Competition good for country

Posted April 2008 by mijoan

March 25, 2008

Full house: Audience members applauding during the forum titled ‘New Politics in Post-Election Malaysia’ held at Menara Star Monday.

From the Star: By Jazlan

PETALING JAYA: The five opposition-held state governments must compete among themselves as well as with the Federal Government to prove to the electorate they are viable, a public forum was told yesterday

DAP Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua said the competition was actually extremely healthy for the country.

“In these states, the competition will be immense in bringing the country forward in terms of economic policies and politics,” he said.

“The Barisan will have to face the pressure of Penang becoming a fantastic success compared to the previous government.

“Will it lose more states in the peninsula if Penang becomes a model state for investment and economic administration?” he asked at The Star-ACMS public forum titled New Politics in Post-Election Malaysia.

Pua added that in Parliament, there would be competition between a possibly viable two-party system.

Among the Opposition parties, there would also be competition in the states they ruled. He said the DAP would set the pace to show that it could do the job better.

“If we do well, other states will also have to do well to prove to the people that their choices were not wrong.

“Before this, there was no competition to show that one could do better but more of a competition of who could make more money as an Adun (assemblyman),” he said.

On cooperation, Pua said in the past it was easy for Barisan to alienate the Opposition-led Kelantan as its economic contribution was minimal. However, in the current scenario, the Opposition rules the rich states of Penang, Perak and Selangor.

Pua said the reality was that there had to be politics of cooperation for Malaysia to move forward and for the Barisan to prove itself competent to win back the people’s trust.

He said the likelihood was that both parties would try to continue improving the economy and political affairs in the states but both would take credit for it.

“The strategy will not be to sabotage. You cannot do that anymore as too many states are involved and the stakes are too high for Barisan,” he said.

Former Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek said the political landscape had now changed completely and it could not be business as usual for Barisan nor the Opposition now.

He pointed out that the governments in the five states were under the microscope and faced many challenges as well as opportunities.

“But don’t forget that a new broom always sweeps clean, anywhere in the world,” he said, adding that other than PAS, none of the other parties had experience in administering states.

“If your learning curve is slow, you will be shown the door by voters in the next election the same way Barisan was shown the door on March 8.”

Dr Chua said people should be concerned about whether the new coalition partners could sit down together and administer the states or whether they would bicker among each other on who should call the shots.

He also questioned whether the Federal and state relationship would be one of confrontation or cooperation.

He added that even if there was cooperation, he wondered if it was because of political convenience or a genuine deal on a win-win basis.

Contending that it would likely not be all smooth sailing, he said the Opposition also faced tremendous challenges such as getting cooperation from the civil servants.

“If they succeed in overcoming the problems then it would present a challenge to Barisan as the people will then have a real alternative for Government.”

Pointing out that the people had voted for change, he said the Barisan component parties must change and the MCA should re-brand and re-strategise itself to regain the people’s support.

“We can no longer sing the same old tune of development, peace and stability as promises to the people as these are what the people expect from their Government,” he said.

He added that the party could no longer talk about new villages and its success in setting up TAR College and Utar as the Chinese now demanded more from the MCA and the young were alienated from issues like new villages.

MCA, he said, should feel the pulse of the Chinese community to enable it to articulate their fears, resentment and frustrations.

“However, Umno too, must accept the fact that the component parties must be more vocal and seen as championing the cause of the people they represent.

“Umno has to see that championing ethnic causes will not cause instability,” he said, adding that the MCA leadership must be interactive to reach out to the people.

Umno’s Pulai MP Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed agreed with Dr Chua that Umno needed to change.

He was concerned with the present situation in the country and for Umno.

He added that Umno had been rejuvenating itself over the years and the problem was how it should communicate the message that it had changed.

“We have rejuvenated the party but it’s just that we have been attacked from all sides and maybe we have a problem trying to respond in a way people want to hear,” he said.

