Malaysians Against Uncivilized Online Citizens

There have been a lot of venting lately in social media among Malaysians - in Facebook, Twitter, online newspapers, blogs, etc. Two major unhappy campers are one side who feels cheated while another who  feels betrayed (I'll leave this to your own interpretations). A lot of name callings and intolerant responses between strangers too (yours truly was recently conferred with the title Dr. Kankong for having a negative opinion against street revolution). It made me wonder- Malaysians are infamous with uncivilized drivers. Are we becoming uncivilized online citizens too?

Recently, a friend of mine uncharacteristically made an inappropriate comment with a reference to a certain part of male's body to a religious celebrity who practices polygamy. My friend was then chastised by hundreds of the loyal online followers of the ustaz. My friend later apologized and made a revealing statement something along this line - "if you've seen your mom crying every night because your dad has someone else, you'd understand." Bersangka baik or to give the benefit of the doubt is stressed in Islam, and I'm sure in other religions too. But why is it so hard for us to have empathy - understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives?

My friend's story reminded me of another story from Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The author was in a commuter train on a peaceful Sunday morning when another man and his children entered the train. The children were yelling, throwing things, even grabbing people's newspapers. It was very disturbing. And yet, the father did nothing. The author then turned to the father and said, "Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more?" The father lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, "Oh, you're right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't know what to think, and I guess they don't know how to handle it either."

I'm not going to expand on the importance of paradigm shift or character ethics. Stephen Covey has done that in his book. My point is we need to realize that people see things differently, each looking through unique lens of background and experience. The next time before you lashing out to a stranger online, stop and think hard why he or she thinks or acts differently than you do.

Trending This Week: Adam Adli

According to Google, Malaysians have been very curious about Adam Adli in the past 7 days (see trends). If you haven't had a chance to google his name, he's a student activist detained briefly this week for security reasons.

I personally think street revolutions is not the way to go. I talked a little bit about realpolitik before - the importance to emphasize economic stability and high quality of life instead of on ideologies. Street revolutions would not only impact the short-term economic activities (e.g. due to closed streets, shops, offices, etc.), but would also affect long-term confidence to invest or do business in Malaysia. All these would eventually impact all Malaysians.

I do understand the phenomenon called "darah muda" among youths. I was 18 when we had Reformasi in 1998. I was with a group of about 20 students at Uniten doing our preparation before going to the States. With unlimited access to information from the internet,  we all felt a huge burden to the society to do something about the injustices. We were fortunate to have a dean, Prof. Ajmal, for whom I have great respect, to calm us down. He invited all of us to his house. He talked about his personal hardships in life, the fact that the world is not always a fair place, etc. Most of all, he reminded us about the risk for us to lose our scholarship.

To student activists, back then in 1998 or now, street revolution is still not worth it. Focus on what you can control in life and disregard what are beyond your control. Complete your education, build your career and get into politics if you really care. Follow the footsteps of Zairil Khir Johari instead of Adam Adli. Reformasi 1998 was the former's initial motivation to get into politics.

I'm afraid they will be a lot more Adam Adli, ABU, etc in the future. Let me share some interesting excerpts from The New Digital Age:

Future revolutions will produce many celebrities, but this aspect of movement-making will retard the leadership development necessary to finish the job. Technology can help find the people with leadership skills - thinkers, intellectuals and others - but it cannot create them. Popular uprisings can overthrow dictators, but they're successful afterward only if opposition forces have a good plan and can execute it. Otherwise the result is either a reconstitution  of the old regime or a transition from a functioning regime to a failed state.

Enough about what I think. What do Malaysians think? According to TweetFeel, based on a small sample of  121 tweets, 53% of the tweets have negative sentiment towards Adam Adli. Another source gives 67% negative sentiment on Adam Adli. Here are some of the tweets:

I dont see Adam Adli as a leader, reformist. I would say he's not being smart at all. Thats not the way to rebel.

What's wrong with showing support for Adam Adli? Stop sending hate if you don't know what's going on.

“9 pagi ini siapa nak jmpa adam adli sila dtg ke mahkamah jln duta. Sebar. Sokong adam,masuk syurga!”wtf ?

Org bangga masok dewan konvo. Kau bangga masok lokap dan mahkamah. Stupid Adam Adli.

Wake me up when Adam Adli is not relevant

One last special mention from Monyet King:

Adam Adli berkata "kita akan turun ke jalanraya dan kita akan rampas kuasa". Kenapa? kuasa tu kat jalanraya ke ? The last time I checked, kat jalanraya tu cuma ada traffic jam, traffic light dan tikus sahaja. 

