9/16/2011

A revolution in Malaysia

First he took a major step to sweep aside all the historical baggage and irrational emotional misgivings to sign a deal with Singapore to exchange the railway land with comparable parcels of land. This brought a lot of ire from the old guards who criticized him for being a softie.

Then he talked about treating all the racial groups more equally to the displeasure of his UMNO radicals. Some even accusing him of selling out the interests of the Malays.

His minister also made an affront to conventional wisdom by wanting to limit the sales of properties to stop speculations and a spiraling of property prices.

Now he did the unthinkable, by abolishing the controversial Internal Security Acts that had outlived its usefulness and being abused by politicians to threaten, harrass and arrest political enemies.

The Malaysian PM Najib Razak is turning himself into a revolutionary of a kind that is beyond imagination. Who would ever imagine this aristocratic son of a conservative and ultra Malaysia Prime Minister taking such bold steps to change the ethos of the political culture of his country.

The changes that have started to roll under Najib will have wide ranging ramifications to the modernization of Malaysia and pull Malaysia from the doldrums of selfish and parochial politicking that is getting the country no where.

Malaysia is undergoing a revolution under Najib Razak. Would he go one step further by returning the banks and conglomerates they seized from the Malaysian Chinese and let the original owners run them back to health? Or would he be happy to let the bumiputras run them to the ground? The Malaysian economy has been stagnated for the last few decades when it could have flown off to the sky. The remaking of Malaysia cannot be done alone by the bumiputras and the bumiputra policies. Malaysia needs real businessmen and entrepreneurs to attain 2 digit GDP growth and to compete in the international markets.

The political revolution must follow with economic and social revolution.

5 comments:

notanotherspinstory said...

Najib only want to appear revolutionary and win votes. Next you will see new laws coming up to curtail freedom.

In Singapore you can say it is fat hope that our ISA and mandatory death penalty laws will be scrapped.
Also that annoying PAP press.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

If it is another wayang, then let it be.

Anonymous said...

If abolishing the ISA is wayang, then my goodness, this is a BIG wayang of gigantic proportions!

Anonymous said...

Me too. I follow M'sian politics closely. This is one big wayang. Two or three laws are being drafted.Who is to say that these will not be more draconian than ISA? Clown Najib approved a 6% sales tax for a lot of stuff, including a 6% tax on prepaid phone cards. He made public appeal to phone companies not to charge consumers! When they were instructed, by law, to collect on the government's behalf.

Anonymous said...

Agreed that the 6% tax on prepaid cards is done real sneaky!