He said many of the old parties in the region had gone through this painful process.

Giving an example of Indonesia, he said after the fall of Suharto many competing interests claiming to be forces of democracy stymied the political system and stunted the economic development of the country.

“Until today, Indonesia is struggling to find a clear cause in the absence of a shared vision in its direction because of the lack of leadership but Golkar, which is closely aligned to Suharto, defied its critics and still plays a major role in the political scene and has significant grassroots support,” he said.

He also pointed out the recent election victory of the Kuomintang presidential candidate despite the party being thrown out in 2000 when it was seen as promoting a concept of guided democracy despite developing Taiwan as an Asian economic tiger.

“The voters’ experiment with unbridled democracy was costly to the economy of Taiwan,” he said, adding that they now apparently were willing to sacrifice some independence and democracy in return for economic well-being and development by accepting the return of Kuomintang.

Nur Jazlan said there was a need to keep a balance between democracy and economic development by limiting and keeping check of the competing interests to have a clear and firm long-term direction for Malaysia’s development.

“My hope is the new non-Barisan governments, Barisan state governments and Federal Government act responsibly and find a shared goal as our forefathers did and continue their dream,” he said

However, DAP’s Klang MP Charles Santiago said that the election was about “reining in Umno”.

The Malays and Indians voted against Barisan because they felt their lives, families and jobs were not protected, he said.

He listed job security, intake of foreign workers and privatisation that caused higher cost of living as among the reasons for the discontentment among the lower-income Malays and Indians.

Santiago added that it was only fair to allow the Opposition governments to make some mistakes but it must be responsible to the people.

Gerakan secretary-general Datuk Seri Chia Kwang Chye said he would like to believe that there were positive changes, based on the election results, and that the people had done away with race-based politics.

By Jazlan

Posted in: Education, Human Rights, Malaysia Politics, Malaysian Government | Comments(0)

English proficiency will empower us

Posted February 2008 by mijoan

 

Tunku Abdul Aziz©New Sunday Times (Used by permission)
by Tunku Abdul Aziz

IT never fails to amuse me to see our reaction to international surveys in which Malaysia is included among countries that are put under a microscope and examined in detail for purposes of comparison on a range of social, economic and political issues.

We waste little time in discrediting those who show us in unfavourable light, and on the very rare occasion when we are praised for achieving something against the best in the world, we literally go over the top.

We tend to behave as an insecure child would who simply could not come to terms with reality — a forgivable failing in an immature person, but the same traits underpinning our national behaviour and psyche suggest a disturbing character defect.

Let us confine ourselves to two international surveys that make the greatest emotional impact on us, the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (TICPI) and the Times Higher Education Supplement-Quacquar elli Symonds (THES-QS) World University Rankings.

In the case of the TICPI, which first came out in 1995, showing Malaysia at roughly the half-way mark but well below Singapore, the reaction to begin with was unexpectedly hostile.

Then prime minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad was quick to dismiss the findings as a Western ploy to belittle our achievements.

The promoters of Transparency International Malaysia found themselves in a frightfully difficult position with the former prime minister firing a salvo, so early in the day, across the bows of the good ship “Transparency”.

We were upset and humiliated by the repeated accusations made by our powerful detractors that we were part of a foreign conspiracy to blacken Malaysia’s image.

When they realised that the TICPI was an important barometer of governance and was developing into the most authoritative single measure of comparative international corruption, with implications for foreign investment, their tune changed a little.

If the revelations now in the public domain are to be believed, then there is absolutely no room for complacency.

The THES-QS ranking of world universities has done its worst to the pride and fortunes of our self-proclaimed “world class” institutions of higher learning. It has, in one fell swoop, destroyed the myth of intellectual excellence of our universities.

Some vice-chancellors have taken the strictures in their stride, while the others who have thrived on, and made a virtue of mediocrity, have not been slow to question the validity of the methodology employed.

