up with more of the same: top-down politics, arrogance, executive abuses, corruption; rising crime rates and crime-ridden cities, a discredited police force more attuned to political hijinks than civic protection purposes; a totally compliant judiciary; disproportionate and biased religious contentions; selective prosecution and high-handed suppression of public anger and demonstrations.

2. The Awakening of our Rakyat, Hindraf...
One uncharacteristic phenomenon which emboldened more of our unhappy citizens must be the eruption of Hindraf. This groundswell of long-forgotten and deprived Indians in many pockets of the country, grabbed the headlines by its boldness of purpose, its courage of conviction, its penetrating pervasiveness, and its shared anguish.

Many Malaysians of Indian origin could easily relate to and find the reality issues totally consonant with their sense of social and economic deprivation. Unemployment, unemployability, high levels of school drop-outs, growing gangsterism and entanglement with violent crimes among its restive youths serve as the stark underbelly of Indian marginalisation even in rapidly wealthy Malaysia.

This undoubtedly made many see the urgent need and the possibilities of unity of purpose and willingness to sacrifice, assimilate and participate in its causes with passion. Shouts of satyagraha and makkal sakhti became the clarion call for sociopolitical action and purpose. Short-message service texting (or sms's) and emails became the modus operandi for planning, collaboration and coordination. And boy, did they succeed!

Despite their announced plans for peaceful demonstrations and marches, they were denied permits and met with iron-fisted response from the government and the police. The Hindraf march on November 25, 2007 must rank as the determining focus of their concerted energy and sacrifice. The luckless police reacted by attacking these throngs of families—young and old—with laced water and tear-gas. They wrought unprovoked beatings and arbitrary arrests, in the full glare of the ubiquitous cellphone photography and videos.

They cast their idiotic paralysing police road-blocks around every arterial road entry into the city causing massive unprecedented gridlocks, which completely inconvenienced the rakyat without any justification except as a cynical portrayal of its silly attempt to show-off its clout—one supremely fatuous act after another, which further distanced the urban folk from the high-handed actions of the much-maligned police.

Videos and photos of police brutality were published in YouTube and the blogosphere, which further antagonised the disgruntled and the furious, and which lent the police and the government even less credence for their warped sense of powerplay!

3. The rise and rise of the blogosphere
Blogger extraordinaire Raja Petra Kamaruddin (aka RPK or 'Pete') led a motley crew of outspoken bloggers (Jeff Ooi, Kickdefella, Rocky, Tony Pua, M Bakri Musa, Kim Quek, Farish Noor, Azly Rahman, etc.) to vent believable (if somewhat unchecked) stories and alternative viewpoints.

Conspiracy theories and political shenanigans were told in such arresting conversational style and 'detail', that many readers believe these to be absolutely true. According to RPK, his 'rumours' have so far proven to be accurate in more than 90% of the time, and that he had all the documentation to prove them, which lent 'street cred' to his messages for change!

This internet chatter had earlier been the salt and grist of rumour mills especially when the main stream media (MSM) chose to be safe, sycophantic and self-censored, while remaining completely out of touch with the seething grumbles of the muffled grassroots. Thus, began the power of the blogosphere which were tapped with great elan by the opposition politicians, converted to printed pages, vcds, and roadshows—clearly offering an alternate if more plausible scenario of the inaptitude, corruption, arrogance and failings of the incumbent government and its tainted members.

4. The return & travails of Anwar Ibrahim and the Formation of Pakatan Rakyat.
Disgraced and imprisoned former deputy prime minister made a triumphant comeback, this elections, as he led as de facto leader of Parti Keadilan (Justice Party), although he was still barred from eligibility due to his conviction just short of 5 years ago. He managed to cobble together disparate opposition parties such as PAS and DAP, and led this loose coalition (then monikered Barisan Alternatif, BA) to a stunning if unexpected general elections results in March, 2008.

His charisma is unmistakable, but more importantly he had decided that he had to off-load many of his former archaic ideas and develop new ones which called for more openness, more egalitarian, more inclusive, less corrupt, more transparent, more meritocratic principles, which appealed to the change-agenda of many new voters and a restless rakyat. Setting priorities of cooperation rather than dwelling on ideological differences and unrealistic party political goals, helped the voters to focus on simply voting for change from the incumbent—the swing was decisive and impressive.

This led to the later amalgamation into the Pakatan Rakyat of today, a true blue alternate political front of substance, yes with its teething problems of sporadic spats of one-upmanship. It is hoped that this erstwhile if convenient alliance would outlast its trying differences, and become in due course, a worthy successor to viably administrate the next governments for the good of Malaysia.

