COMMENT When writing about Malaysia, one has to be so careful not to hurt anyone's sensitivity that it often leads to submitting a blank page.

Malaysians are a very sensitive bunch. You cannot write about anything, not even the idea of not writing, without offending someone, somewhere or anywhere.

NONE Unfortunately, despite best efforts by Dr Mahathir Mohamad ( right ) to put the genie back in the bottle, social media is not going away. Just like one airline, now everybody's coffee-shop talk can take to the air.

Historians have been the first to lament this democratic practice. Like in the coffee shop, most people speak based on what they know and do not stop to check their facts.

Journalists take the issue even more seriously. This is because newspapers all over the world are going bankrupt.

Their stranglehold on "news" and ability to determine what is "news" is now over.

Anyone can now be a journalist. In fact, some ordinary citizens who never dreamt their opinions mattered suddenly found themselves becoming reference material in the mainstream press!

Just like everything else, it is the politicians who are the last to wake up to reality. Their main focus is power and for some strange reason they think that power emanates from deep inside them.

Unfortunately, they are not able to distinguish that the tingle they feel is actually hot air.

Blinded to reality by power

Some are professional politicians and belong to family businesses with only one job description: stay in power forever.

So, we cannot expect them to understand the lives of ordinary Malaysians or the impact social media is having on society.

So, some two decades after the Multimedia Super Corridor and nearly four decades after leaving the office as minister of education, it has finally dawned on Mahathir that perhaps the promise of "not censoring" the Internet and treating the English language for communications only (in those days English was not regarded as a language of knowledge) were not such good ideas after all.

Yes, we are entitled to "change our minds" but really I think it is too little too late.

By turning inwards just as the world was globalizing and getting connected like never before, Mahathir presided over a political system that has created two "Malaysias".

NONE There is the Malaysia of the nationalists, ethno-eccentrics and conservatives, who reject everything for the sake of preserving some mythical sense of identity that never really existed.

Then there is the Malaysia that feels straightjacketed, that is fluent in the language of globalization and wants smaller government.

As the prime minister of all Malaysians, Najib Razak is the most wonderful example of this schism between Malaysians.

On the global stage, he is the leader of the movement of moderates. Back home, he is deafeningly silent on his own government's actions with regards to religious and ethnic minorities.

I suppose this is what being "glocal" means. You say one thing on the world stage and do the opposite back home!

This is why Malaysians have become so sensitive. We lack leadership and a moderator. When a political coalition claims to have a parliamentary majority, the election is over and the business of governing begins.

Elegant silence recipe for disaster

Najib on CNN One is therefore entitled to expect some level of leadership from Najib ( left ).

Unfortunately, it is his less than sterling cabinet colleagues who are issuing all sorts of contradictory statements.

Without any doubt, the PM is a democrat at heart but surely the cabinet must show him enough respect to agree to toe the party line with regards to important issues of the day that have been debated and agreed upon in cabinet.

Lest the PM has forgotten the predicament of his predecessor who is now also known as "slumber jack", elegant silence is a recipe for disaster.

The PM has demonstrated that he has the tenacity and political will to get his way in his own party elections. He is also very effective in containing the influence of Mahathir.

In fact, he is allowing his gargantuan administration to stifle the opposition opening all sorts of flanks of administrative attacks. All fine and good.

Nobody should expect any less from those who walk in the corridors of power. But for goodness sake, demonstrate some leadership and explain clearly where Malaysia is heading.

It is time for the PM to let us know, one way or the other, how the government is going to maintain a subsidy system of privileging the majority ethnic group when demographically they are on the brink of 70% of the population.

We are not even talking about contesting this "right" but asking the pragmatic question: if the 7 out of 10 Malaysians are going to have special rights, like feudal titles, they actually confer no real benefits at all.

More acutely, how is Malaysia supposed to finance another 40 years of NEP, NDP, ETP and whatever else if productivity led by innovation do not come about?

Of course, every Malaysian hopes that we can find more oil & gas reserves but what if these natural bounties are actually finite?

Why ignorance's never bliss

At the end of the day, there are really no free lunches and no great forward leaps. As Mahathir knows only too well, the only real privilege is what nature confers. It is really 1% luck and 99% perspiration.

As there is really no real solution to these pressing issues, politicians being the least gifted intellectually (being wily is a different kind of intelligence akin to being cunning) do what comes most naturally to them: they politicize every issue under the sun.

Notice how life goes on, albeit with more belt-tightening, without much incident despite the circus that is Malaysian politics.

jb mural duplicate 161113 01 All the time, serious issues like a slowing economy, an urban infrastructure on the brink of total collapse, high crime rates, rural backwardness fuelled by a subsidy mentality cultivated by years of political patronage; and an education system that is the best in the "alternative universe" are elegantly never addressed.

In the meantime, municipal workers in Johor Bharu are busy combatting "graffiti" that highlight one of these issues. Yes, we must never let the truth come too close to the national consciousness.

The reality is that there is not one but several proverbial "elephants" in the room. It is getting very uncomfortable and they stink.

Unfortunately for the PM and the politicians, the rakyat can no longer ignore them. We can only hope that the politicians like the pornography industry can at least wake up and recognise the problem before Malaysia goes out of business.

NEIL KHOR is dedicating himself to a quiet life but will highlight some pressing issues for the sake of the country's real majority: the 60 percent of Malaysians under 40 years old.