In 1969, shortly after the traumatic race riot that nearly ripped Malaysia apart, an angry and impatient young politician wrote a most unusual letter to the prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj.

Written in Malay, the letter used the most polite and deferential language, tone, and form that characterised communications between a peasant and his ruler. It was classic of a feudal Malay society, as Malaysia was at that time. Despite that, the petition could not hide its blunt and trenchant message: The Tunku must go.

Such a frontal challenge to a leader was unprecedented in polite and highly structured traditional Malay society that prides itself in orderly and predictable succession. That gauntlet could only have been thrown by someone either unbelievably stupid and reckless, or very sure of himself and his assessment of the citizens' mood.

Incensed, the Tunku saw to it that the politician was expelled from the party. Thus was how Mahathir Mohamad was stripped of his Umno membership.

Mahathir was smart enough to lay low and not further provoke the Tunku. In the end the Tunku did resign, and the ever-wise Mahathir did not crow. After a suitable grace period in deference to the Tunku's sensibility, his successor Tun Abdul Razak Hussein 'rehabilitated' Mahathir and soon after, appointed him to the important position of Education Minister. The rest is history.

Thanks in large measure to Mahathir, today's Malay society is less feudal. Communications between rulers and ruled are no longer formal, rigid, or deferential. They are direct and often frontal, dispensing with the ceremonial and reverential language of the past.

Mahathir is no Tunku, but more to the point, I am no Mahathir. Thus I do not expect a Tunku-like response from Mahathir, nor do I await a Mahathir-like fate for my views.

Open letter to the PM

You (Dr Mahathir) seem invigorated lately by the West's belated recognition of your considerable leadership qualities. While President Bush and others may have been slow in recognising your talent, rest assured that for many Malaysians, your place in our history books is secure.

No segment of the populace has benefited more from your able leadership than Malays. It must therefore pain you immensely to see in the twilight of your career to have Malays turning against you.

You may eerily wonder whether your fate might be like that of your predecessor, Tunku Abdul Rahman. He led the country peacefully to independence; despite that he was later hounded out of office and then ignominiously ignored.

The old man later bitterly lamented that even the nation's history books do not mention his name in recounting its path to freedom. It would be sad indeed were you to share Tunku's destiny, a man you so mercilessly tormented 30 years ago. The irony would be providential.

The world has changed since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and not just in America. Whereas Americans once severely berated you for jailing those extremists, today those same leaders are lauding you for your decisive actions.

You rightly see through their hypocrisy, but this time you were smart enough not vocalise it. Obviously to the West, preventive detention and other flagrant abuses of human rights and due process are fine as long as the targets are anti-Western elements.

On your part, you crow about how America is learning a thing or two from Malaysia by adopting some of the elements of the ISA in its new Patriot Act. I disagree with your assessment. The Patriot Act is meant for foreigners, not Americans; the ISA on the other hand is directed against our own citizens. In your enthusiasm for what you think you can teach America, you have missed this essential difference.

As a leader you have given the nation much-needed direction. Your Vision 2020 aimed at turning Malaysia into a developed and moral society is truly, well, visionary. Unlike many leaders who are consumed with shouting one slogan after another, much like the leader caricatured in Shahnon Ahmad's short story Ungkapan (Sloganeering), you have backed up your vision with careful planning and concrete proposals. Indeed I would argue, too much planning and too specific a proposal. There are dangers to both. Let me elaborate.

Over-planning

In the mid-1970s the City of Edmonton, Canada, was planning a massive suburban development. The city planners did something unusual. Instead of planning every detail they merely drew up conceptual drawings. They began filling in the details as development progressed.

Instead of building expensive sidewalks and pedestrian paths immediately as was the usual practice for example, the planners left empty spaces. A year after the residents had moved in, the natural pathways that they had chosen would become obvious and the city would then pave the pathways. Thus it avoided paving sidewalks that would rarely be used.

The lesson here is that we cannot always anticipate accurately everything; we must therefore be flexible and ready to modify our plans with changing conditions and on the feedback. In short, we should "plan for the unplanned".

I am sceptical of elaborate plans; the more detailed they are, the more detached they would be from reality. I have never been impressed with Malaysia's multitude of Five-Year Plans. They have a faint Soviet odour about them.

The Seventh Malaysia Plan that began in 1995 was quickly reduced to irrelevance by the economic crisis of 1997. It is naive to think that every governmental activity could be forced into the same five-year time frame. Five years would be an eternity when dealing with Information Technology.

On the other hand for education, a five-year span is too short. Policies on such an important issue as education must never be changed on a whim. The same is true of economic and trade policies. Investors want stability when making long-term investments. It would be smarter for each department or sector to have its own short- and long-term plans, with the time frame to be determined independently.

Thus instead of a flurry of meetings consuming the entire government machinery to the exclusion of its regular work and responsibility, have a few select committees or commissions to study and recommend what the long-term missions are in specific areas like trade and education, and then develop the short-term plans to reach or achieve those goals in steps.

Having said that, I am still cautious and sceptical of central planning. The problem with Malays today is that our lives have been over-planned. We have been told to this and that, and then later reversed to that and this. In the end nothing works.

We were told that our culture and values hinder us in the modern world, and then told to celebrate and hold high our heritage and ideals. We were told to ignore English and to use our Malay language instead, only to be later told on the importance of English. We are urged to pursue the sciences and yet we do not reward those who do take up the challenge. No wonder our people are confused. We have been yanked back and forth too many times.

