The Fourth Challenge of Vision 2020, butchered

With two decades under the bridge and hardly a decade to the grandeur goal of Year 2020, we witness how far we have drifted from the much acclaimed Wawasan’s nine challenges.

By J. D. Lovrenciear

In 1991 the then prime minister of Malaysia launched Vision 2020. The nine challenges spelt out in this vision that promised to propel Malaysia onto the platform of the developed world seized the nation with fervent hope comparable perhaps to the spirit that marched the nation to Merdeka in 1957.

Today, after almost two decades, we witness how that same political party that served the Tun Dr Mahathir has placed Vision 2020 in a precarious dilemma. With two decades under the bridge and hardly a decade to the grandeur goal of Year 2020, we witness how far we have drifted from the much acclaimed Wawasan’s nine challenges.

One of the nine challenges which we cannot deny butchering mercilessly and incessantly is the fourth challenge.

For the millions who do not even recall any of the nine challenges, the fourth challenge is about “establishing a fully moral and ethical society, whose citizens are strong in religious and spiritual values and imbued with the highest of ethical standards” (Malaysia: The Way Forward, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, February, 1991).

Let us take a quick cursory tour of the all too familiar episodes these past several years:

We have witnessed the ugly Sodomy I that split people along religious, moral and ethical values.

We witnessed ‘cow head’ marches; the Bible stamping (or defacing as how the rakyat have come to regard the incident);  the outcries for race and religion-based blood at UMNO’s Assembly; the re-instatement of sex-tainted politicians within BN while crusading against others; and many more incidents that echoed the desecration of moral and ethical principles synonymous of a civilized society.

Today we are still struggling under the strangulating Sodomy II accompanied by a free-fall of porn tapes flooding the country without any restrain or punitive action.

Today the battle cry for political power is one that is based on the dangerous boundaries of race and religion. And money politics is the standard operating procedure.

The fourth challenge of Vision 2020 is demanding the establishment of a ‘strong and fully moral and ethical society’. But going by the numerous cases of corruption that are being dragged slowly through the hallways of justice or still waiting outside the very fences of justice, raises more questions than providing answers.

So many individuals within the corridors of power and wealth have brazenly continued their plundering antics without any cares for this fourth challenge that was chiseled by the same government two decades ago.

Just look at the way a top public servant drove up in his Rolls Royce to cast his vote recently. Just look at the way we are hearing of how politicians are spending huge sums of money. How about the eyeball-popping amount of money being splurged to renovate one’s home? What about the still missing link of having C4-ed a foreign national and having her entry-egress immigration records vanish?

Illicit sex and corruption – the very enemy of an ethical and fully moral society has taken its root, thereby butchering one of Malaysia’s nine challenges originally designed to seeing the nation rise to ride the big waves of developed status.

And we are till this day continuing with more sleaze, sins of sex, corruption, flimsy accounting of national expenditure, and what have you.

Even the Bersih 2.0 rally which in essence is all about propping-up and propelling the fourth challenge of Vision 2020 is instead being resisted and arm-twisted with all kinds of jeopardizing threats.

Meanwhile, if you took a tour of PAS controlled territories, for example, you see a different picture. Every effort is being taken to strengthen the morals and ethics within the society – its followers and leaders. The most recent transformational and quantum leap creation of a moderate PAS and the successful establishment of its ‘Welfare State’ principle of governance are to be noted.

Visiting a PAS managed State will give one a first-hand appreciation of how citizens live respectfully of each other’s religious and spiritual values. You never get to hear of ‘cow head’ marches; discrimination and copyright issues in the use of the name of God; peddling of sex-porn videos to discredit anyone; etc.

BN should re-appraise itself. Rather than take a defensive position with retaliation, it serves well for serious reflection. Sincere accountability in a transparent manner with a generous sprinkling of humility and admissibility can serve BN better. Even the very principle architect of our nation’s Wawasan till this day is of no help either especially with his cynical and divisive and deeply entrenched responses in the media.

The question that matters is: Since it was the BN government that originated the Vision 2020 and spelt out so crystal clearly the nine challenges for every Malaysian, why is it today, that same BN is butchering the very challenges especially the fourth of the nine benchmarks of a developed nationhood?

Or has Vision 2020 been dumped?