COMMENT It must have been a sign of increasing ideological coherence that both Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim adverted to the same thinker when speaking the other day about what they understood about the concept of development.

Presently, the development theories of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen appear to be recommended reading for the two top leaders of an opposition coalition that’s within sight of taking over Putrajaya.

It helps to know which thinkers Putrajaya presumptives have in mind when holding forth on development, especially on an occasion when they attempted to dissect matters that went horribly wrong in the way preceding occupants had governed the country.

More so when voices from among the latter claque are starting to push for a curtailment of rights, such as the freedom of the Internet, which Malaysians have only recently begun to exercise and are enjoying the benefits flowing there from.

mahathir and the internet 240707 The public forum Penang Institute hosted last Saturday on the forex scandal of the late 1980s and early 1990s was held amid regrets expressed by former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad that he had allowed the Internet to be unfettered.

Mahathir contended that the absolute freedom enjoyed by the Internet has been subjected to the abuse that made government-imposed curtailments necessary.  

One can’t help but wonder whether, had the Internet in Malaysia predated the forex scandal by a few years, would Bank Negara had continued with its reckless forays in international currency markets that finally incurred cumulative losses amounting to a staggering RM30 billion by 1992?

The likely answer is: even if it did continue with its adventures the alarms raised, exposure given and criticisms leveled would have made the government chary of the wanton adventurism that characterised Bank Negara’s behaviour and this would have had a deterrent effect on repetitive misconduct.            

In his 1999 book ‘Development as Freedom’ Sen identified five features as necessary for people to realise their potential.

These were political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees, and protective security.

Sen’s parameters

Lim said that, based on Sen’s parameters, the BN government had failed to fulfill the promise vouchsafed the nation by the Merdeka Proclamation of 1957 and the country’s founding constitution.

This content of this promise constituted a prevision of the Sen parameters of liberty, economic amenity, security and good governance.  

penang bank negara forex scandal forum 030612 lim guan eng Lim claimed that the DAP-led Pakatan state government of Penang had fulfilled these parameters.

He listed the steps taken towards fulfillment as the passage of the Freedom of Information Act, Penang Local Government Elections to restore the 3rd vote, the public declaration of personal assets of all state executive councilors, including the chief minister’s, the eradication of hardcore poverty with a RM600 minimum income for all households, the implementation of open tenders, the provision of free wifi in public places, and increased cash assistance to people.

Lim said the fulfillment of these parameters has boosted public and investor confidence resulting in Penang being a top investment location for two years (2010-2011) resulting in state garnering 30 percent of the foreign direct investment that flowed into Malaysia.

He said the icing on the cake of Penang’s success was the state’s freedom from corruption scandals that plagued the BN in states it controlled and at the federal level where it had been dominant since independence in 1957.

“I would like to suggest that to enjoy development as freedom under Amartya Sen we need to be free from corruption scandals,” said Lim.

Anwar approached the development modules posited by Sen from a cultural perspective, lauding the Nobel recipient for rebutting the “Asian values” school of thought, promoted by Mahathir and Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew.

This was that Asians preferred satiated stomachs to rights acquisition, consensus building to individualism, and social order to demonstrations.

“He (Sen) debunked the theory that Asians preferred authoritarian rule to the disorder bred by democracies,” said Anwar.

The Opposition Leader said Sen recognised the inalienable right of citizens to know what their governors were doing so that they could make an informed decision on whom to support.

penang bank negara forex scandal forum 030612 anwar ibrahim Anwar said that, for that reason, he supported investigations on all the scandals that had occurred in the past few decades on the basis of the public’s inalienable right to know the truth.

He said he believed that contrary to what was being feared by those in danger of being investigated, this quest to know would not heighten the impulse to vengeance.

Anwar said he himself was in no mood to be vengeful about the humiliations to which he has been subjected, but the right to know how and why things happened the way they did will be instructive for the future.

Anwar sounded like he was endorsing the famous French saying, ‘Tout comprende, c’est tout pardonner’ (‘To understand everything is to forgive everything’).

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal occupation for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.