I’d like to talk about Malaysia’s lost generation. I am not talking about the formal apology that the Canadian, Australian and the United States government made to their natives. I am taking about the Generation X and Y, in other words, the younger generation, those who are children to the baby-boomers of yesteryears.

 

Our forefathers and parents have tasted for the last 54 years the rule of the BN government and have been thankful to the leaders for guiding Malaysia to where it is today. As with any tastes and fashion, flavours change as generations progress.

The generation before us had been served the same dishes from the same kitchen by different cooks for the last 54 years. In this generation, should we continue eating the same dishes coming out from that same kitchen?

 

It was argued that our forefathers and parents were blindly guided to vote in BN all these years. They believed what they had read and heard from the mainstream media. They were told that the opposition leaders have no principles, no integrity and no credibility. Most importantly, that they have no leadership capabilities.

True maybe in those days, though I am already hearing background chatter that this is disputable. But in this generation, after so many years of opposition politics, there are certain people who do have principles and have shown leadership capabilities. They need to be given a stage to demonstrate and prove their worth. They need to be given the opportunity to lead.

 

Many have argued that despite the many flaws of the current government, and that there is no such thing as a perfect government, we should continue to support the current government because they are the incumbent and dominant party.

We are told the opposition is no better than the current government and we must never risk our future with opportunistic opposition leaders. If this statement is true, Malaysia’s potential will continue to be capped where other nations have taken off.

Already, many analysts are predicting that Indonesia will soon overtake Malaysia and Malaysia will one day look upon Indonesia for survival. Do not think this will not happen.

The world once saw China as a backward and undeveloped nation with no purchasing power, now even the wealthy and powerful in Hong Kong have to rely on China for their survival and every country is competing to see how fast they are able to roll out their red carpet to welcome the Chinese tourists arriving in droves.

 

We the younger generation have at our disposal many tools that were not available to our forefathers and parents then. Many of the ills that used to be swept under the carpet are now given an airing by the alternative media, which were kept out from our forefathers and parents domains.

The internet revolution and now the social media tools propagated many of these exposes even further and beyond our shores. Some were skeptical reading many of these exposes as many are made to believe the alternate media’s goal is to shame the government, so it is up to us to judge what our forefathers and parents had been deprived of.

 

Many among us the younger generation have argued that we should continue placing our trust with the current government as it too risky to change. I do not support that argument. Nothing changes if nothing changes. We just end up continuing to live with the ills of the current government.

But it would have been an eye-opener to see what the opposition alliance could do if they were to run the country. Would they be able to live up to what they claim they could do better than the current government?

I strongly believe they do, maybe not immediately during the first term of office but we should see improvement in the second term, hopefully into the future too. And I hope we can reclaim the lost generation in the next election.