Students from Malaysian Progressives in Australia (MPOZ) attended a seminar with guest speaker Punithan Paramsiven (MIC National Youth information chief). Here we report our observations and thoughts, and pick apart the government’s narrative on TN50 for the readers’ benefit. Happily, we find it is not necessary to rely on standard opposition criticisms of BN’s accountability.

A not-really-new kind of plan

BN tells us that TN50 is different from Wawasan 2020, being a bottom-up plan with measurable targets. It boasts of the many measures it has used to seek out our ‘aspirations’, from roadshows to video contests and even a specially-designed app. It is to be an example of citizen-driven governance, “just like Turkey”.

In reality, important aspects of TN50 have been decided. The government’s own website mentions such things as ‘commercial space travel’, ‘death of the office’ and privatisation of government services. One friend labelled it ‘space capitalism’.

There is not one mention of more pertinent issues like cost of living, race-relations and corruption. Our guest told us the rakyat needed “new issues” to be “inspired by”.

Wawasan's goals are measurable, and we’ve failed to meet them. Seven percent yearly growth was dubious from the start. Malaysia is far from the ‘tolerant’ and ‘economically just’ mature democracy that Dr Mahathir Mohamad outlined, through no small fault of his own. Any opinion poll can tell you that. We can measure whatever goals TN50 comes up with just the same.

Picking your targets

One major talking point involved saying that TN50 was not political, that the opposition should accept it if it ever forms the government. Our guest was keen to distance himself from the ‘politicians’ that caused all our problems (note his post). Let us drop this assumption that politics is limited to what happens between suits in the Dewan Rakyat.

When a student lamented the threats of May-13 style violence that pop up every time a non-Malay PM is suggested, our guest would only wag his finger at the opposition for not daring to break the mould themselves. When asked how TN50 would deal with mutually exclusive aspirations (around gay rights for instance), our guest would only say that they would try to “understand” both viewpoints.

Is your viewpoint on these questions not dictated by your politics? Is the decision about whether they're important to TN50 not political in itself? Does that politics not happen to line up more closely with the neoliberal policies of BN?

There can be no denying that TN50 serves a political function, whatever BN members themselves believe. Najib Abdul Razak himself has made known his intentions to campaign hard in GE14 to obtain a mandate for “many other transformations”.

In pursuing the aim of a ‘high-income nation’, the government seems picky. It wants shiny AI robots, space travel, bio- and nanotechnology. Our guest even tried to justify the Goods and Services Tax (GST) by saying that most rich countries seem to have one.

Does it also wish to give us rights to free education and healthcare? The right to protest? The right of farmers to their land? Proper investment in broadband and public transport? Richer and more progressive societies struggle with these questions all the same, and for good reason.

Facade

We are forced to conclude that TN50 is a facade. The consultation process can provide no guarantee that views contrary to the government’s will be accepted.

The government has made no special effort to survey rural, Orang Asli or impoverished communities. We are asked to have a ‘mindset change’, to convert our frustrations into aspirations, but the government does not seem interested in doing the same.

The fundamental nature of TN50, Wawasan, and indeed all other national plans in every country are necessarily focused on economic competition. Under pressure, the welfare of their most vulnerable citizens is dropped first. TN50 is not really asking us what we want to achieve; it asks what we are prepared to sacrifice so that our gross domestic product (GDP) ticks upwards faster.

Up to us

Yet many students present felt they could not trust TN50 given the government’s record of corruption and race-baiting. Even when it stumbles upon progressive policies like handouts to the poor or market regulations, the rakyat often guess correctly that there are ulterior motives. It all seems like a show to them.

The reality of endless competition between states means that the only true hope for citizen-driven governance here in Malaysia and everywhere else is for proud democratic and activist traditions to be revived. We will only receive our share from Malaysia’s success if we can fight for it.

We urge students and all Malaysians to organise and challenge oppression and inequality wherever they see it, from their own schools and workplaces to the halls of Parliament itself. We live under a government that refuses to offer change when we demand it on the streets; asking for change through an app will only waste our time.

JASON WONG is president, Malaysian Progressives in Australia (MPOZ), which is a movement of young Malaysians in Australia who strive for open dialogue of political reform in Malaysia.