Oh! Malaysia

Natesan Vishu

What have we done to suffer being a Malaysian? It does not matter if you are Malay, Chinese, Indian, Iban, Kadazan, Orang Asli or Penan, the reality is all of are suffering from political dilemma. We are burdened with rising cost of living and quality of our life is deteriorating. The new policies implemented will dig further into our pocket and we are helpless. We became ‘pawns’ in the political chess game played by our leaders. We placed trust on leaders hoping for a change. We voted campaigned, blogged, demonstrated, donated and sacrificed so much for our beloved nation.

It does not matter if you are pro-government or anti-government. The reality is that the ‘people power’ has been stripped from us. The democracy system is merely an illusion. We have been hoodwinked to believe that we belong in a democratic society and our opinion matters. The tragic truth is we are the modern age economic slave. We have been systematically placed to serve the political masters and business corporations.

The ‘rakyat’ of Malaysia in reality is a subject of a neo-feudalism. Martha K. Huggins quoted ‘A primary characteristic of neo-feudalism is that individuals’ public lives are increasingly governed by business corporations’. Echoing on that quote, our life is dictated by the interest of corporations and politicians. The business corporations that invest millions in politics shape the direction of the county. It is not the votes that matters, it’s the millions.

We are such fools to believe that we have the power to change the political landscape. Our primary role in the neo-feudalism is to work for the sustainability of the system and ‘donate’ our income in name of tax for the benefit of corporations and politicians. The taxation system is part of neo-feudalism ploy to keep the upper class richer.

A prime example of neo-feudalism is America. The politicians serve the corporation’s interest instead of people. As we witness today, the American Dream is merely an illusion and average American suffers because of the political will of the country. The champion of world democracy has lost the battle of philosophy and ideology. Barrack Obama could not do much to restore the ‘rotten’ democracy system.

The American philosophy ‘cancer’ is spreading all over the world. Soon we people of Malaysia will suffer the same fate as the American. Poor governance and ineffective policies would contribute towards our downfall. The dynamics in our political system is inconsistent. The policies makers’ needs to understand that in order for Business Corporation to sustain the middle class segment of the society must continue to grow. The short term thinking for political gain allowing Business Corporation to capitalize the policies will lead to disaster in future.

The current taxation system will push the working class in poverty. The middle class squeeze will contribute towards budget deficit, increases in unemployment rate, slower job creation and deterioration of overall economic condition. In years to come, the 1%-2% population of upper class will face the wrath from the middle and working class for their failure to grow and maintain the economy.

The chaos caused by the politicians is affecting us. The classic clashes of ego between the politicians are not healthy for the people. We are burdened with taxes, poor governance, weak leadership and ineffective political system. As common people, we have played our role for Malaysia. In return, the elected leaders are making a fool of us. The tragic reality is that without power and money there is nothing much that we could do.

When the world is progressing at accelerated rate, we are pushed further back by our leaders. If we look back in history, weak leadership has always been a major catalyst for a failure of a nation. Louis XVI of France is a classic example of weak leadership. His indecisiveness and conservatism led to French Revolution. The French people revolted against the French king because of the weak leadership.

French people felt betrayed by the failure of Louis XVI to lead the people. One of the incident known as ‘Affair of the Diamond Necklace’ tarnished the reputation of monarchy institution. Queen Marie Antoinettewas dubbed as “Madam Deficit” and the public perception that she single handedly ruined the financial institution of France. In reality the reason for the financial crisis is because of expensive wars and the aristocrat refused to pay higher taxes to cover the government cost. Despite having good intention serving the people, Louis XV1 popular decisions has failed miserably and worsened the condition of French people.

We are in similar dilemma. The public growing dissatisfied day by day. We need reforms in government policies that will benefit us not burden us. We are aware that taxation is important for development of the economy. The taxation system should be implemented concurrently with reducing government expenditure. The economic policies should sustain and grow the middle class segment of the populace.

The policy makers should consider the economic reforms policies. It will be meaningless to use taxation as a mean to recover budget deficit. The economist has developed several economic models that have proven success in the past. The Nordic model has proven its effectiveness in context of real GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, freedom from corruption and generosity. We are an oil and gas export based economy and similar to Norway. The standard of living in Norway is the highest in the world. The working class in Norway are paid well and one of the highest in the world.

The leaders should commence an extensive study on ‘hybrid’ Nordic model and implement it to improve the economy and living standard of Malaysians. The politicians should spend more time thinking and talking on taking Malaysia to the next level. It will be tragic if the averages Malaysian are pushed into poverty because of the political system and weak leadership.

Fifty years from now, the Wikipedia page entry “ …due to the poor governance, corrupt system, weak leadership, higher taxation and inefficient government policies, Malaysia went through a major political and economic crisis in 2010 to….” If the elected leaders want to be remembered for their lack of quality, they can continue with their policies.