But Anwar Ibrahim is still under the cloud of Sodomy charge II, one which was hurriedly brought about by an unashamed former aide, who happened to have met with the DPM Najib Razak, some days before. The timing could not have been better—Anwar was to stand for by-election after his wife resigned her place at Permatang Pauh in July 2008. The doctor who examined his alleged victim, was suddenly missing fearing for his safety, after he had been 'urged' to write a more favourable report.

Unfortunately, this salacious saga continues, despite urgent calls from many a disbelieving public to abandon what many feel is another trumped up charge. The silly attempts to move the case away from a sympathetic but brave judge at the lower Sessions Court to the High Court, again underlines the machinations which the Attorney General's office has decided to selectively prosecute its special cases. Clearly, Anwar Ibrahim is a special case... The final denouement has yet to be played out.

However, Anwar's attempts to persuade Barisan Nasional's MPs to defect failed miserably, despite rocking the equanimity of the governing leadership, whose tenuous hold appeared to be breakable at any moment. By September 16, Malaysia Day, it became clear that the Pakatan Rakyat could not pry away elected members from the BN camp to join their cause. Perhaps, the offers were simply not enough to entice the defections.

This failure has cast a shadow over the PM in waiting, and many wonder if his strategem had any substance to begin with. His popularity has taken a dip, since. Perhaps all this is for the better. Now, the PR seems resigned to its oppositionist role and appears more dignified. PR is finally beginning to look ready to seriously govern its 5 states, rather than acting as debutantes and tetchy oppositionists, whose intents and purposes appear to be too focussed on and mired in political ploys!

5. The inane spectre of the ISA
Following the March 8 electoral setback, the opposition and the rakyat became increasingly boisterous and began urging for greater freedom of speech and expression. The months that followed were difficult ones for all, with politicking and grandstanding taking the place of true governance and civic discourse. The insipid and debilitated premiership of Abdullah Badawi did little to assuage the mood of a restive populace clamouring for change and immediate if unrealistic reforms.

Challenges to the perceived fallout in authority of the police and the home ministry brought about swift and disjointed responses of confusion and knee-jerk stupidity. The public, finding its voice and now demanding greater transparency, appeared emboldened and testy—seemingly to kick the teeth in for the incumbent but beleaguered government.

Alas, when the chips are down and the tempo and pitch of political recriminations were turned upwards to jarring plangent decibels, the government reacted. Racist taunts were bandied about with unrepentent advocates on both sides testing the limits of each other's resolves. Ethnic bigotry was allowed to raise its ugly head, while seemingly tolerated if these were on the side of the governing political parties. Slanderous accusations were attributed to either sides, with the police appearing tardy or partial to investigate the veracity or otherwise. The ISA was invoked, and with some quickly shortened after huge public hue and cry--Sin Chew journalist Tan was released after 24 hours, purportedly her detention was "to ensure for her safety"; and opposition MP Teresa Kok after a week.

But the much feared and fearless RPK who was initially slapped with criminal defamation, had his detention confirmed by the incoherent home minister Syed Hamid Akbar, to a 2-year order for incarceration without trial. Then, after nearly 2 months at the Kamunting detention centre, a judge decided at long last that his detention was illegitimate, and RPK was freed! The government was in total disarray trying to ameliorate its public relations nightmare, for perhaps for the first time ever, its arbitrary decision had been successfully challenged.

His problems are still not yet over, as legal woes are mounting. But RPK has been as pugnacious as ever, challenging those who feel slighted to sue him, as was the case when he roundly condemned the pathetic performances and sorry excuses of the just retired Elections Council chairman.

Together with like-minded liberal Malaysians, such as Suaram, Jerit, the Bar Council, and even SUHAKAM, we are calling for the abolishing of the ISA, and we will continue to voice our strongest opposition against this unjust and arbitrary law. There is hope that Pakatan Rakyat will rescind this obnoxious law once it comes to power, so we can all hope for a better future, soon.

Malaysia’s Ambivalence toward Greater Public Debate must Change

A shorter version of this article is published as an opinion piece in malaysiakini: Change ambivalence over public debate


"We can succeed only by concert. It is not 'can any of us imagine better?' but, 'can we all do better?' The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise—with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."
~ Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862, Annual Message to Congress

The recent raucous debate on the aborted (or postponed?) sale of the IJN (National Heart Institute) underlines the ambivalence with which the government views our current health care system in particular, and the disdain that it generally regards its own citizens.

Importantly, it had seriously misread the public’s mood and views that it could once again simply announce its often-opaque decisions of granting sales of this and that, or even enacting new national schemes/plans at will. Some would even say, at its own whims and fancies.

