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LETTER | In the days of the BN government, the tagline "Malaysia boleh" was spoken with intense sarcasm; these words were actually spoken to mean exactly the opposite of their literary meaning. In dubious happenings or extremely ridiculous situations which the government and politicians caused or created, you hear the people chide, that is Malaysia-boleh.”

Malaysians put up with embarrassing moments that included events such as the government PR disaster in handling the missing plane, the media’s twists and turns to cover mistakes, highway signages that confuses and roads that take you round and round, missing test papers in national exams … the list went on and on for decades.

Malaysians’ confidence in themselves were eroding away. The mother of all damages is when Malaysia became the world’s record-breaking kleptocracy; getting named as the country with the largest corruption case in world history. Indeed, Malaysia “sangat boleh”. Malaysians were very embarrassed.

On May 9, exactly a month ago; this pariah image of a downtrodden and embarrassed Asian tiger crumbled overnight! When the people spoke loudly at the polls when Malaysians’ strong unity of purpose brought the opposition coalition to power and rejected a corrupt and irrelevant regime that ruled the country for over six decades, the world look at Malaysia with a fresh eye.

The outstanding unity of purpose shared among the races, the youth displayed an impressive level of participation at public discourse, at home and abroad. Strong cooperation among the opposition politicians and volunteers, how they organised the people behind national interest, and come out to “ vote to save the nation.”

Topping the glory of GE14 is a former prime minister returning to the arena of politics out of responsibility, at age 92. The nation also saw two of her most outstanding women, well- loved and admired; one became the first female deputy prime minister, another a role model of a faithful, loyal wife who stood with her husband to return to public duty.

Proudly, Malaysia made history. Hongkong veteran commentator Tao Jie (掏杰) was jubilant and declared over the radio of that city, “ the May 9 election victory in Malaysia is a landmark event for the global democratic movement;” he said, “what happened in Malaysia on May 9 was significant globally and it made global history.”

A month today by the new government, the rakyat watched them worked furiously to dismantle old structures that had burdened the country; in the process of this we saw an unprecedented openness emerged to engage the community and industry leaders. Daily, millions of Malaysians glued to the web pages, especially to Malaysiakini to follow every bit of latest developments to see how the new government will do.

The openness in its momentum is revealing a new Malaysia. If you may, a Malaysia hidden away in the past by a still “feudalist” government that cannot tolerate dissent and differences. A Malaysian character that can be described as “cool” by progressive and liberal standards, wrapped and hidden for decades.

In Asian’s development of last several decades, we have witnessed two nations rose from their old feudalistic image to assume modern and chic characters and national persona. First, it was the Japanese; who rose from the ruins of the war, the world see a new Japan, the euphoria on Japan climaxed when Japan was celebrated as No 1 on the world stage.

In almost every conceivable sphere of life, there is an excellent and elegant Japanese product. Japan is beautiful, Japanese things were sought after by the world. Japan spread soft power around the world and that power helped Japanese products to gain a place in the hearts of consumers around the world. I suspect this is also one of the reasons Malaysia had a Look East Policy in the 80s.

Then came South Korea. After the Seoul Olympics and the 1997 financial crisis, a new Korea entered the world stage. The old image of South Korea as a macho, militant industrial but developing nation full of worked horses and a strong-fisted dictatorship was replaced with beautiful men and women who lived a cool lifestyle. Then S Korea’s new generation of young leaders found inspirations and worked hard to reshape the country’s character and image through design, packaging and communication.

After several decades of concerted effort, K-pop and K-cool started to catch the world’s attention; young people were attracted to Korean culture, Caucasian young women were learning the Korean language so that they can appreciate Korean drama! Now we see Korean fashion, pop music, drama, food, kimchi and coffee became fashionable; suddenly everyone wants and must visit Korea to see how the 50 million Koreans lived the cool lifestyle.

Korean Cool has transformed Korean’s international image and made her a new cultural superpower. Following the western path, most nations developed from agrarian to industrial and export economies, all building on the material economy. As the world searches for greater meaning instead of more things, enlightened countries found new wealth creation through their own cultural renaissance.

For example, how a fresh market in Rotterdam’s Market Hall is now rivalling the city centre as a visitor’s favourite, drawing some 8 million tourists to visit each year. How a liberal and open environment could unleash the human potential and creativity among the people, and how concerted government support and effort can create and communicate a new image to the world. After all, being cool means doing the fashionable things; beautifully with attractive values!

