THE CICAK.com

Najib needs to walk the talk

By WAN MOHD AIMRAN WAN MOHD KAMIL

It is no secret that there is a higher likelihood of you rubbing shoulders with or, at the very least, catching a glimpse of elite Malaysian politicians here in London than back in Malaysia. And in mid-January, Malaysians in London made their pilgrimage to the Malaysia Hall to hear Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak speak.

I wasn’t the least bit impressed by the things he said. There were times I felt Najib was talking more about how Malaysia ought to be rather than how the country is now. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it does make me wonder whether he was naive or simply detached from the country’s social and political undercurrents.

He might have been able to get away with such statements if he were addressing some isolated, submissive audience back in Malaysia. But Najib has to remember that the government’s grip on local news media does not extend beyond the country.

Malaysians overseas are not subjected to the daily onslaught of biases, mind-numbing propaganda and spin-doctoring that saturates the local media. We have wider access to other sources of information such as alternative news sites, blogs and foreign news channels.

And so we are not so gullible.

For instance, he claimed that the sole prerequisite for self advancement in Malaysia is sheer hard work. He backed-up this statement by pointing to some politicians who came from poor backgrounds. Najib clearly forgot his own privileged background, being the son of Malaysia’s second prime minister.

If the deputy prime minister thought he could convince the audience that all they needed to succeed and rise through the ranks in Malaysia is hard work, hard work and more hard work, then he is gravely mistaken.

If his claims were true, I believe that Malaysia would not be bleeding its talents so profusely to other countries as she is doing now.

For all his sermonizing about equal opportunities in Malaysia, there is still the long shadow cast on the Malaysian socio-political landscape by the New Economic Policy (NEP).

A policy which was originally planned to be in place for a finite amount of time until the Bumiputras could confidently stand on their own feet. Unfortunately NEP was surreptitiously transformed into a bountiful gravy train catering to the appetites of a select few.

He talks about the need to fine-tune the NEP and to ensure that it will succeed in elevating the social, economic and political standing of poor Bumiputras.

But how will we ever know when the poor Bumiputras are financially stable, when our government can’t agree on a target. It doesn’t help that academic discourse on the matter is off limits.

Najib continues to talk about building trust and respect between the races and his affection for “synergistic relationships.” But how can we achieve that when there are politicians who find it more expedient to adopt a sloppy reductionist stance toward race relations and cling on to communal politics.

The deputy prime minister makes haste when talking about the country’s latest obsession – to ” manufacture human capital” in order to complement the country’s first world infrastructure. Big words. Big ambitions.

Najib needs to walk the talk.

He also spoke about the need for “accountability and transparency” in the government but seemed more content to pass the buck around and less willing to spend the resources to set the country on a route toward achieving that goal.

In the end, he is almost always saying the right things - or rather things that all of us would like to hear. But the reality is not as rosy as he makes it out to be.

The bottom line is that we cannot begin to fix a problem, and at the same time admit that there is none. Such mindset is at best, deluded and at worst, dangerous.

And to think that such blatant oversight could come out from the second most powerful man in the country is not very reassuring at all.

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WAN MOHD AIMRAN WAN MOHD KAMIL is an editor for theCICAK.

He is currently a final-year physics undergraduate at Imperial College London. Aimran considers himself extremely lucky to be given an opportunity to reflect and write about pressing issues in the Malaysian socio-political scene, through which he ultimately hopes to affect the direction his country will take in the future. In short, he truly feels that he is “living in interesting times.” Visit his site.