Change is a word that has never been so popular. It used to be feared and associated with instability. Change, our political masters once said, is good but should be applied and determined by us. This was not necessarily a bad thing.

Change was well-managed in the first few decades after independence. We moved from a primary-based industry reliant on tin and rubber to our present-day manufacturing and export -driven model. In the process, the services-related sector also grew. It seemed we could manage economic change without much difficulty.

But social change was another matter all together. If anyone cared to read Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah's blog entry on ‘Chow Kit', readers would get a glimpse of the results of our highly competitive society. Child prostitution, drug addiction and crime now envelop our cities.

I remember watching the Malay serial ‘Opah' in the 1980s. Here was a story of a grandmother visiting her children in the big city and encountering all sorts of culture shock. ‘Bakar dipanggil Burn', Opah complained. Today, if Opah visited Kuala Lumpur, particularly Chow Kit, she would be heading straight home on the next available bus.

Social change that accompanied our rapid material development has left us a much improverished people. We lack real choices because every mall we visit has the same shops and the same brands. Every food outlet the same processed food. Coffee tastes the same throughout the great malls. All this has created a restless and disgruntled middle-class. The old remedy of ‘strong leadership' telling us what to do is not going to work anymore.

For the urban poor, life can be quite a challenge. If in the 1980s, a whole family could survive on the salary of one person but today both parents need to be at work just to keep above the poverty line. It does not help that our government insists on using the same yardstick to measure poverty disregarding the reality that the cost of living in urban areas is much higher.

We have some major thinking to do and with the new prime minister waiting in the wings, let us hope that a comprehensive agenda to address the problems of social change will be considered. For the results of badly managed social change is political change. This politicians must remember.

If there are rumbles on the ground, eventually discontent rises up fueling the ‘demand' for change. Perhaps, a hint to the BN at this point is necessary - the type of change happening in Perak is definitely not what most people had in mind.

To my mind, there is a danger that we are entering a period where we demand change for change itself. What are we really demanding? That the government of the day be defeated in the next election (state level or federal)? What comes after that change?

This is the bogey that the BN will be putting to Malaysians. But the choice is no longer between order and anarchy. Malaysians have grown much more mature than the government gives us credit for.

The reality that is facing the BN is that Pakatan Rakyat is now seen as a credible alternative. Some people are no longer interested in how the BN reforms itself. If corruption is to be rooted out, the best way is to change the whole lot. To these people, a new broom always sweeps

better.

For the BN itself, reform must be shown in deeds. The time for talk and grand ideas is over. This economic crisis will be protracted and its effects felt over the next few years. Some say that the people will have short memories of the Perak incident, the MACC and other related matters. The good times will make them forget.

There will be no more good times left if we do not take this opportunity to put our house in order especially our rotten education system. For the next wave of change, economically and socially as black as the Jack of Spades, will wash us off the cliff. By that time, change will really mean regime change.