UMNO’s Vision for Malaysia

As usual in any commentary, one has to deal with what is public and official and what are darker, more uncomfortable visions. It would seem that UMNO’s public vision for Malaysia has been a string of catchy public relations slogans, recently farmed out to be managed by APCO. UMNO’s darker vision however seems to be characterized by a series of loud bluster and threats as well as unseen mysterious actions taken by invisible hands. 

By batsman 

Comparing the 2, it would seem that the darker vision has more clout and is more effective in expressing itself, both in action and in securing political support. Otherwise the public, less influential vision would not be farmed out to an Israeli-American public relations firm to manage while UMNO concentrates on its darker vision. 

How do these then affect UMNO’s government of the country? Do the visions represent some sort of cross purposes that are canceling each other out and somehow managing to turn Malaysia into a stagnating, backsliding, slow moving country? 

Take the old slogan of “Learn from the East”. It would seem that even this slogan is not pure and unadulterated. By “East” it would seem that the object of fascination is actually Japan but the slogan fudges this and uses “East” instead. It subsequently loses some of its focus and unity of purpose. 

Some of the implications of the slogan have been blindly injected into Malaysia. The famous Japanese tie up between big business and government has been assiduously copied by Malaysian government support for GLCs and other cronies. The sad thing is that such copy cat behaviour is limited to form and superficiality only and the essence or the good of the practice has been left behind in Japan. 

What happened then was that Malaysian GLCs and UMNO crony companies have been turned into giant bloated monopolies instead of lean, competitive and world beating businesses. 

What was the essence that was missed out and left behind in Japan? This is a difficult and complex area. If it were easy, it would not have been left out in the 1st place. But still, it is not an excuse for failure since the cost of failure is Malaysia’s future. 

We already have experience with failure. When democratic forms and structures were imported from England, the essence of democracy was left out and the cost of this failure is what we suffer today. 

When Sarawak and Sabah joined Malaysia, it was expected that they be given greater autonomy than the rest of the peninsula, but failure to respect this has resulted in 2 of Sarawak’s oil parcels being given away to Brunei without any consultation at all and Filipino immigrants imported into Sabah just to change the social and voter characteristics of the state. It would seem that what is essential can be something as simple as respect; and failure to respect the essence can lead to disastrous consequences. 

What were once 2 rich and self-respecting states with some form of autonomous control over their future have now been turned into basket cases with no control whatsoever – the rich and connected becoming indecently richer while the rest of the citizenry become marginalized, isolated and impoverished with unemployment, evil and sin stalking the land like vengeful ghosts. 

Could this similar fate also happen to the peninsula under UMNO rule? Let’s check out “Learn from the East” to get a better idea. 

In Japan, the tie-up between big business and government was purely focused on reclaiming Japan’s place as a leading manufacturing and industrial powerhouse. This focus bordered on obsession. There were no distractions. Even then, events unfolded to the extent that corruption extended its tentacles even here. 

Unfortunately, the tie-up between GLCs, cronies and government in Malaysia not only was riddled with favouritism and cronyism of selfish individuals from the start, the focus was completely distracted by social re-engineering concerns. The objective of excellence and being world beaters lost its aim. Secondary as well as personal objectives became paramount. With such a situation, is it not obvious that any shots fired were off target and wasted if not actually dangerous to the citizens, any hits being purely random and accidental? 

So it is that “Learn from the East” became something we could not do well and was dropped quietly. Hopefully it will not be retained long enough to learn from China’s authoritarian, communist and brutal approach to things. There are already inklings and subsequent worries that this may be the case. 

In much the same vein, UMNO likes to talk about the social contract. However, open mindedness if employed for even a fraction of a second will make one realize that independence was fought not for social re-engineering concerns, but to free the country to develop and become prosperous – not enslaved to colonial masters. 

The social contract that UMNO likes to talk about was therefore only a secondary objective, although still a valid one. There is no cake to divide fairly if no one bothers to bake the cake and we cannot live on oil money forever. Again it was a case of a secondary objective surmounting the primary one. The aim and focus was lost in the petty jealousies, hate and envy. 

In business, to lose one’s objectives and focus is a death sentence. High flying jet set CEOs who take their businesses and expand/diversify them without regard to the objectives, focus and inherent skills of the businesses are doomed to fall flat down to earth again. This lesson is driven home again and again in every recession. 

Unfortunately, our business friendly politicians are unable to learn from business lessons. No doubt, a country is not a business and is much more complex. For one thing, there is an even more important need for checks and balances. Social re-engineering is a form of checks and balances. Sadly, if taken over the limit and when used by power hungry politicians to seize power in a coup, it supplants the original objective of achieving excellence and becoming world beaters. 

When everything else is subordinate to social-re-engineering concerns, the country turns inward on itself and loses it competitive edge. Income reduces and there is no money to bake the proverbial cake. Worse still, corruption, cronyism and abuse of power are able to hitch a ride on the back of fanatical social re-engineering concerns. Evil and sin stalk the land. Murder, manipulation of elections and police violence become commonplace. 

A leader who loses his vision or suffers proven wrong visions is no longer fit to lead. Sadly, the rakyat are only slowly beginning to gain its own visions for the future. So it becomes a race between UMNO politicians and the rakyat to see who stumbles first. 

What of the opposition? UMNO likes to say it is a bloc comprising parties with diametrically opposite platforms and visions. Therefore UMNO argues that the PR will never succeed. It looks as if its cross purposes is even more serious than UMNO’s. 

However, the fact that the coalition exists and that it has a common platform means that the individual parties are willing to subordinate their individual visions to be secondary to the vision of the common platform. It is only when the individual parties try to supplant the common platform with their own platforms that secondary visions start to cloud the primary one and Malaysia stares complete failure in the face again. In the meantime, the visions of the individual parties can act as checks and balances on obsession in pushing for excellence and competition at the cost of marginalization, racism, corruption, immorality and sin. 

Will it happen? What do you think?