The Essence of 1 Malaysia

1Malaysia is a very expensive advertising campaign (about RM70 million worth). Since the BN government is paying this out of taxpayers’ money, I think even the ordinary citizen should try and get to understand what 1Malaysia is.

By batsman

According to Putt’s Law, there are 2 types of technocrats – those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand. Which type are you?

Since we are all amateur politicians and technocrats, and controversy rages on the 1Malaysia logo on billboards, not mentioning Tenang where 1 Malaysia is guaranteed to be the dominant slogan or in Parliament where MPs are kicked out for raising issues
connected to it, I suggest we close the gap between the 2 types by conducting serious debate to try and understand what 1Malaysia really is.

1Malaysia is a very expensive advertising campaign (about RM70 million worth). Since the BN government is paying this out of taxpayers’ money, I think even the ordinary citizen should try and get to understand what 1Malaysia is.

According to another Law (Sturgeon’s Law), 90% of everything is crap, so much of the RM70 million worth is really crap which is why RPK is saying it is a huge waste of taxpayer’s money.

However, our great PM seems to place a lot of emphasis on it so there must be something of value in the 10% that is left over. To save time, we will just zero in on this 10% of value (i.e. RM7 million).

In my opinion, the 1Malaysia advertising campaign targets the following groups: the clueless young, the selfish and greedy minority and the insecure majority.

To the clueless young, the message of 1Malaysia is that Malaysia is being transformed by the Father of Transformation into a nation at peace (racially at least, if not still violently crime ridden) where meritocracy and social justice is at balance and kept at such
equilibrium by a bloated bureaucracy managed by UMNO.

How such a balance is to be maintained is a mystery that has not been explained since even the western countries with all the resources available to them still get into trouble with social security, health care, insurance and pension schemes, let alone cut-backs in education and science research and the coming massacre of quangos.

In reality only one set of rules can apply efficiently – either meritocratic rules or interference and decision making by bureaucrats. It cannot be both. Since UMNO seems to be saying it can solve this problem of having both meritocracy and social justice, perhaps they should explain how they are going to do it.

The clueless young deserve an explanation as to how UMNO intends to work this balance such that Malaysia’s future can be assured. However, since some of the young seem to be getting promotions while some old deadwood seem to be retired, this topic merges somewhat into the topic of the greedy and selfish minority which some of the young have become.

To the selfish and greedy minority, 1Malaysia’s message is one of release. When dams are in danger of breaking due to high floods, water is released to ease the pressure on the dam. Compared to the total removal of the dams, such release of water is only a
trickle, but to those selfish and greedy minority, it will seem as if the era of incompetent bureaucratic control is finally over. Things will get back to a situation where skill and competence is rewarded and bureaucratic interference and decision making will end.

So sorry, I am still stuck on the topic of the young and clueless. Back to the selfish and greedy minorities, those who benefit know that such release is only a trickle, but since they are the ones who benefit and get the promotions and the rewards (mostly by sucking up to the status quo), they are willing to back their masters and protect the rewards they are getting. The majority however will still be held back by the restraining dams of corruption, bureaucracy and discrimination.

To the insecure majority (those who benefited from the corrupt bureaucratic regime), the message is clear – release some water or the whole dam will break, so please support the 1Malaysia advertising campaign. This is for your own good.

Of course any policy will not only win adherents but will also create opposition. Those who are unhappy with the 1Malaysia advertising campaign are the racial extremists and supremacists. They are asked to compromise in order that some release of water will avoid dam breakage, but even such a small compromise threatens their supremacist ego, so they continue to make noise and shout even though this makes their boss look hypocritical and insincere.

The other aggrieved party are the victims of the Peter Principle. They are the ones who have been overly promoted beyond their level of competence and have long since reached incompetence on technical matters but who still dominate power and bureaucratic control.

However, according to another Law (Clark’s Law), sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice, so these people have to keep their opposition hidden. They will sabotage the 1Malaysia advertising campaign in hidden ways and bid their
time to wreak havoc and revenge when open display of police, gangster and military raw power can no longer be checked.

Most of the time, such “hidden” sabotage of the 1Malaysia advertising campaign takes the form of bullying of the weak and powerless – those who are not able to make big noise and public complaints. These acts of sabotage occur on a daily basis in millions of events such that the Father of Transformation often has no choice but to close one eye and attribute these dastardly bullying actions to undisciplined and criminal elements in the bureaucracy, so it is no surprise that many of these overly promoted incompetent bureaucrats are actually criminals.

The most powerful aspect of the 1Malaysia advertising campaign depends on the fact that Malaysians are notoriously unable to differentiate government from political party in power, such that the government spends money but the political party in power reaps the benefits.

This makes the 2 party political system in Malaysia an uneven contest. On the one side, there is the party in power using the power and money of government against an opposition which is sabotaged and attacked by partisan corrupt bureaucrats supporting the political party in power.

In this sense the 1Malaysia campaign is actually just a powerful testimony of the failure of democracy in Malaysia – a failure which the opposition partly collaborates with in the hope that with the disgust that the rakyat feel for corruption and failure, they will be
voted into power and get their chance to use the power of government in turn for their own benefit.

This is why free speech with all its weaknesses and limitations is still a necessity in the fight for a truly democratic Malaysia. This is why if RPK complains that he is unfairly and purposely attacked by the opposition for opening his big mouth, it is really a very sad thing. This just shows that the PR even if gets into power will not repeal the ISA and other unjust laws. The conditions and the tendencies are already there, but this is another story and another topic.