A vast number of Malaysians are risk-averse therefore they are keen to see the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak get that transformation without government change. Transform Malaysia away from the label of sluggish democracy.
Apparently all the ready data and analyses point to — and this is agreed to on both sides of the aisle in Parliament — a need for change now or face imminent deterioration of the country’s potential.
Unfortunately for the millions craving for a better day under the sun, the PM is as risk-averse as them. If you were being honest, you know Najib has always been like that.
Well reflected by his affinity for self-help books and the next best-thing in gimmicks. With Najib you’ll always get sound-bites but look out for the follow-up statements on how he will always ensure the old ways, established practices and cultural hierarchies are not abandoned.
So the promise is to have colossal change within the house by rearranging the furniture.
Which brings us to the New Economic Model (NEM) — and the interest level it has generated. And the disappointments it promises.
The document was to emphasise Malaysia was ready to update itself, to keep up with the prevailing zeitgeist globally — actually with the countries we compete with.
Stuff like equal participation and protection of the law. Non-discrimination, non-distortion of the economy by state firms and “state-friendly” firms, real education rather than politically induced education policies and the list goes on.
We’ve heard of them enough times.
There are more than 200 pages in Part 1 of the NEAC document, but people were waiting for Najib’s own summary of his mission. The speech that gives life to the vision.
What was conspicuously missing was his response to all that transpired at the Perkasa AGM at his party’s HQ four days prior to his speech. The Pekan MP wanted to talk about change while ignoring his partymen, his former boss and Datuk Ibrahim Ali who were clear that they want the country to go in the opposite direction.
Their language was direct, their desires were clear and they seemed pretty serious about their agenda.
It is like the US president announcing an equality policy while letting the Klu Klax Klan hold a pow-wow days earlier in the West Wing talking about the eroding rights of the white male.
The foreign media were quick to spot it and balanced the promise of change by Najib and the threat and kris Perkasa held in plain sight.
Najib’s profound silence on Perkasa is reaching the borders of Tun Abdullah Badawi’s elegant silence.
While pro-Perkasa Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin — and incidentally Najib’s deputy — keeps shouting his unfettered ultra-nationalism from every roof-top he is allowed on.
Conventionally the deputy prime minister carries the prime minister’s message. They say the price of being second in line is to suffer for the policies of the one guy above you. Muhyiddin is seemingly not suffering for Najib’s beliefs. Is this convenience for Muhyiddin due to Najib’s failure to rein him in or some arrangement most of us are not privy to?
If you are a Malaysian placing your support on the prime minister and his coalition still on the basis they can change, then surely you have to be mortified by the lip-service you are getting so far. I mean, surely you have to be.
Najib wants to start a voyage without checking if all the gas-stations along the way will fill his 1 Malaysia vehicle up. This is where my fear emanates from.
The pitfall waiting indefinitely is that your life may be be defined by the wait, and that is sad even for the natural optimist.
The country needs the courage of change, and for this everyone is looking to Najib.
Otherwise people might be forgiven to think Najib is trying to repackage the old model into a more sexier version — to placate the locals and to impress the foreigners.
The foreigners will politely say “no thank-you” if it is more or the same old, same old.
How about the locals?
Will the entire country remain gullible to stratospheric levels continuously?
Abraham Lincoln mused, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” But he predates the Treaty of Pangkor, so I doubt whether he foresaw a people in a tropical paradise challenging the truth of his adage.
Because guys I feel we are this close to being fooled all the time.
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