[Presented at the Fifth Annual Alif Ba Ta Conference at Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, organized by UMNO Club of New York-New Jersey, January 29, 2011.]
Q&A: Change, Corruption, and Talent Recruitment
Q1:We went through a momentous change, a political tsunami as it were, with the 2008 general elections, yet things have remained unchanged. What would it take to effect real change in our country?
A1:I understand and share your frustration. What will it take for our country to change for the better? I am certain that a few weeks ago the average Tunisians felt the same way as you do now; likewise the Egyptians, until just a few days ago. So do not despair, change will come. My hope is that when it arrives, we will be spared the fate now endured by the Tunisians and Egyptians.
Until then we must register at every opportunity and in every way our distaste and disapproval of the current state of affairs. We have representatives from the embassy and the Ministry of Higher Education here. They will hear what we have to say.
I do not know what the trigger or tipping point will be for Malaysia. In Tunisia it was a hawker who burned himself, fed up with the highhanded ways of the authorities. In Malaysia I thought it was Anwar's black eye; then there was Hindraf's rally.
Since Anwar's infamous black eye, we have become inured with police brutality; so I do not think any of their highhanded ways, however vicious, would be the tipping point. We also have had enough sex scandals in high places, including a case of statutory rape. So a sex scandal no matter how sordid would not be enough; likewise with corruption with top officials.
Perhaps it would take a combination of all three, salacious sex, senseless violence involving the police, and corruption at the very highest level to trigger a tipping point. For all I know such a scandal has already occurred. However, a scandal will not become one until it is exposed.
It may not even be a scandal but something relatively minor as the graduate who burned himself in Tunisia. The point is that the tinder is accumulating and the air is dry. It would not take much to ignite it and then a conflagration would result. How long will Malays continue to believe the canard fed to us, that all our problems are due to the colonialists, the West, and the pendatangs? Sooner or later we will discover that we have been led by the same UMNO for over half a century and we have not change. When that moment of realization arrives, that will be the tipping point.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device from STC
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