The landmark election victory of the people presented just this opportunity to Malaysia to remake herself. Since May 9, every day we see reports of “cool” behaviour that displays patriotism, patience, forgiveness, compassion, tolerance and respect. Patriotic Malaysians are coming forward enthusiastically, responding to the new government’s call for participation to create a bright future for their country.

The Council of Eminent Persons met with artist Siti Nurhalizah, on talks of setting up an Arts Council to promote Malaysian arts and culture. This development in the right direction must be applauded and encouraged; this is the first step to have more successful Malaysian artists to give us the new visual Malaysia – through popular art and culture we can remake the image of the country. Of course, the political leaders helped by carefully watching their tongue, behaviour and overall public image because they too can add or subtract values from the new image.

If we may take a page from the South Korean experience, there are some good inspirations. In the last two decades, Seoul has been frequently named the design capital of the world and is one of the most modern and cool cities. The city was remade; the old river of Hanjiang was brought back to life and refashioned into a people’s park with walk paths and cycling routes created; demonstrating the new Lohas lifestyle of the Korean people.

The superfast internet connection enjoyed on their air-conditioned subway journeys to work, all courtesy of enlightened government investment. Note the past BN government did some of these things like putting bicycles on the road but they did not remake the traffic and road paths; copying slogans from some advanced cities without truly understanding their meaning ; and most importantly did not understand the new image is formed by the collective behavior of the people, not just hastily put together projects to get allocations by some politicians.

The financial crisis of 1997 created opportunity for change, the Korean government and people rose to the occasion. People work harder and save more; learn and change with the times, the government invested prudently at strategic initiatives that promoted greater capital formation; be it financial or cultural. A young generation of well-educated leaders with greater exposure to the world became more creative in their planning for the future. At one time, the mayor of Seoul has a design-background.

The author of “The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture” Euny Hong wrote, “It was at that point that the president Kim Dae-Jung, looking around at the catastrophe the crisis had wrought and with little capital to throw around, decided that South Korea would become the world's leading exporter of culture – hallyu. It was an unlikely call, but two decades on, K-pop earns millions for the country; Korea's TV soap operas bring entire nations to a halt in Asia, Africa and the Middle East; the world's young play its video games, and the country has conjured up an internationally renowned film industry from nowhere. Add to that the fact that Gangnam Style was the most watched music video of all time.”

How did the Koreans do it? The answer is focus on key sectors, with government support and investment to nurture and support the birth of a new cultural industry. “The government, for instance, wired the entire country for high-speed broadband and is now wiring every household with a one-gigabit-per-second connection, 200 times faster than the US average internet speed.

The first South Korean soap to make it abroad, What Is Love All About? was dubbed into Cantonese at government expense, smuggled into Hong Kong in a diplomatic bag in 1992, and secured its place on Hong Kong TV when South Korean companies were arm-twisted into buying up the advertising slots. Strict discipline and hard work apply equally in the world of Korean pop. A K-pop band does not come together in the parental garage: its members are rigorously trained for seven years before ever being allowed to perform in public.” explained Euny Hung.

Malaysia has for a long time touted its multi-cultural composition of its nationhood; hence Tourism Malaysia’s slogan, “Malaysia - truly Asia.” However, politicians forgot that the world is a most transparent one; in trying to secure political power, they return to the hollow meaningless mantra of special rights and race supremacy; self-contradicted themselves in political rhetoric and worked against their international tourism campaign.

The mainstream media did not help to advance the “one nation, shared values” Malaysian-ness; and Malaysian society remained divided and suspicious of each other. Although May 9 did not change all of that overnight, but it presented a golden opportunity to the leadership of the country; both government and civil, to do the right thing.

If the openness, respect and cooperation can be sustained and advanced and translated into positive talks and language daily in the media and the nation’s rhetoric; we will have a chance of integrating Malaysian values in a modern expression.

I watched a music video made by Malaysian Performing Artists Unite for Malaysia Day, they sang the song Setia; the multi-racial faces and voices sang the patriotic song very well; that image is an example a cool Malaysia the world must come to know. The new tourism minister may perhaps want to re-examine and drop the old slogan of ‘truly Asia, the rich Malaysian story can now be told as “Truly Malaysia.”


The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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