On Open Data & Private-Run Public Services

I'm a civil engineer by training, but don't ask me to build your house or a road in front of your house. I'm a systems guy. I sleep, eat and drink data to make optimal decisions and to prevent bad things from happening especially in transportation/railway areas. The Economist this week has an article about open data in the U.S. On May 9th Barack Obama ordered that all data created or collected by America’s federal government must be made available free to the public, unless this would violate privacy, confidentiality or security.  This is huge. This will open up crowd-sourcing opportunities to solve some real problems like traffic congestion, pollution, crime prevention etc. How is this relevant to Malaysia? Open data, open book is a good approach to improve transparency  (BTW, it seems that corruption has been identified as the root cause for the so-called Chinese or urban tsunamis?). It could also help to make and support fact-based policy and decision making like investment in MRT and GST implementation.

Another interesting article in the Economist this week is on private-run public services. This is not privatization. In essence, at the same or lower cost a government appoint a private entity to provide the same public services at higher efficiency and quality. The aim is to give taxpayers value for money. I hope PEMANDU pays attention to this concept for their Government Transformation Programme (GTP).

Irrational Exuberance

It has been a trend among intellects, ones with higher-education degree among them, to reject the incumbent government. I mentioned in my previous post that to them the government is at best inefficient, and at worst corrupted. It's perplexing when these so-called intellects irrationally accept grandiose promises and visions of the future that are too good to be true. Most have been discussed in detail pre-GE13, but one example is the capability to eradicate poverty at once to ensure that after the first term every Malaysian family will have a monthly take-home household income of at least RM4,000. Can we realistically double the average per capita income in 5 years? There is a popular believe that all corruptions, lack of transparency, and dirty politics will disappear once the alternative government is in power. I've read that sometimes big companies prefer a new outsider CEO because of the mystic of the unknown - irrational expectation that a relatively unknown person could deliver surprising better results than an insider with well-known track records. Similar behavior may also explain the irrational exuberance towards replacing the incumbents. Realpolitik,  based on practicality in terms of economic stability and high quality of living instead of based on ideologies, will always prevailed.  I personally believe the effectiveness of the transformation programs by the government versus the maturing experience and track records in governance in states like Penang and Selangor will determine the story line to GE14.  Until then, remember that when it's too good to be true, it's usually too good to be true. The game is on!

Additional Comments by Ilmu Ialah Kuasa:
Right after I posted this I saw a post on OutSyed The Box blog that offers  methodical arguments and proofs that PR is not as clean as what people think: 

• CH Hwe's original What the Chinese People Want
• Syed Akbar Ali answering CH Hwe's What the Chinese People Want

p/s: BN should have focused on emphasizing economic stability, experience in governance and attacking the clean-sheet perception of PR. 

Agenda Martabatkan Bangsa Bukan Rasis

Oleh: Dr Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki, Sinar Harian 15 Mei 2013


Hari ini apabila ada yang bercakap mengenai agenda memartabatkan bangsa Melayu maka sering kali mereka akan terus dituduh rasis atau perkauman. Sedangkan bangsa lain yang berjuang menegakkan hak dan kepentingan bangsa mereka tidak pula dianggap rasis.

Tuduhan sebeginilah menyebabkan segelintir orang Melayu kadangkala malu, bahkan rasa bersalah atau apologetik apabila nak bercakap mengenai hak dan kepentingan mereka.

Sebelum menelusuri lebih lanjut isu ini, adalah lebih baik untuk difahami terlebih dahulu makna rasis yang sebenar. Jika dirujuk Kamus Oxford antarabangsa, rasis ialah satu kefahaman bahawa sesuatu bangsa itu lebih mulia berbanding bangsa lain hingga menebal nilai prejudis yang membawa kepada perlakuan diskriminasi, menafikan hak bangsa lain kerana dianggap lebih rendah martabatnya berbanding mereka.

Persoalannya benarkah pejuang Melayu bersikap rasis sebagaimana definisi ini? Apakah agenda memartabatkan bangsa Melayu ini bertentangan dengan prinsip Islam?

Hakikatnya mereka yang sering memperjuang agenda Melayu dan Bumiputera tidak pernah mendakwa Melayu itu lebih mulia berbanding bangsa lain. Mereka juga tidak sesekali mendesak agar kerajaan melakukan dasar diskriminasi hingga menafikan hak dan kepentingan bangsa lain sebagaimana dijamin Perlembagaan Persekutuan.

