Middle path the key to Malaysia's success

 

Tourists and crowds were seen visiting the Sultan Abdul Samad Building during a survey conducted in conjunction with the Chinese New Year public holiday. - NSTP/ASYRAF HAMZAH

A YOUTUBE video I recently came across struck me for saying almost exactly what I have felt for the longest time: that ours is a rather unique country and uniquely successful to boot.

The video compared Malaysia with seven other regional countries — Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea and Japan — and concluded that we have got the key ingredients more or less in balance.

First off, why do I say we are unique? Because some of these other countries can also claim to be multicultural, but none has to wrestle with minorities that are a dominant force economically and politically as Malaysia does.

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Vietnam, South Korea and Japan are, on the other hand, as homogeneous as they come.

South Korea, Japan and Singapore are much richer than Malay-sia, but the video suggests that the social pressures to succeed mean South Korea has to deal with an epidemic of youth suicides, Japan with the loneliness of the elderly while Singaporeans need to cross the Causeway on weekends "to be human again".

The video believes Thailand to be the real "competitor" to Malaysia, but feels that Thai politics and the military's hand in it may be the country's undoing — although it seems to be succeeding so far in spite of the politics.

Indonesia and the Philippines are in many ways comparable to Malaysia — rich natural resources and resourceful people — but the video noted the sad fact that in both, many people have to go abroad in order to find gainful employment.

The Philippines is particularly woeful in this case — some 10-per cent of its 100 million population are separated from growing families at home, often out of sheer necessity to find jobs abroad that pay them a decent wage to feed those families.

Vietnam is often heralded as the region's next big economic success story and that may well be so.

But it is still a one-party Marxist state and it remains to be seen if such a political set-up carries it through once the state succeeds in fulfilling the economic needs of its people.

Why are all these comparisons important? It is, of course, not so that we can feel better by putting down our regional peers.

Like humans, countries are all imperfect. The comparisons are not so that Malay-sians can feel that theirs is less imperfect than the others.

We need no reminding about our imperfections. Corruption remains a pain. Our politicians seem to bicker endlessly.
Ordinary Malaysians worry about the rising costs of putting food on the table.

But our institutions, however imperfect, seem to be doing their job. We have had changes in our government, peacefully, through the ballot box.

Parties of a particular persuasion may pull the country in one direction, but then others pull in the other direction.

Our democracy, like others, may appear messy, but it does its job in countervailing more extreme political views and therefore, keeps the country as a whole on the straight and narrow middle path.

As the video says, Malaysia may not be hogging headlines trumpeting its success, but that may be the very reason why it appears rather well grounded. - NST

The writer, John Teo views developments in the nation, region and the wider world from his vantage point in Kuching