As I have never believed that a committee or planning commission can achieve anything meaningful, I set forth my own ideas with a view that they would be a starting point for a national dialogue.

Global society

Over the long term Malaysia must commit to joining the global mainstream, and be an active and contributing participant. We must recognise the inevitability of globalisation and the further spread of free enterprise. We must also recognise that these two trends would continue to evolve.

A generation hence they will assume far different and better forms than what they are today. If we do not embrace them now, it would be that much more difficult to adjust later when we would inevitably be forced to join the mainstream.

Additionally we should commit to the ideals of a civil and moral society, and strive to be one. By this I mean a society that values individual rights and freedom; is ruled by law and civil institutions, and respectful of the differences among us.

Like globalisation and free enterprise, the detailed form and shape of a civil society will continue to evolve, modified by time and culture, but the sooner we embrace the concept the better we will be. It should not surprise us to discover that the ideals of a civil society as envisioned by civil libertarians in the West is also very much the ideals celebrated in Islam.

As a nation we are now closing in on our fifth decade. We have come a long away. We are a far different society today than we were a generation ago, in no small measure due to your enlightened leadership. The assumptions we have of ourselves then are no longer valid today, so too are our policies that were based on those assumptions.

We need new strategies to meet fresh challenges. Without being presumptuous I suggest six specific areas we should concentrate on in preparing our citizens for this new reality.

  • Embrace the reality of globalisation, free trade, and capitalism

  • Enhance the competitiveness of all Malaysians

  • Strengthen our laws and civil institutions

  • Buttress our social fabric and safety net

  • Optimise our natural attributes

  • Empower our people

    • By committing to globalisation we are sending a clear message not only to our citizens but also the world that Malaysia is now adopting international or universal standards. We no longer accept that being "good enough for Malaysia" is good enough.

    We are already doing many of these things. There is however, a significant difference in doing something grudgingly or because we have to, and doing them because we are committed to the ideals. It's all in the attitude.

    Bumiputera vs non-bumiputera

    Right from the very beginning Malaysia wisely eschewed socialism, although we have not shied away from massive state interventions in the private sector. Initially the rationale was to achieve social and racial equity, but like so many government initiatives, these programmes have a life and momentum of their own. Thus even though they have proven to be not the most effective ways of addressing the problems as well as their massive price tags, nonetheless they have persisted and expanded though sheer momentum.

    You insist that the "commanding heights" and strategic sectors of the economy be under local or even public control, in the belief that they are too important to be left in the private sector or foreign hands. I disagree. I have no qualms were Malaysia Airlines (MAS) and our giant utility companies like Tenaga Nasional and Telekom Malaysia controlled by foreigners.

    The job of our government should be to ensure that we have enough trained Malaysians to be their executives, professionals, and technicians. There is no point in MAS being government-owned if it is a drain on the Treasury or if its local managers are incompetent.

    Our precious and limited resources ought to be diverted away from owning these expensive companies and instead directed towards developing our most precious asset: our people. Once we have an abundance of trained and capable personnel then it would be easy for us to start our own local ventures.

    What you are now doing is putting the cart before the horse. That has never worked and never will. Your ambitious Multimedia Super Corridor project bogs down for lack of competent personnel.

    Your preoccupation with and frequent harping on the bumiputera and non-bumiputera rivalry is shortsighted and counter productive. We should make all Malaysians competitive. We should look upon each other not in terms of the bumiputera and non-bumiputera dichotomy, rather as potential clients, customers, and business partners. We would achieve this best under free enterprise. To a businessperson it does not matter where profits come from: locally or from foreigners.

    I totally disagree with your characterisation of globalisation as a vehicle for Western hegemony or that it would destroy our way of life. We are more likely to maintain and indeed enhance our culture and heritage if we are successful economically.

    If we were marginalised economically, our culture and language too would suffer the same fate. If we do not climb on the globalisation train now we will be left behind economically. We would also be more tolerant and altruistic when we are prosperous and affluent than if we are poor and struggling. This applies to government as well.

    Yes, globalisation carries its own risks and problems. There are many shoals and reefs in the ocean of globalisation. The best way to handle that is to train our citizens to be better sailors and navigators, not to remain in port. To extend the maritime metaphor, yes there will be swells and storms out there; our crew must therefore be adept at trimming the sails and battening down the hatches.

    You justify harsh and restrictive rules like the ISA on the fear that our present stability is fragile, and that with minor disturbances we would regress. I cannot blame you for this attitude. One needs only look at previously prosperous and stable societies now reduced to their backward status through social unrest.

    In the 1950s Lebanon was the jewel of the Middle East. Its American University in Beirut was the breeding ground for fertile Arab intellectuals and scientists. A generation later the very survival of that nation is in doubt. Yugoslavia only recently hosted the glittering Winter Olympic Games at its breathtaking mountain city of Sarajevo; today that nation no longer exists.

    I am cognizant of those realities; nonetheless we cannot launch into the next trajectory of development unless we change our precepts. If we constantly fear of falling back, we will never be able to scale the top of the mountain. As the late Malay scholar and philosopher Hamka succinctly put: Takut gagal adalah gagal sejati (The fear of failure is the real failure).


    This essay is the last chapter of Dr M BAKRI MUSA's book Malaysia in the Era of Globalization, published in June 2002. The author is a surgeon in Silicon Valley, California. He has a previous book, The Malay Dilemma Revisited: Race Dynamics in Modern Malaysia.