Jika difahami konteks perjuangan memartabatkan agenda Melayu ia hanyalah menegaskan agar dasar afirmatif yang menzahirkan semangat dan aspirasi Perlembagaan Persekutuan dipertahankan. Desakan sedemikian lahir atas rasa khuatir dengan sikap segelintir ekstremis kaum yang mulai berani mencabar Perlembagaan.

Apa yang pasti agenda Melayu bukanlah seperti faham nasionalisme sekular Barat yang terpisah daripada prinsip dan aturan agama hingga menggejala budaya rasis atau perkauman sempit yang membinasakan.

Sebaliknya agenda Melayu mencangkup makna kebangsaan yang luas dan subur dengan nilai-nilai keislaman sejati yang hakikatnya begitu kental. Dalam upaya menyuburkan semangat kebangsaan dan patriotisme, bekas pimpinan tertinggi Pas yang juga tokoh agamawan nasionalis terkenal, Dr Burhanuddin al-Hilmy dalam makalahnya - Perjuangan Kita, secara jelas merungkaikan makna perjuangan nasionalisme Melayu yang harus berpaksikan nilai-nilai keislaman sejati yang bersifat akomodatif, menjunjung prinsip keadilan, rasa kemanusiaan dan persaudaraan sejagat.

Menurut beliau, dengan menjunjung prinsip keadilan dan kebenaran sahajalah mampu menjelmakan semangat kebangsaan luhur dan tidak mudah terjerat dalam kerangka asabiyyah jahiliyah atau fanatik kesukuan melulu.

Pemikiran beliau ini seiring dengan firasat ahli falsafah Islam tersohor Ibn Khaldun yang lahir pada zaman kegemilangan kerajaan Islam Andalusia. Melalui kitabnya yang masyhur Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun menyingkap faham kebangsaan berteraskan dua dimensi asabiyyah yang menurutnya boleh jadi positif atau negatif.

Beliau mentakrifkan asabiyyah positif ialah semangat permuafakatan dan persefahaman yang terbentuk dalam struktur sosial masyarakat hingga membudaya sikap tolong-menolong dan bekerjasama antara satu sama lain.

Sebaliknya sesebuah tamadun akan terdedah kepada kebinasaan sekiranya asabiyyah jahiliyah berlandaskan sentimen perkauman sempit lebih mendominasi sesuatu bangsa.
Pandangan Ibn Khaldun ini berasaskan hadis berkenaan seorang sahabat yang bertanya kepada Nabi SAW: “Apakah yang dimaksudkan asabiyah itu?

Apakah kecintaan seseorang terhadap bangsanya dikatakan asabiyah? Rasulullah SAW menjawab, “Tidak! Yang dimaksudkan asabiyah ialah apabila seseorang menolong bangsanya dalam melakukan kezaliman.” (Riwayat Ibn Majah).

Sememangnya pandangan Ibn Khaldun mengenai kedua-dua dimensi asabiyyah ini amat penting untuk dihayati bagi meletakkan asas kefahaman kebangsaan di tempatnya. Justeru, tidak timbul isu rasis bagi sebuah perjuangan memartabatkan agenda bangsa kiranya yang diperjuangkan itu selaras prinsip keadilan Islam.


Komen Ilmu Ialah Kuasa:

Setiap individu Melayu bertanggungjawab untuk memartabatkan bangsa Melayu. "Sesungguhnya Allah tidak akan mengubah keadaan suatu kaum sebelum mereka mengubah keadaan diri mereka sendiri." (Surah ar-Ra'd 13:11)

Jangan terlalu taksub dengan Ketuanan Melayu (simbolik). Kita perlu lebih praktikal - tekankan ilmu pengetahuan dan kebolehpasaran dalam ekonomi global. http://wacanamalaysia.blogspot.com/2010/04/meb-peluang-ubah-melayu.html

Agenda memartabatkan Melayu melalui ilmu pendidikan adalah sebab utama Ilmu Ialah Kuasa masih seorang UMNO at heart, and proud to be part of a liberal, moderate, rare species in the party.

Transformasi: You Say It Best When You Say Nothing At All

Dear BN Leaders,

You say it best when you say nothing at all...and act instead! Let's focus on transformation agenda instead of antagonizing rakyat (Zahid Hamidi called for Malaysians unhappy with the political system to leave the country).

