Malaysia–A Paradise Lost

June 7, 2014

by Cogito Ergo Sum@http://www.malaysiakini.com

COMMENT: Superficially, Malaysia, for all and sundry, is a nation that is not only doing well, but even thriving in all its endeavours. Foreigners and locals are told that we are a model of tolerance and harmony in a plural society and that others must emulate our ways if they want to succeed.

Unfortunately, even a cursory look at the state of things will give away this lie, so lyrically waxed in the mainstream media. And unless one has access to news portals like Malaysiakini, we would be blissfully ignorant under the onslaught and media blitz of the government controlled media machinery.

For one, we seem to be on a runaway train towards an Islamic state, when the Federal Constitution has overtly stated that we are secular nation.

So-called defenders of the faith and race like ISMA and PDRKASA have become not only very vocal, but also dangerously influential. They promote laws and legal systems that are in opposition to a multi-ethnic and plural society, and is deemed inappropriate for a modern economic system that can compete on an equal footing with our neighbours.

These so-called NGOs, considered to be on the fringes, seem to be getting their funding and encore from a benign government that that is even seen as fanning these inciting and seditious pronouncement by its very silence and inaction.

And yet, we have an official propaganda that is portraying our ‘moderation’ and moderate ways to foreigners and foreign investors. But walking the talk is futile as the antics of such official ‘guardians of the faith’ like JAIS, are a stumbling block to this false mirage we are trying to project in a desert of what used to be an oasis of goodwill.

And as if to prepare us for the inevitable, the government has even set up a ‘hudud implementation committee’ for the day when the shariah system becomes law of the land. And if this carries on, we are well on track to go the way of Brunei, Sudan and several other failed states which have adopted hudud laws. And we are a ‘moderate’ nation with moderate policies and people?

Intruders beware

But we are indeed a nation of tolerance. Pushed to the limits of accommodating preferential treatment and affirmative action, Chinese and Indians are declared ‘intruders’ who have no business to have any business or rights as equal human beings.

And despite these provocative and obviously false, seditious accusations by radicals and self-proclaimed ‘fundamentalists’, we have either a mute BN which distinguishes itself  as a multi-racial coalition, or one that is too stupefied to respond decisively.

Newspapers that are unofficial mouthpieces of the authorities like Utusan Malaysia have a penchant of publishing rubbish and peddling it as sacrosanct news. Racial and religious slurs are printed and sold as if it is bread butter of the nation. Yet, the authorities are impotent or choose to be, against such slurs and often given official sanction by remaining dumb and unresponsive to such blatant lies. The tolerance and moderation, unfortunately is from the victims of such hate-filled messages.

Our Education system sucks

A serious flaw in the fundamentals of this nation is the education system. Our school system and education promotes learning by rote and regurgitating facts for examinations. No attempt is made to foster critical thinking and questioning of subject matter. Facts of history, and now even geography, are being manipulated to fit a distinct political agenda.Well accepted historical facts have been altered and even changed to leave out pertinent points of history that made this nation once great.

The roles of our forefathers like the late Tan Cheng Lock and VT Sambanthan are either missing or dealt with in passing. These men (and many women) played an integral part in getting the British to give us independence.And it was the Malay, Chinese and Indian Police officers whot beat the communists in a urban and guerrilla warfare.

No one race could have achieved this as Malaysia became the only nation to beat the movement in open combat. No other country has achieved this in the history of warfare.By the time students reach universities, their language skills in English can only be described as atrocious. Research papers and standard texts are written in the English language.

An erstwhile student in at a university is required to not only know the current trends in whatever fields he or she is pursing, but also critically evaluate such studies. That ability to valuate studies by others is a critical component in the pursuit of higher learning. Learning by rote and spewing out wrong facts at public exams are of no use in evaluating research papers because it does not require thinking. And the vicious cycle goes on when these graduates become teachers themselves. Results have shown that our students performance in science and mathematics is among the poorest in Asia.

We need a revolutionary education system to set thing right. A system that will ‘uneducate’ our children from the current ‘copy and paste’ mentality so prevalent that the word plagiarism is as alien as the concept of unity in diversity.

Economic descent

From a house of plenty, we have now become a nation of borrowers. Our household debt is at its peak at 80 percent. Families in urban areas find it impossible to meet ends and unless you are a favoured despot, you will find yourself drowning in a sea of personal debt.

Poverty cuts across racial and religious barriers. Despite government efforts to prop up the rural population, the urban Malays are finding it hard to meet the expenses of daily city life.

The sheer weight of managing and balancing a domestic budget is actually a microcosm of the national economy.Our current account (money received from imports minus the money that goes out for exports) has fallen.

And the figure has been steadily falling according to numbers released by the Department of Statistics, Malaysia since the year 2004 (see chart above).

John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’, is an epic poem of the fall of man. Like the Garden of Eden, Malaysia was once an advanced and prosperous nation in not just Southeast Asia, but Asia. But sin crept into Paradise and it all was lost. And like Eden, we have allowed corruption, decay and prejudice to destroy the once paradisiacal state we were in.

In his poem, Milton painted the devil in such colourful language, that some have even argued that Satan was the hero in ‘Paradise Lost’! And, much like Milton’s Eden, we seem to have fallen to the devilish ways of religious and racial bigotry that is transforming us, from the proverbial paradise, to a living hell on earth … for the average person.

One is left to contemplate if there is a way out of this runaway train that we have seemingly boarded. Will sanity, in the end prevail and will there be economic, social and political salvation? Milton pointed to a new future with his second epic poem entitled ‘Paradise Regained’.

As Malaysians, we have a duty to regain that lost paradise. We owe it to the next generation and the generations to come so that the story of Malaysia will be remembered as one of victory over darkness, of good over evil, of sanity over insanity and of one of moderation over extremism.

Let us not end up as an epic tragedy.