In modern political parlance, it appears to regard such national goods, natural resources, property and stakes as if it owns them outright, and to dispose of these as its arrogated right—something which is increasingly frowned upon by more enlightened citizens worldwide.

But, while this appears to be the model of wasteful utilization of (many are calling this, pillaging) the nation’s resources among many failed states in Africa, parts of Asia and the Middle East, it is no longer acceptable behaviour for any respected nation in this modern day and era.

Instead, the government of the day is expected to be only holding these in trust for the nation, its people and its future. The ultimate goal of a ‘good’ state is to ensure the longer-term benefit for the citizens (although it must be acknowledged that most politicians possess a more shortsighted vision, one that is constantly persuaded by electoral considerations, vested interests and lobby groups.)

"Modern politics is characterized by a sharp focus on the acquisition and retention of political office rather than on appealing to people's higher moral values and inspiring people to undertake enduring change" ~Stephen Denning, in The Secret Language of Leadership, 2007, John Wiley & Sons, p68

Notwithstanding this, because Malaysia aims to become a developed state, it must choose to be modern, respected, and abide by the rules of international law and social justice. While a nation may pride itself of its inalienable sovereignty, it must not confuse this nationalistic right as an unquestionable license to sanction its own contrived self-aggrandising and parochial fiats.

Its previous top-down disclosures after behind-the-scenes “discussions and analyses” have been found to be greatly wanting of financial propriety, fiduciary soundness and worse, of dubious public benefit. Often, the government has shown that it has failed to understand the wider implications of its pronouncements, especially when these impact so drastically on the rakyat.

Although the government through its various ministries and divisions has from time to time, attempted to gather input from various stakeholders through dialogues, workshops, etc., these have often been carried out with too much haste, too little preparation or in-depth planning or feedback. Often these are undertaken at very short notices, which leave precious little time for these other bodies to gather sufficient information or views from their own members or even from the people involved or those others who would be affected.

Clearly any attempts at privatization or corporatization of public healthcare facilities fall under this category of national goods and services, which must be considered extensively, and only after full discussions with all its citizens. Obviously of course, this government had failed to do this, only now to call for greater scrutiny of its implications, when public hue and cry overwhelmed its usually deaf ears.

Such a paternalistic approach of assuming that the government knows best whatever it wishes to do, is no longer the acceptable form with which to address national issues of great repercussions on the citizens. We, the rakyat, are calling for and are demanding more say, more input into this ultimate decision making process: we wish to be consulted more, and we want to be heard.

The modern era has empowered citizens with entirely new and hitherto unavailable information and knowledge so that we are no longer minions who can be pushed around. As we mature as a democracy, we have also demanded greater space to voice our thoughts and opinions, which we believe correctly express our intentions and collective vision, and which would ultimately enrich the nation and our lives.

True, with too many views and opinions, these may appear unwieldy and may even result in gridlock or impasse, but then at least when the final compromise or consensus is reached, most sensible stakeholders would have to agree that their views have at least been considered, or that better ideas have been chosen—then, our demand for representation would have been assuaged, albeit grudgingly sometimes.

But there would still be those naysayers who would argue that these collective (consensus) final decisions are flawed because their views have been sidelined or diluted. This is not an uncommon reaction, but people must learn to accept that majority decisions have to be given priority, that accommodating other more acceptable views is a hallmark of any inclusive democracy.

Disgruntled or defeated groups must learn to bite their tongue, and fight another day with another argument, another approach, perhaps. That is the essence of modern liberal democracy—that the ‘best’ or most agreeable views hold sway for those particular moments in time and place. This is not to say that these are cast in stone, they are not. In fact in healthy democracies, modifications and amendments are usually the hallmark of fine-tuning collective decisions, which can then last the test of time and experience.

But somehow, the current government appears to have been locked in a time warp of its past glory days, when it held all the power and the sway of huge majoritarian might. It continues to thrive on its much discredited secretive and opaque decision making process, hiding behind the façade and cloak of the OSA (Official Secrets Act)—most decisions seem to have been mooted by the all-powerful EPU (economic planning unit).

Examples are aplenty: the privatization of the healthcare support services, the sale of the government pharmaceutical arm; Khazanah’s take-over (60% ownership) of Pantai Holdings Bhd.; FOMEMA (privatization of the medical screening for foreign workers); the delayed (aborted?) e-kesihatan scheme for public vehicles’ drivers; and of course now, the potential sale of our IJN to Sime Darby Berhad.