Unless you missed it, more than half of the country do not like you. It should not be business as usual in the next 5 years. Yes, looking at demographic trends the percentage of Malays and other Bumiputeras will continue to increase while the Chinese population will be declining as the result of the decrease in fertility rate. However, the percentage of people living in urban areas will also increase over time. See data from Statistics Department or analysis by Monyet King.

You cannot stop modernization or urbanization. You cannot stop rakyat's progression from being dependent to independent. A million dollar question is how to keep your party, your ideologies and you relevant? A true politician knows that campaigning for GE14 started the moment GE13 ended. Meanwhile, the only thing PR needs to do for now is to find a Malaysian Obama to succeed Anwar!

Transformation Continues: Open Letter to PEMANDU

Dear Dato' Sri Idris Jala,

Now that the election season has concluded, I presume you and your team at PEMANDU can continue to focus on the transformation efforts, among other things, to raise incomes and the quality of life for all Malaysians. I’ve been reading your articles in the Star. I’d like to share some comments, concerns and some suggestions to support your mission.

First of all, regarding the goal to reach the high per capita income, it seems that the general public is expecting the government to keep increasing minimum wages. You and I know that this is not the case. The big “I” for inflation would nullify this approach and could probably make the quality of life worse. Your point that everyone needs to work hard to reach the goal needs to be made more prominent. There is no shortcut. I strongly believe good education is the main pillar to support new, advanced economic endeavors and reach the developed status.

Below are some specific ideas for your team’s consideration:

1. Implement Integrated Planning to Improve Mobility and Quality of Life
Car and house are two key elements affecting the quality of life of all Malaysians. Continuing economic protection of local car manufactures deprive Malaysians from the opportunity to buy affordable cars at the cost of around RM10,000 from China and India. Yes, we need to consider quality to get the best value, but an efficient market will decide what’s best. We need to set aside our pride and move away from activities that we clearly don’t have competitive advantage. We should also develop affordable housings outside congested city areas and integrate housing development planning with MRT development to ensure less-than-one-hour commute one-way to work from the new areas with public transportation. Consider high-speed rail connections to Kuantan and Penang, besides the already planned to Singapore, from KL to transform peninsular Malaysia into a single metropolis. This is an expensive, but worthwhile infrastructure investment to encourage new economic activities among different regions in peninsular Malaysia.

2. Identify Our New Competitive Advantages
In general, Malaysia has been transforming from agricultural- to service/manufacturing-based economy. From the international perspective, Malaysia is considered as the leader in Islamic finance. We should capitalize this competitive advantage to the maximum if we haven’t done so. Meanwhile, we still have to answer the question, what are our other competitive advantages? In the past, we have been Johny-come-lately in the areas of information technology, biotechnology, call centers etc. Like some other governments around the world we were seduced by the hype of voguish high-tech sectors, and falsely embraced the notion that intervening in these sectors can drive growth and create jobs without evaluating our true strength and weaknesses.

You, indeed, need some visionaries to assist in identifying some potential new competitive advantages and blue ocean strategies for Malaysia. However, instead of picking the winners and committing resources prematurely, I’d heed the advice specifically for any government from an editorial published a few years ago in the Economist as follows:

• Implement straightforward steps to improve the environment for business, e.g. less red tape, more flexible labor markets, simpler tax and bankruptcy regimes, will be more effective than handouts to favored firms or sectors. 
• Invest in the infrastructure that supports innovation, from modernized transportation systems and electricity grids (a smarter way to help green energy) to basic research and university education.  
• Encourage winners to emerge by themselves, e.g.through the sort of incentive prizes that are growing increasingly popular, rather than the failed policy of picking winners.

3. Transform Government Subsidies
Government subsidy is a very sensitive matter, especially when it involves the majority Malays. I’ve penned my opinion in an unpublished article (http://wacanamalaysia.blogspot.com/2013/05/ge13-racial-dynamics-politics-in.html) about the need for all Malaysians to shift from dependent to independent and interdependent. I strongly believe education is the key for any underprivileged group. Government’s recent effort (e.g. BR1M, Klinik/Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia) to focus on low-income people is the right direction to pursue.  In addition, we should seriously consider implementing or down-right copying the Bolsa Família social welfare program in Brazil that ties in efforts to help low-income people with education and health through conditional cash transfer. In an article (http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/info.asp?y=2010&dt=0428&pub=Utusan_Malaysia&sec=Rencana&pg=re_02.htm) I wrote a few year ago in Utusan Malaysia, I proposed the idea to offer conditional ASB loan to low-income Bumiputras who send kids to schools. Innovative public-relation (PR) strategies are also needed when reductions in subsidies or new, rational and fair tax program e.g. GST are announced. Focus on what new benefits to be provided with new revenues to the government instead of what is being taking away/charged. Implement town-hall meetings to give the right information to the grassroot government supporters. Surprising the public with some new subsidy- and/or tax-related initiatives is always bad.

