Malaysia Berjaya?

Malaysia kita sudah berjaya

Aman makmur bahagia

Malaysia abadi selamanya

Berjaya dan berjaya

Berbagai kaum sudah berikrar

Menuju cita-cita

Satu bangsa satu negara

Malaysia berjaya

Dari Perlis sampailah ke Sabah

Kita sudah merdeka

Negara makmur rakyat mewah

Kita sudah berjaya

Dengan semboyan kita berjaya

Menuju di angkasa

Satu bangsa satu negara

Malaysia berjaya

Saiful Bahri Elyas, sung by Jamaludin Alias (according to Wikipedia)

QUESTION TIME | I love this song - so simple, so stirring, so inspirational, so full of hope, so inclusive, so captivating, so musical and so rhythmic providing in just a few words the essential ingredients for a successful Malaysia. One people, one nation going forward making a success of itself for everyone. The cadence is appropriately that of a march.

You can hear various versions of the song set to videos on the net but this one that I found reflects the pace and spirit of the times in which the nation was born and of the aspirations then.

Sadly, as we celebrate Malaysia’s formation - 57 years ago yesterday - it sobers and shrinks the spirit to face the reality that nothing of the core dreams has transpired and it remains an enduring illusion. The reason: the poor quality of leadership who pawned the future of the country to their own self-interests.

Ten days from Malaysia Day, Sabah, one of the three territories that formed Malaysia, the other two being Sarawak and Singapore (which was expelled in 1965), goes to the polls because the chief minister asked for the assembly to be dissolved after rival leader Musa Aman claimed he had the majority support to become chief minister following 16 defections.

Just days before that Musa, who had been facing 46 charges of money laundering and corruption involving timber concessions in Sabah, had all his charges inexplicably dropped by the prosecution.

But his bid for power through the back door caused by jumping frogs was thwarted when the governor agreed with Shafie Apdal, the chief minister, and called for new elections. Paradoxically, Musa has been dropped from the opposition’s list of candidates - we wait with bated breath.

We all know why these people defected - any Malaysian would derisively laugh in your face if you told them that they moved camps because of idealistic reasons or because of altruism. And surprisingly - or not surprisingly - no authority has seen it fit to investigate why they switch ponds. An evidently corrupt practice is simply accepted just like that.

A compliant judiciary used the freedom of association clause in the constitution to legitimise party-hopping with no need for an elected people’s representative to vacate his seat upon changing parties, a practice that perpetuated an unstable state assembly in Sabah for many years as the moneyed peddled to topple elected governments.

Sabah’s jumping frogs, some prodded by the federal government, caused state governments to fall while the “IC project” which led to many foreign Muslims becoming Sabahans through a federally-sponsored programme to change population demographics made it impossible for Sabahans to exercise their democratic rights fairly.

Untrammelled exploitation

Months earlier, across the South China Sea in Peninsular Malaysia, history was created when for the first time ever a federal Malaysian government was toppled after elected MPs from Harapan defected to the Perikatan Nasional coalition.

The political situation is in shambles. Race and religion are used shamelessly and seditiously to gain popular support. Selective prosecution and differential punishment depending on the status of the offended and offending party highlight inequality under the law.

The oppression of minorities in the name of religion and race is justified over and over again and sentiments against others are fanned and flamed, moving us further and further away from the goal of one people, one nation, making it just a distant dream.

The Malaysia Agreement of 1963 (MA63) which dictates the terms under which Sabah and Sarawak are in Malaysia are in tatters with steady deterioration in the terms caused by complicit and corrupt leaders both from the two states and at the federal level.

While Sabahans and Sarawakians now call for oil and gas rights to revert to the states or a large proportion of revenue to be channelled back into the states one wonders how much of these will flow back to the poor and disadvantaged, some of the poorest in Malaysia.

The gross, untrammelled exploitation of the fabled, fabulous timber resources in both states for the benefit of a couple of handfuls of rich people both businessmen and politicians, some of the richest in all of Malaysia, engenders little confidence that if oil and gas resources had gone to the states it would have been properly allocated.

And if Malaysians can’t freely work and live in Sabah and Sarawak the way those from the states can in the peninsula, what does it say about Malaysia as a concept? Meantime, aspects of MA63 negotiations are still classified as official secrets. Why? MA63 needs reworking badly.

Malaysia berjaya? No, we are not even close. Would this government at the federal level and those at the state levels be able to take us closer to that goal? No! It needs new governments and enlightened leadership at both levels.

Problem is, there are not a great number of leaders out there. But a start is to kick out those who are there and can’t perform and to keep on kicking them out until we find some who can do the job.

Oh Malaysia, it’s going to be a while yet before we berjaya. But let’s never give up.

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P GUNASEGARAM says that change starts with all of us. - Mkini

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.