It cannot be denied that under the premiership of Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi, there has been greater allowance for public space for discourse and greater freedom to speak out. But this has been rudely set back of late with the inane use of the ISA to silence its greatest critics such as prominent blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin, Hindraf, opposition lawmaker MP Teresa Kok and a whistle-blowing Sin Chew Jit Poh journalist.

It is arguable whether PM Badawi could have maintained the strong-arm authoritarian style of ex-premier Mahathir, whose pugnacious 2-decade stranglehold on Malaysian politics have left in its wake devastated and emasculated institutions of the judiciary, the police and the UMNO-dominated power politics.

The hurried parliamentary passage of 2 much-vaunted bills concerning institutional reforms [(Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC)] has been seen by well-meaning pundits as too little, too late, and a whimpering finale to its earlier promise of change. That these should still be under the purview of the PM and the attorney general’s office has put a damper on the political reality of this incumbent government—it is still not ready to transform its political stakes toward greater openness or transparency as demanded by the more liberal citizens here in Malaysia.

Perhaps, the government is still smarting from its unaccustomed fall from grace, but it appears to continue under-estimating the power of the alternative media, i.e. the World Wide Web and increasingly the blogosphere of alternate news and opinions. The internet penetration welcomed as an earlier-favoured march toward modernisation and IT literacy had exploded in its face, so to speak. But this irreversible and relentless spread of interconnectedness has become too pervasive, too diffuse in its power to reach the masses.

The Internet medium has simply encompassed too many people, even in Malaysia—information asymmetry once under the closeted control of the mainstream media (MSM), has been decidedly eroded. In its place, information largesse and ubiquity in all its forms of freedom of expression, of thoughts, of criticisms, of exposes, of alternate viewpoints and plausible visions, have shown that it, the world wide web is impossible to constrain, or even to contain.

The good thing is that some MSM have learnt to adapt accordingly so as to maintain their “street cred” (street credibility)—they have become somewhat bolder in addressing real issues with a newfound temerity as against the sycophantic brown-nosing of yesteryears! The previously lamented self-censorship is now looked upon as nonsensical timidity, which undercuts the media’s purported stance to provide thoughtful discourse, checks and balances of this ‘fourth estate’ and credible information to the people.

So what must the government do to regain its stature, its political capital, its power to lead? It must change. Tom Daschle, US Senate democratic leader has said that "If you want to get elected, learn to speak. If you want to stay elected, learn to listen." Therefore, the government must get back on track to what is usually expected of good governance. It must listen to its detractors’ malaise, not so much to accept these wholesale, but to see the merits of why some of these maligned institutions, laws or plans, need tweaking or revamping or even outright rescission (such as the much-abused ISA and OSA).

The whole world is undergoing tremendous financial turmoil and uncertain economic and market future. It is the head-in-the-sand absurdity to imagine that we would be exempt from these tribulations and perturbations. As the world’s 18th largest trading nation, Malaysia will be caught up in this maelstrom of economic upheaval. Sadly, there has been precious little planning and discussions as to how we can tackle or prepare for such an inevitable eventuality—instead, we continue to mire ourselves in humdrum political power plays and narrow-minded pettiness.

We must begin to look at the bigger picture sooner, rather than to allow the tsunami of economic downturn to overwhelm us suddenly, just because we have been caught napping, and only dreaming distractible delicacies of inconsequence!

Let us begin a national debate on how we can move forward to meet the impending crisis, in more concrete terms rather than knee-jerk diktats and self-interested venal pillaging of our diminishing natural resources.

Let’s have a greater national discourse on where our nation should be heading. It is of little use to keep shouting shibboleths of Wawasan (Vision) 2020, when we can’t even see beyond the next 2 years. We need a reinvigorated, more refreshed national vision, not more of the same!

So what should we be doing?

We need a renewed national vision, one that should be more inclusive than divisive, and not tainted with ethnic, racial or religious politics.

We must negotiate a new social contract, which will help unite us more meaningfully rather than to harp upon decades-old concepts, which have perhaps lost its contemporariness, its shine and power to persuade us as one people.

We need to make every Malaysian feel Malaysian without any sniggering backstabbing asides, which only perpetuates the skin-deep accommodating acquaintances, but which does not foster true bonds, true nationalism or the feeling of belonging.

We cannot have bigoted lawmakers who shout at others to ‘balik kampung’ or ‘get out of the country’ whenever they cannot win an argument without theatrics and rationale; and get off scot-free as if that’s their right to inflame and institutionalize racial bigotry.

We cannot have the Biro Tataan Negara, which separately indoctrinate our civil servants that Malaysia is only for the Malays and its Ketuanan Melayu supremacy policy, while subjugating other ethnic groups in insincere indoctrination to accept this premise which is now so maligned and unacceptable.

