The best advice I ever received as a girl struggling with bullying and poor self-esteem was to “ignore what anyone thinks about you, it matters more what you think about yourself”.
Back then, overweight and pimply as I was (and still am), I could not see any possible way I could simply ignore the world around me, and how it perceives me. Man, after all, is not an island and he cannot live alone. A teenager’s world revolves around being well-liked and popular.
Yet Malaysia, my country, is no spotty teenager. At a respectable 57 years of age, she need not answer to ‘foreign’ forces on how she should run her own affairs, and she need not bow down when other nations try to bully her.
However, old age or not, she cannot ignore what the rest of the world thinks of her, and she certainly needs to focus on what her own people think of her.
When the National Security Council Bill 2015 was bulldozed through in Parliament, it prompted an outcry for its undemocratic, autocratic and despotic elements — among them an absolute power granted to the prime minister and immunity to legal prosecution — and it also led to several international bodies stating their concern.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW), the European Parliament and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) all described the Bill as a threat to democracy and it creates a real risk of abuse.
In a report by The Guardian, the HRW noted: “Now we know what the path to Malaysian dictatorship looks like. The law is far broader than can be justified by any real threat to Malaysia’s national security, and creates a real risk of abuse.”
The European Parliament on Dec 17 passed a resolution on Malaysia, calling for the immediate withdrawal of the Bill.
The ICJ in a statement said: “The ICJ deplored the manner in which the government steamrolled the bill to passage… The ICJ considers that the poorly conceived legislation gives over-broad powers to the prime minister and the security forces which is inconsistent with the rule of law and could lead to serious human rights violations.”
International rights group Amnesty International said: “Amnesty International fears that the new provisions will further entrench the climate of impunity within the security forces, in particular the Malaysian police.
“There has been practically no accountability for numerous cases of deaths in custody, unlawful killings, and torture and other ill-treatment by the police in the last decade.”
Clearly, the world has spoken and found the Bill wanting. From outside looking in, I see that even the most detached of world powers are viewing Malaysia as a concern.
But do those words of advice, so useful for a teenager, apply to a country trying to establish itself as a high-income, first-world nation? No.
Malaysia cannot dismiss the international community’s opinions, and in the economically sensitive global power-play, she must rely on being well-liked and popular in order to secure economic stability; or risk becoming a ‘pariah state’, as was pointed out by Bukit Mertajam MP Steven Sim recently.
More importantly, still, is what her own people think of her. Where is the Malaysia that thrived on acceptance and democracy? How did we go from being an example of peace and multi-ethnic harmony to the world — as we were taught in school — to an example of what not to do?
If the world saw Malaysia as a non-tolerant, overtly religious, corrupt and autocratic nation, would anyone then want to be our ‘friends’? How would it impact our dealings globally, economically and socio-politically?
Most importantly, can we as Malaysians hold our heads up when we are abroad and say, “Malaysia is my home, and I’m proud of it”?
One could argue that we do not need to be liked to be a global power, and that the teenage tendency to be ‘liked’ is simply trivial.
In that case, let’s see how Malaysia survives on being an island, separated from the world and becomes a ‘pariah state’.
My guess is that we won’t. - THE HEATMALAYSIA.COM
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