All the best!

GE13: Racial Dynamics & Politics in Malaysia

This article was originally written and published online on the verge of the last general election, GE13. It offers a voice of reason. If we belong to a political group or a set of ideologies it is important to really seek to understand other opposite perspectives in the process of national reconciliation for a better Malaysia.

The main hypothesis presented in this article has mainly been proven by the general election results after which Barisan Nasional (BN) stays in power mainly due to the support from rural areas while Pakatan Rakyat (PR) continues to gain popularity in major cities in Malaysia.

In specific, this article explores the relevance of major political parties in Malaysia with respect to Malaysian racial dynamics from the perspective of individual paradigm shift* from being dependent to independent and interdependent.

Dependent citizens always depend on government assistance for basic and other needs through subsidies, preferential treatment, etc. On the other hand, independent citizens does not need any government assistance to live a comfortable life. The final stage is when all independent citizens, regardless of skin colors, are working together to effectively compete in global economies for the betterment of the country.

In the context of Malaysian politics, race-based political parties are still perceived as relevant. Malays who embrace the Quranic verse, "God will not help a group of people unless the group help themselves", will always make a political party like UMNO, or PAS, relevant. In fact, as long as there is a majority of dependent constituents, especially in rural areas, Barisan Nasional and its component parties will arguably, always be relevant.

On the other hands, Pakatan Rakyat and its ideologies are more attractive to independent citizens, regardless of their races, especially in major metropolitan areas. This group typically has higher education, has completely satisfied their basic needs, and are longing for a much better governance and quality of life. BN, in general, is struggling to maintain its relevance with this group. At best, this group perceives BN-led government as inefficient, at worst, corrupted. The perception has been improving with the implementations of the Economic Transformation Plan (ETP) and 1Malaysia, but will remain stagnant without any serious effort to make the government more transparent (e.g. asset disclosures instead of symbolic pledges). PR, however, will continue to struggle to attract the dependent constituents. Even with brilliant ideas to address poverty and quality of life, PR’s lack of experience and inconsistency in governance pose a huge cloud of uncertainty for dependent citizens to abandon the status quo. Also, who’s there to guarantee that every facet of PR or any alternative party in power will be clean? Clean politics can be seen as an oxymoron, no matter what your political brand, and no matter if you are talking about politics in Timbuktu, Kuala Lumpur or Washington.

Going back to the paradigm shift spectrum, UMNO is actually quite adept to deal with its dependent and independent constituents. It is perfectly conceivable to have an UMNO leader brandishing a dagger and antagonizing other races at an event in the morning, and in the afternoon the same leader can put a straight face at another event to promote 1Malaysia. Datuk Seri Najib and UMNO leaders have to be maverick to play the tricky game. They understand that forcing Malays too quickly to be independent by taking away multitude of subsidies and preferential treatments would only make UMNO irrelevant. It would also be bad for everyone else because the gap UMNO would leave would quickly be filled by another entity like PERKASA. However, UMNO with its ideologies still needs to advance Malays from being dependent to independent, hence an UMNO dilemma - quite akin to the Malay dilemma, coined a long time ago by Tun Mahathir.

Eventually, when everyone is on the same level of playing field, when we all can look at each other beyond the skin colors, we will reach the final stage of the paradigm shift to be interdependent with each other. When this time arrives, we will abandon "horizontal" or racial-based politics for "vertical" politics where people forget their differences and work together to focus on what matters most to improve the quality of life for everybody. We will identify our true competitive advantages, and focus on expanding the size of the economic pie in the global economy instead of fussing over for ⅓ or ⅔ of the existing pie. It is not always a zero-sum game - a rising tide lifts all boats. Until we embrace that, we have to bear with a hint of some good politics with dollops of bickering and sensationalism.

*This concept was popularized by Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

p/s: Transformation Continues:  http://wacanamalaysia.blogspot.com/2013/05/transformation-continues-open-letter-to.html