We need instead to identify our collective strengths and weaknesses so that we can reap from the best, and maybe suppress our baser instincts for divisiveness and narrow-mindedness.

We need to re-assess and value our national resources and wealth, which should be our long-lasting legacy for our children and our children’s children.

We must convene an all-inclusive task force to address the economic and banking debacle, and how we as a nation can overcome or mitigate against its worst outcome scenarios. This does not mean including the usual public sector technocrats and closeted civil servants who are often the least exposed to ground level realities.

We have to tap our finest brains and especially the citizens and consumers on the ground, include targetted NGOs, opposition representatives even, so that a collective voice can be made with greater meaning. This would also promote a spirit of inclusive citizenship so that unpopular repercussions may be better understood by all, when hard choices have to be implemented.

We have to get serious that nation building is not just one election after another. That once elected, our policy makers must heed calls for greater duties, responsibilities and sacrifices, and make the best laws, not convenient ones for vested pork-barrel interests—that the electing public has its duties to be the ever-vigilant watchdog for such political deviances and shenanigans.

We have to want to be better, not just for our selfish little moments, erstwhile comforts and immediate gratifications, but more importantly for our collective national good and future.

We must ensure that when we say Malaysia Boleh, we mean it with pride and not just jingoistic anthems, which simply arouse sniggering contempt at some who are just embellished as jaguh kampung (village champions).

We must want to be world-beaters and achievers of the best and the finest.

We must aspire to be champions on a global scale: respected, rather than self-congratulatory.

We must truly achieve significant success, rather than be frowned upon at our silliness of getting into the record books for things that really don’t matter and are of forgettable, meaningless inconsequence!

For 2009, there is that hope that Malaysia would have at last matured, and that we the citizens have played our roles to help bring this about. Let the momentous spirit of March 08, 2008 live and march on!

"Ruling parties and presidencies are almost never felled by issues alone. Rather, it is the more general perception of a creeping chaos—the sense that leaders no longer have a firm grasp on events or the credibility to unite disparate constituencies—that cause political powers to come undone." ~ Matt Bai, journalist, in The Way We Live Now.

Capitalism's Hubris: Gambling & Running on Empty...

Greed and accumulation of immense unimaginable wealth tends to create selfish monsters out of everyone of us.

I must confess that the recent financial turmoil (it is hard to imagine that it has only been about one month!) has created within me a great deal of uncertainty and malaise, as to my take and perspective on the free market system.

I have always been wary and circumspect as to its unbridled schematics to allow anyone with any intelligence, energy or ideas, the absolute freedom to make money at whatever costs or with whichever means.

In my profession alone, I have seen just how the lust and lure of filthy lucre has shaped unethical and unjustifiable management of certain patients. That even the noblest medical profession—one most trusted by the public (in almost all surveys carried out to date)—is not immune to ethical breaches due to moral hazard and venal considerations, has tarnished its much vaunted prestige and honour!

Doctors these days, appear just as likely as everyone else to hanker for the good things in life, even towards aspiring to luxurious extremes and then avariciously pursuing these aims to maintain their upscaled lifestyles... Sadly, when we look askance at other professions, and especially at some politicians, these excesses seem pale in comparison!

Nevertheless, it is seldom decried these days, because being wealthy is no longer considered as despicable or even 'faintly disreputable'. Instead, immense wealth is admired and aspired to by millions if not billions of people worldwide, in a new vista on how we look at this God-receding, secular world...

When I was recently reading Marcia Angell's book on The Truth about the Drug Companies, one paragraph in the early pages (pg6) struck me. Dr Angell, a long-time former editor-in-chief of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, wrote that the post-Reagan era saw a relentless rise of wealth worshiping:

"(W)ith the (pro-business) shift, the public attitude toward great wealth changed. Before then, there was something faintly disreputable about really big fortunes. You could choose to do good, but most people who had any choice in the matter thought it difficult to do both.

"That belief was particularly strong among scientists and other intellectuals. They could choose to live a comfortable but not luxurious life in academia, hoping to do exciting cutting-edge research, or they could ‘sell out’ to industry and do less important but more remunerative work…

"It became not only reputable to be wealthy, but something close to virtuous. There were ‘winners’ and there were ‘losers,’ and the winners were rich and deserved to be."

Ironically, we have in embracing the free-market system shifted more than our perspective, we have become morally-laxed as to how wealth and society should interact with one another. Many liberal thinking economists are openly neo-Darwinian in their mantra of tacitly or complicitly espousing the freedom to choose, to compete freely without regulations or governmental control, to acquire wealth as the end-all and the be-all—i.e. survival of the financially fittest!

