Daydreams that turn disastrous

Najib and Rosmah - their 1Malaysia dream

Richard Loh

A daydream is a visionary fantasy, especially one of happy, pleasant thoughts, hopes or ambitions, imagined as coming to pass, and experienced while awake. There are many different types of daydreams, and there is no consensus definition amongst psychologists. Daydreams may involve fantasies about future scenarios or plans, or reminiscences about past experiences, and may include vivid dream-like mental images. They are often connected with some type of emotion.

While daydreaming has long been derided as a lazy, non-productive pastime, it is now commonly acknowledged that daydreaming can be constructive in some contexts.

Malaysians as well as their leaders have daydreams in the political atmosphere which we can term as political daydreams. In such political daydreams the constructive contexts will be different depending on which side of the divide you are aligned to.

The political opposition daydreamers are dreaming for a two party system, the hope and ambition to take over as the government of the day. Today, we are not talking about the daydreams of the political opposition which we will leave it for another day.

The present ruling government were able to form the federal government with a coalition of 13 political parties that won a simple majority after the 12th general election. The losing of five States and the two third majority in Parliament had shattered the core bone of the coalition which until then was unshakable.

Prior to the 12th general election, everything looks easy for the coalition government, no serious work were needed to ensure their continuing stay in power and what they needed to do were to daydreams of how to enrich themselves and family members while the people were influenced with another type of daydream, that only this coalition is capable of governing this country.

Everyone, one time or another have daydreams. When you get wind that you are going to be promoted to be a manager, you will somehow start to daydream of how you are going to manage your subordinates and the company. How you are going to treat your enemy within, how you aim to go higher up. Your daydream will be effective or not upon sitting inside the manager's room depends greatly on how you play out your daydream.

The PM of a country is no difference, when as DPM and upon learning that he will soon become the next PM, he will has his daydreams but these daydreams are bigger from that of an ordinary manager.

We are quite sure that the present PM of this country had his many daydreams, years before he was even a DPM. His daydreams became more complex as the days get closer for him to become the PM and making it worst was the great lost at the 12th general election.

Why I called it the daydreams of the PM and not planning is because when you make plans, you can really see the whole structure of the ongoings in a transparent manner by a group of people or team work, irrespective whether the plan succeed or fail while the daydreams are only the dreams of the PM alone without full support from others within his team and rushing to implement his daydreams make the situation worst.

The particular outstanding daydream of the PM is to ensure that the coalition continues to hold on to power. Daydreams are often connected with some type of emotion and the emotion of the PM after seeing the lost of the two third majority in Parliament by his predecessor and the fear of losing power in the coming 13th general election is negatively enormous.

One special daydream of the PM is to see a "1Malaysia, People First Performance Now" implementation which by now can be seen by all that it had turned into a disaster. This daydream is good but failed because the PM did not create supportive meaningful daydreams to give it the credence that it needed to succeed. The television stations, TV1, 2, 3, 7, 8 and 9 have been continuously screening the 1Malaysia ideology using the PM's daydream but it is just about that and what we actually see happening on the ground is totally different and the opposite of what they are showing us.

Daydreams are pleasant thoughts, hopes or ambitions that can actually be translated into meaningful actions if the applications are put into the correct perspective without any further disturbances from other newly created daydreams.

The PM, in rushing to put his half-baked daydreams into reality and affirmative actions were met with furious retaliation from all sides because he failed to daydreams about other factors that were required in order to see through his ambition of wanting to hold on to power.

The PM, by playing out his daydreams without first opening them up for discussions and further planning, especially among the various races, had indeed became a big disaster.

Creating daydreams one after another can be disastrous if not handled and play out correctly for it will turned into a horrible nightmare as seen from the latest racial and religious confrontations.

The justification to say the PM is daydreaming for over one and a half years by trying to implement his odds and pieces daydreams is from seeing the continuing failure of the country in every aspect, especially in the economy, judiciary, education, crime, corruptions, suppression of free speech and further racial and religious intolerance.

If one do not know how to turn one's daydreams into good and useful actions, just leave it as a dream.