Some outstanding work is being done in many of our universities and they should continue to address internal weaknesses so that they will, in time, achieve academic excellence that has so far eluded them.

Learn from the surveys but do not become obsessed with rankings. We must first strengthen the foundation of our higher education through policies that encourage rather than control and regulate.

Excessive controls stifle new ideas and initiatives, and it is difficult for vice-chancellors to operate effectively in a highly regulated bureaucratic environment.

Today, the truly great universities of the West owe their outstanding contributions to knowledge in several important areas of human endeavour to the freedom of action they have enjoyed, to develop educational excellence without let or hindrance.

Politicians should not intrude into areas they least understand and in this way, they can hold universities accountable for results.

From my conversations with some of the more astute vice-chancellors, I have gained the impression that they would greatly welcome being left to their own devices to get on with their work on a day-to-day basis. It is a fair request.

There are today, 20 public universities and 15 university colleges in the country. But as we all know, bricks and mortar do not a university make: outstanding teachers attract outstanding students, and in combination with a dose of intellectual freedom, they form the ingredients for an ideas-challenged community of scholars.

The notion that having a doctorate is all that is required of a university teacher is one of the reasons why our standards are dismally low.

The output in terms of research publications in international journals of some of our university teachers is abysmally low even by Southeast Asian standards, so I am told.

Our future as a small nation, naturally not counting some two million Indonesian cousins in our midst, depends for the most part on our ability to compete with the best.

I cannot believe that we can be competitive globally unless we are prepared to recant our stand made more than three decades ago against the use of English as the language of instruction in our national schools.

That policy has crippled our competitive position and Singapore stands as a shining example of practical and sensible pragmatism. And haven’t they reaped enormous benefits from keeping standards high?

Displacing English in the name of nationalism has put this country back at least 50 years.

The unintended victims are the Malays who can find reasonable employment only in government agencies. With an English education, they do not need crutches to make their way in the world.

Before I am accused of being a cultural renegade, or worse, let me say that I am not suggesting that English should replace Bahasa Malaysia as our national language. It is the language of the whole of the Malay world; it is our unifying language.

I know about the argument that is being trotted out by warriors of Bahasa Malaysia that China and Japan do not need English to achieve global economic power. We are neither China nor Japan.

We must not forget that they are both homogenous societies with a very long tradition of respect for scholarship and learning.

They have a great capacity to absorb scientific and technical knowledge and have enormous resources for translating every book on every conceivable subject into their languages. Their strengths differ from ours and so are their social, economic and political imperatives.

Let us, as we become increasingly immersed in the globalised economy, think in global terms so that we may meet squarely the future challenges that are bound to come our way.

We can only do this by empowering our people to equip themselves with the language of world trade and communication.

Make English the language of instruction, Bahasa Malaysia and Mandarin compulsory languages, and Tamil a school subject where there is sufficient demand for it.

This change in our education strategy would bring enormous benefits to our young people of all races, particularly the rural Malays, whose only opportunity for engagement with the enlightened and exciting world of knowledge is by acquiring proficiency in English, which is denied them.

Our universities would be transformed and would attract international faculty members and students. We would set our students free from the intellectual constraints, incestuousness and inbreeding that unfortunately characterise the Malaysian campus environment.

A change of this magnitude requires of our leadership moral and intellectual courage of the highest order, but this will make a dramatic difference to the way we compete for opportunities: for the Malays, doing without the reliance on government largesse for basic survival would make them a more confident people.

On reflection, if I had been born in a kampung where education was limited to reading, writing and arithmetic, I would be still ploughing with a water buffalo in a padi field instead of annoying a lot of people with my opinion column in English.

And if you, my readers, had not been exposed to the English language, you would be spared the pain of reading all this. Worth thinking about.

The writer is a former president of Transparency International Malaysia and a former special adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on Ethics. He can be contacted at tunkua@gmail.com

Posted in: Education | Comments(0)