Lassez faire style of unfettered free market and mass consumerism trumps other models of socioeconomic exercises—leaving in its wake, the burnt-out carcasses of failed former soviet republics, and the triumphalist American-style model, so gratuitously imitated by aspirant wannabees...

It is not surprising that free-market capitalism has trumped socialism, when even command economies like China switched tactics to encourage free-market practices, under the Dengist exhortation that "it does not matter whether it's a white or black cat, as long as it catches the rat!" (For the Chinese, this means that whichever way of acquiring wealth or making money is acceptable, even to be admired...)

The entire world has placed its immense trust in a system that appears to be inexhaustible and limitless in its proclivity to grow and multiply global wealth exponentially! It is true that most peoples of the world have benefited, that many have had a greater chance for better, less brutish, possibly more fulfilling lives. There have also been some degree of trickle-down effect that has decreased the absolute numbers of abjectly poor people, worldwide.

But it has also created a gaping chasm of the immensely rich versus the very poor. The wealth distribution disparity has widened even more these last few years—the so-called Gini index seemingly greater than ever before in most if not all countries.

Conversely, for the entrepreneurial rich and the bankered privileged handful, there has been greater and greater capacity and complexity in multiplying their chances or access to even more schemes or instruments of wealth creation.

Thomas Friedman, prize-winning author of The World is Flat has this to say of the current economic meltdown:

"You have to go back to the beginning of the problem. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, virtually every economy in the world moved to a capitalist system, which eventually made the world awash with money looking for investments.

"It didn’t take long for financial engineers to figure out how to move home mortgages and commercial loans from a transaction between you and your local bank — or between your company and a syndicate of banks — to something much more diffused and fragmented.

"While your bank may have initiated the mortgage or the corporate loan, it was quickly sold to an aggregator who turned these different loans into bonds and then sold them all over the world in small pieces to banks and money market and pension funds." ~Thomas Friedman, in The Post-Binge World, NY Times, 11 October, 2008

It now transpires that over the past 2 decades or so (some say especially after the 1997 market crash in Asia), in a dizzying spiral of creativity, more and more financial instruments have been fabricated and fashioned to leverage and arbitrage the uncertainty or less-than-exact art of lending and borrowing, or the erratic and herd-like movements of funds ...

Hedging the gargantuan bets (estimated average leverage of >30 times for every dollar!) of complex financial interactions (CDOs, collateralized debt obligations; CDSs, credit default swaps) became high-stakes Casino-style gambles which appear to have now redounded on its perpetrators, and on the global markets!

It has been said that years ago, Mr. Warren Buffett, (billionaire investor-extraordinaire, Wizard/Oracle of Omaha, and arguably the richest man on earth today) had called such leveraging derivatives “weapons of financial mass destruction”.

Then, nobody seriously thought to heed or even to contradict him, as Wall Street and its newest crops of financial wizards kept piling up the momentum to push the frontiers of the free-market system to its ultimate if seemingly illimitable conclusions...

In its mad scramble for unimaginable wealth creation, brilliant savant mathematics/physics, and economics graduate students had been engaged to spur and fabricate the giddy epiphanies of mind-dazzling models of supernova-like possibilities, whetted by the inexhaustible appetites of ultra-liberal free-market espousing Nobel-winning professors.

"Somehow the genius quants — the best and brightest geeks Wall Street firms could buy — fed $1 trillion in subprime mortgage debt into their supercomputers, added some derivatives, massaged the arrangements with computer algorithms and — poof! — created $62 trillion in imaginary wealth." ~Richard Dooling, The Rise of the Machines, NY Times 11, October, 2008

Somehow, they argue there must be means of engendering newer and more creative ways to multiplying our global wealth, since every possible schematic scenario thus far, had given rise to exponential growths of nearly everything that mankind had hitherto impacted or even touched!

The last 2 decades of globalisation had lent greater credence and currency towards such explosive possibilities. At least until September 2008...

Not too long ago, Malthusian projections regarding population growth would have placed the fear of God in us puny humans who worry that perhaps we'd soon be facing famines due to outgrowing our ability to feed ourselves!

Malthus' growth charts, while quite inexact by today's standards, had shown skyrocketing patterns of curves way beyond our imagination then and perhaps even now. Today, the humungous global market expansion has made it appear that the Malthusian model is forgettably flawed. Thus, fears as to its realisation had receded from almost everyone's consciousness...

Latterly, even with the urgent (An Inconvenient Truth) rhetoric from Al Gore on our global warming crisis, we seemed to have tired quite quickly as to its relevance in our humdrum lives.

