In 1991 the then prime minister of Malaysia launched Vision 2020. The nine challenges spelt out in this vision that promised to propel Malaysia onto the platform of the developed world, seized the nation with fervent hope comparable perhaps to the spirit that marched the nation to Merdeka in 1957.
Today, after almost two decades we witness how that same political party that served the Tun Dr Mahathir has placed the Vision 2020 in a precarious dilemma. With two decades under the bridge and hardly a decade to the grandeur goal of Year 2020, we witness how far we have drifted from the much acclaimed Wawasan’s nine challenges.
One of the nine challenges which we cannot deny butchering mercilessly and incessantly is the fourth challenge.
For the millions who do not even recall any of the nine challenges, the fourth challenge is about “establishing a fully moral and ethical society, whose citizens are strong in religious and spiritual values and imbued with the highest of ethical standards” (Malaysia: The Way Forward, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, February, 1991).
Moral and ethical
Let us take a quick cursory tour of the all too familiar episodes these past several years:
We have witnessed the ugly Sodomy I that split people along religious, moral and ethical values.
We witnessed ‘cow head’ marches; the Bible stamping (or defacing as how the rakyat have come to regard the incident); the outcries for race and religion-based blood at UMNO’s Assembly; the re-instatement of sex-tainted politicians within BN while crusading against others; and many more incidents that echoed the desecration of moral and ethical principles synonymous of a civilized society.
Today we are still struggling under the strangulating Sodomy II accompanied by a free-fall of porn tapes flooding the country without any restrain or punitive action.
Today the battle cry for political power is one that is based on the dangerous boundaries of race and religion. And money politics is the standard operating procedure.
Nation at its lowest ebb
The fourth challenge of Vision 2020 is demanding the establishment of a ‘strong and fully moral and ethical society’. But going by the numerous cases of corruption that are being dragged slowly through the hallways of justice or still waiting outside the very fences of justice, raises more questions than providing answers.
So many individuals within the corridors of power and wealth have brazenly continued their plundering antics without any cares for this fourth challenge that was chiseled by the same government two decades ago.
Just look at the way a top public servant drove up in his Rolls Royce to cast his vote recently. Just look at the way we are hearing of how politicians are spending huge sums of money. How about the eyeball-popping amount of money being splurged to renovate one’s home? What about the still missing link of having C4-ed a foreign national and having her entry-egress immigration records vanish?
Illicit sex and corruption - the very enemy of an ethical and fully moral society has taken its root, thereby butchering one of Malaysia’s nine challenges originally designed to seeing the nation rise to ride the big waves of developed status.
And we are till this day continuing with more sleaze, sins of sex, corruption, flimsy accounting of national expenditure, and what have you.
Even the Bersih 2.0 rally which in essence is all about propping-up and propelling the fourth challenge of Vision 2020 is instead being resisted and arm-twisted with all kinds of jeopardizing threats.
Dumped
Meanwhile, if you took a tour of PAS controlled territories, for example, you see a different picture. Every effort is being taken to strengthen the morals and ethics within the society - its followers and leaders. The most recent transformational and quantum leap creation of a moderate PAS and the successful establishment of its ‘Welfare State’ principle of governance are to be noted.
Visiting a PAS managed State will give one a first-hand appreciation of how citizens live respectfully of each other’s religious and spiritual values. You never get to hear of ‘cow head’ marches; discrimination and copyright issues in the use of the name of God; peddling of sex-porn videos to discredit anyone; etc.
BN should re-appraise itself. Rather than take a defensive position with retaliation, it serves well for serious reflection. Sincere accountability in a transparent manner with a generous sprinkling of humility and admissibility can serve BN better. Even the very principle architect of our nation’s Wawasan till this day is of no help either especially with his cynical and divisive and deeply entrenched responses in the media.
The question that matters is: Since it was the BN government that originated the Vision 2020 and spelt out so crystal clearly the nine challenges for every Malaysian, why is it today, that same BN is butchering the very challenges especially the fourth of the nine benchmarks of a developed nationhood?
Or has Vision 2020 been dumped?
- J. D. Lovrenciear is a reader and contributor to Malaysia Chronicle
Malaysia As A Fully Developed Country - One Definition
- By the year 2020, Malaysia can be a united nation, with a confident Malaysian society, infused by strong moral and ethical values, living in a society that is democratic, liberal and tolerant, caring, economically just and equitable, progressive and prosperous, and in full possession of an economy that is competitive, dynamic, robust and resilient.
- There can be no fully developed Malaysia until we have finally overcome the nine central strategic challenges that have confronted us from the moment of our birth as an independent nation.
- The first of these is the challenges of establishing a united Malaysian nation with a sense of common and shared destiny. This must be a nation at peace with itself, territorially and ethnically integrated, living in harmony and full and fair partnership, made up of one 'Bangsa Malaysia' with political loyalty and dedication to the nation.
- The second is the challenge of creating a psychologically liberated, secure, and developed Malaysian Society with faith and confidence in itself, justifiably proud of what it is, of what it has accomplished, robust enough to face all manner of adversity. This Malaysian Society must be distinguished by the pursuit of excellence, fully aware of all its potentials, psychologically subservient to none, and respected by the peoples of other nations.
- The third challenge we have always faced is that of fostering and developing a mature democratic society, practising a form of mature consensual, community-oriented Malaysian democracy that can be a model for many developing countries.
- The fourth is the challenge of establishing a fully moral and ethical society, whose citizens are strong in religious and spiritual values and imbued with the highest of ethical standards.
- The fifth challenge that we have always faced is the challenge of establishing a matured,liberal and tolerant society in which Malaysians of all colours and creeds are free to practise and profess their customs,cultures and religious beliefs and yet feeling that they belong to one nation.
- The sixth is the challenge of establishing a scientific and progressive society, a society that is innovative and forward-looking, one that is not only a consumer of technology but also a contributor to the scientific and technological civilisation of the future.
- The seventh challenge is the challenge of establishing a fully caring society and a caring culture, a social system in which society will come before self, in which the welfare of the people will revolve not around the state or the individual but around a strong and resilient family system.
- The eighth is the challenge of ensuring an economically just society. This is a society in which there is a fair and equitable distribution of the wealth of the nation, in which there is full partnership in economic progress. Such a society cannot be in place so long as there is the identification of race with economic function, and the identification of economic backwardness with race.
- The ninth challenge is the challenge of establishing a prosperous society, with an economy that is fully competitive, dynamic, robust and resilient. - Ends
