Sunday July 17, 2011

Let’s go easy on each other

By EFFENDI NORWAWI

Malaysians must realise that they are living in a successful country, and appreciate the things achieved so far.

WARREN Buffett, legendary investor and one of the most successful men in the world, once said: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.”

I'm not writing this article to argue for any side. I have left the political scene and I wish to now express my views as an ordinary citizen who loves this country and perhaps speak on behalf of the silent majority.

The event of July 9 on the streets of Kuala Lumpur was a momentous occasion for all Malaysians, but for the wrong reasons. The last time we witnessed a situation like this that made headlines in all the major dailies and frighteningly the international media was during the street demonstration of “Reformasi” which caused untold damage to the country and took a long time for us to recover from.

“Stay Away” was the headline in The Star on July 9 that, sadly, totally eclipsed and sidelined the story of a major national initiative the investment of the RM40bil MRT project that would make life easier for the expected 20 million people residing in the Klang Valley by 2020.

That would generate a Gross National Income (GNI) of RM30bil in the next few years and create 130,000 jobs.

This major story was relegated to page 10 because all the earlier pages were hijacked by news of the street demonstration.

“KL Tegang” as seen in Berita Harian looked like the front-page of a Middle Eastern newspaper. Al Jazeera's coverage made the situation look even more severe. Even beyond our shores, almost 1,000 Malaysians in Taiwan and in Melbourne, Australia, embarked on rallies in support of Bersih 2.0.

I would not believe for a second that this is what we want for our country. Our founding fathers and us have worked so hard to build this country which, by any measure, is harmonious, peaceful and progressive. We have put all this in jeopardy over one weekend!

I'm sure all sides could have done so much better in this controversy if we care for this country. If Bersih really had an issue on free and fair elections, could they have not achieved their objectives better by diligently exhausting every possible avenue before going to the streets? Could it be also, on the government side, a case to give more democratic space for dissent so that dissenters don't have to resort to street demonstrations?

Political maturity of a nation is measured by how it deals with disagreements and opposing ideas. We did badly last weekend. We did not display the political maturity that has been inherent in this country in the way we have successfully managed bigger issues like our differences in race and religion over the last 54 years. How could this happen?

Going forward, our focus should now be on our shared vision what do we want this country to be for us, our children and generations to come?

Together, I'm sure our dream would be to build a politically stable and democratic country, a country that is safe and pleasant to live in, a country that is economically successful, prosperous, and socially just and harmonious.

We have built the right foundation. The Government Transformation Programme (GTP) and Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) initiatives are beginning to show real results. We are back on a strong growth path, we are seeing new surges in domestic and foreign investment, our Bursa has been hitting an all-time high all the positive indicators are there.

We have seen in many economies how transformation happens when there is the right combination of leadership, policies, people and opportunity at the right time. I believe this is our time the right moment in our history for us to take the quantum leap. We can achieve anything with more self-belief, zest and confidence. We have to be mindful not to squander this precious opportunity.

We should look at where we are, and what we have achieved. We have to be better than we have been in the past.

We will now have to compete at the higher level if we want to be among the high-income nations. As we grow, for sure there would be more disagreements in the future. What that means is our growth must be accompanied by our increased ability and maturity to manage all our disagreements without forsaking the higher interest of the country.

Many Malaysians don't seem to appreciate that we live in an unusually successful country. Compared to many peer countries that achieved independence at the same time as us, we are so far ahead today. We will get stronger and surge even further ahead.

But there is something unfortunate about us Malaysians: We are more inclined to complain about almost everything. It has become habitual. We knock ourselves down when we talk about our country. Yet how many of us have experienced this? When we've been to other countries, we come back feeling how lucky we are to be in our country!

The “Arab Spring” phenomenon is understandable. These countries have no democracy, they have not seen economic growth, they have high unemployment, food is expensive and most of their governments have squandered their national wealth. I would join the riots too if I were their citizen. But Malaysia is nothing like this, and we should be proud of it.

On that fateful day last Saturday, I ran into a limo driver, Morgan, who said something so profound to me, which every Malaysian should remember. He said: “If we are not grateful with what we have, no matter how much we are given we will never be happy.”

Going back to Buffet, we have taken 54 years to build this country's reputation and if we had thought of not wanting to ruin it over one event, we would have handled last weekend differently.

Let's go easy on each other and, more importantly, let's not give up on each other.

> The writer is a senator and former minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of the Economic Planning Unit.

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