So even when extreme climatic swings (force 4 & 5 hurricanes, tsunamis, cyclones, tornadoes, flooding, forest fires, melting glaciers, etc.) seem to have exceeded their norms, we appear nonchalantly dismissive, stoic and irreverent.

We have become immune to our excesses, pushing such morbid thoughts and awareness to the far reaches of our conscience and consciousness—these are just too hard and too depressing to contemplate. Perhaps the time is not yet ripe for us to seriously address these doomsaying concerns. We're just too caught up with our continuing need to pile up our economic toys and gains...

So, whither the world and its tail-spinning economies? Volatile and uncertain markets, commodities, oil and currencies, appear to be the norm for the foreseeable future. Money markets and governments grapple with whatever means to re-instill some semblance of calm, stability and order, which seemed to have deserted not just the ordinary lay-person but more so, the shell-shocked traders and financiers of the world.

More pain and shocks are in store, but there is hope that when the dust finally settles, mankind would have learnt its greatest lesson of hubris for a long time, and that order and some form of regulatory oversight is a must in taming and reining in man's innate propensity to indulge and over-gratify in every possible excesses and greed!

Nigel Lawson, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer during Tharcher's time, reminded us that "the price of a free economy is an ineradicable cycle of boom and bust... of alternating moods of optimism and pessimism," in a Times magazine's Back to Reality article (October 13, 2008, pg23).

In another article, The End of an Era (Times magazine, October 13, 2008, pg30), Michael Elliott quoted British philosopher John Gray as stating that '"the era of American global leadership is over" and that neoliberals had "underestimated the revolutionary nature of global capitalism," with its power to upend the familiar landscape and turn it into a churning place of impermanence.'

To paraphrase many others, it is time to reassess our love affair with the dizzying heights of Greenspan's 'irrational exuberance', and learn to live within our means, and that this is the ultimate moral lesson that will resonate with every world citizen...

Perhaps it's time to revisit our liberal arts tradition, to understand that life is cyclical, with its endlessly recurring themes of human suffering, aspirations, joys, triumphs, arrogance, comeuppance and hubris. We have to believe and learn from history, if not to repeat or forestall its agonising consequences, at least to ameliorate its excruciating pain...

It is worth contemplating on the following words of much published author Harold Bloom, Professor of English and Liberal studies at New York's Columbia University:

"(S)ociety has played out its last stake; it is checkmated. Young men have no hope. Adults stand like day laborers, idle on the streets. None calleth us to labor. The old wear no crown of warm life on their gray hairs. The present generation is bankrupt of principles and hope, as of property.

"I see man is not what man should be. He is the treadle of a wheel. He is a tassel at the apron string of society. He is a money chest. He is the servant of his belly. This is the causal bankruptcy, this is the cruel oppression, that the ideal should serve the actual, that the head should serve the feet.

"Then first, I am forced to inquire if the ideal might not also be tried. Is it to be taken for granted that it is impracticable? Behold the boasted world has come to nothing. Prudence itself is at her wits’ end." ~ Harold Bloom, in NY Times, Out of Panic—Self-Reliance, 12 October, 2008



A shorter version of this article has been published in malaysiakini on Nov 6, 2008 as Capitalism: Gambling and Running on empty

New Financial Definitions...

A banking friend sent this to me to reflect the modern day realities of the current contagious financial fiasco! Quite appropriate and definitive!

CEO - chief embezzlement officer.

CFO - corporate fraud officer.

BULL MARKET - A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.

BEAR MARKET - A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sxx.

VALUE INVESTING - The art of buying low and selling lower.

P/E RATIO - The percentage of investors wetting their pants as
the market keeps crashing.

BROKER - What my broker has made me.

STANDARD & POOR - Your life in a nutshell.

STOCK ANALYST - Idiot who just downgraded your stock.

STOCK SPLIT - When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.

MARKET CORRECTION - The day after you buy stocks.

CASH FLOW - The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR - Past year investor who's now locked up in a nuthouse.

MOMENTUM INVESTING - The fine art of buying high and selling low.

'BUY, BUY' - A flight attendant making market recommendations as you step off the plane.

FINANCIAL PLANNER - A guy who actually remembers his wallet when he runs to the 7-11 for toilet paper and cigarettes.

CALL OPTION - Something people used to do with a telephone in ancient times before e-mail.

YAHOO - What you yell after selling all you owned to some poor sucker for $240 per share.

WINDOWS - What you jump out of when you're the sucker that bought Yahoo for $240 per share.

PROFIT - Religious person who talks to God.

On another note, another friend (Lokun) send this to our medical school of UM Class 79 chat-site.

HOW MUCH is 700 billion?

The mind registers the number with such imprecision as to make it meaningless.

As a stack of $100 bills, it would reach 54 miles high. But who can imagine that? However, if you had the Zimbabwean 100 billion dollar note (as above), you'd just need 7!!! So who's counting?

On the other hand, someone at the Smithsonian once calculated that counting to one billion, at the rate of one digit per second, would take 30 years.

With my calculator, I computed that this counting of one number at a time per second (assuming it is possible to utter mentally or vocally: say nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine i.e. 999,999,999, in one second!?!) would take actually slightly more than 31 years and 8 months, taking in leap years and all!

By that scale, counting to 700 billion would take 21,000 years!

Which suddenly dawns on me this thought experiment...

Assuming that our ancestors could count, they would have been counting since the time of our earliest human existence. Then, hunting and gathering rather than farming and domestication, would have been the circumscribed knowledge base and only mode of human activity and endeavour!

Perhaps 'we' would have been running around with Neanderthals, probably decimating, nay exterminating them as well, to emerge as the 'superior' species of homo sapiens sapiens...

Huge numbers boggle the mind and create unimaginable, probably imaginary concepts... Yet, there are individuals such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet who are worth some 50 billion dollars each! Imagine...

The reality on the ground is that one USD is still almost 3.5 Ringgit, and that it is one huge monster of a mind-boggling number--which could feed our entire Malaysian annual budget several times over!

Imagine!!!

Leaving Home, Letting Go...

"This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go."

~Emily Dickinson poem, starts "After a Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes."

My son Timothy left home for studies in London, in mid September, 2008.

He has always been our 'little' boy, although taller and bigger than I. Somehow, it was easier for him than it has been for us, his parents.

The past 2 years haven't been very easy for both of us. He and I have been having this perennial tussle of minds, his constant tugging to break free, to do his own thing, the way he sees fit. And many of these headstrong decisions appear to conflict with mine...

I supposed my wife and I had been too possessive, too 'controlling' over all his affairs, thus far. We've hitherto looked after all his needs, and he had to live under our shadows, literally... He has muttered that as parents and especially me, we have been too much of control-freaks!

But this time when we left him in London, he didn't quite say it, but he appeared to be ready to be on his own. He's been away from us now for nearly 3 weeks, and he has been fending for himself, attending college, finding new friends and getting along... fine.

I suppose it is difficult to let go, to accept that he has become his own man—individual and independent, well, nearly so.

(Letting Go is incidentally the first novel of one of my favourite authors, Philip Roth, published in 1962.)

He is making many of his own decisions, some very momentous ones, all on his own.

Perhaps, as parents we hope deep down that he will make his life decisions, with the faint lingering memory of some of the little 'right' things that we have imparted to him... He has by all intents and purposes, flown the coop.

"Since I am put to know that your own science
Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice
My strength can give you: then no more remains,
But that to your sufficiency as your Worth is able,
And let them work."
~William Shakespeare, in Measure for Measure

... Just spoke to my son through skype, a truly wonderful and free video-chat. Have also today been introduced to fring.googletalk (by good friend Muruga now based in Mumbai, via his iPhone), which would make video calls also free via cellphones through wifi, or 3G—truly great technological wonders for ease of communication worldwide.

It is good to see your loved ones and speak to them, as if they are just a few doors away... Distance is no longer what it used to be, with the instantaneous readiness at our fingertips.

It is easier to let go, knowing that we can reach out quite easily, and each knowing that we can be contactable just as conveniently and freely. It's just the time difference, and finding the same moments to connect.

Tim appears well, has been meeting up with a couple of his friends also from Malaysia, one at Imperial and another at LSE. But he has been literally penny-pinching on his lunch with home-made sandwiches; says his dinners and weekend lunch menus have yet to be recycled, so not too boring yet... He's lost weight about an inch around the waist, says mum's cooking is incomparable, which brings tears to my wife...

But at least we get to see and speak to each other. Hooray for skype, MSN messenger, fring, etc! The world is truly our oyster, definitely and eminently within reach—what with email, sms, video-chats, skype, and now even fring?

The Paradox of our time...

Recently, my sister Julie sent this to me... very thought provoking, and good for a time out...

A Message by George Carlin:

"The paradox of our time in history is that:

We have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.

We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less.

We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time.

We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years.

We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor.

We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul.

We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice.

We write more, but learn less.

We plan more, but accomplish less.

We've learned to rush, but not to wait.

We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships.

These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes.

These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill.

It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom.

A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...

Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.

Remember, to say, 'I love you' to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."