COMMENT Malaysia is a one of a kind unique and a rare gem of a nation. A melting pot of infinite ingredients and mixed culture. We are a mixture of various races, speaking a plethora of different languages. This beautiful country is what blends us all together, coalescing all strengths and weaknesses. Here we are at Asia’s southernmost tip, the only nation with land on both continental Asia and the Malay Archipelago.
Only here can you find a significant portion of the population that has roots from two of the world’s oldest civilisations; India and China. The Malays share similar cultural values with Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country. Islam as a religion gives us access to the Muslim world.
The inherited British system meanwhile gives us access to the Western world as well. We are like chameleons, and we can infiltrate and be at home in almost every nation on Earth.
Interestingly, a survey by Facebook found that Malaysia is the most cyber sociable country with the most Facebook friends.
Malaysia is also a country of Multiples. We are the only country on Earth that is multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi race-based sports associations, chambers of commerce & industry, and political parties, multi-national cuisines, multi-government (one federal and 13 state governments), and multi-monarchies (nine kings from the world’s total 35 monarchs).
If the above is not enough, let me reinforce my case with the following arguments:
We are the only nation on the planet that has vowed to protect Allah, and ban others from using that name; and have allegedly labeled hotdogs and rootbeer as haram due to literal reasons.
We house the oldest tropical rainforest, said to be over 130 million years old, older than the Amazon and Congo Basins, home to 14,500 species of flowering plants and trees, with more than 200 species of mammals, 600 species of birds, 140 species of snakes and 60 species of lizards.
And we had the longest King Cobra in the world, measuring in at 5.71 metres, that was found in Port Dickson in 1937.
We also have the biggest roundabout in the world in Putrajaya measuring at 3.5 kilometres in circumference; arguably we also have the “biggest spin in the world”, too.
Yes, Malaysia is unique. Not just truly Asia, but truly The World! Can you beat that?
Not to mention our eclectic and exhaustive list of cuisines which spans a line from the East to the West. What dishes can’t you find here?
Blessed with abundant natural resources and harvests, from tin to rubber, palm oil, timber, bauxite, and of course with petroleum being the most precious now. Malaysia is a rich country. So based on our uniqueness, we have all the essential ingredients to thrive and flourish as “a paradise on earth”, but have we done so?
The Land of Multiples comes with multiple problems
It is shocking how this small country of 31.8 million people managed to shockingly earn the most unwelcome title of the region’s most unequal nation, most in-efficient energy user, among its many other titles including being the home to the world’s largest financial scandal, 1MDB.
Prior to 1MDB, we have had a litany of scandals from Bank Bumiputera, Perwaja, Metramac, Malaysia Airlines, Bank Islam, Transmile, Megan Media, Scan Associates, and a yearly recurrence of repeated “red reports” on audits of government agencies from the Auditor-General’s Office. All of these scandals point to one indisputable conclusion - rampant corruption.
We are trapped in a hollow economy, with over reliance on foreign workers, with the majority of our population earning low income and facing distressing rise in the cost of living. Moreover, the majority of Malaysians do not have savings adequate to survive more than one month if they lose their job.
A serious pensions crisis is looming where two-thirds 54-year-olds have less than RM50,000 in their Employees Provident Fund (EPF) accounts.
We are perceived to have First World infrastructure but sadly demonstrate a Third World culture or attitude. We score in the bottom third on international education rankings, many of our drivers are insane with road thugs and mat rempits, we are number 20 in the world in terms of fatalities from road accident per capita, besides facing severe vandalism in our cities, having unprofessional and unethical taxi drivers and widespread claims that Kuala Lumpur is one of, if not the rudest city on Earth.
Environmentally, mother nature is crying; we have flash floods (poor town planning coupled with inadequate facilities management) in our cities, massive flooding on the East Coast, poor management of our water resources and supply, poor waste management, and rampant illegal dump-sites plus “illegal logging” of our forests and mountains, even in water catchment areas.
Malaysians are also famous for how gullible we can be when it comes to popular get-rich-quick money making schemes! There is a massive, parallel underground economy, covering illegal gambling, drug and other commodity smuggling, pirate DVDs, and credit card cloning. These are also “unwarranted (and unwanted) awards” of Malaysian innovation and enterprise, often derided sarcastically as “Malaysia Boleh”.
The saddest part is, on almost every street and traffic lights pole, without fail, there will be two types of glaring advertisements, either the telephone numbers of Ah Longs (illegal money lenders) or the number for massage and escorts services.
Politics is so intense that there is no time to formulate policies, but energy is wasted to tirelessly attack one another. Politics of hate and racial polarisation have been in the forefront over the past two decades. Human rights, questionable discretionary laws, politically motivated and selective persecutions are also issues plaguing the country. Judicial independence appears to have lost credibility.
As a result we scored 66th of 73 countries on Electoral Integrity and 146th of 180 on World Press Freedom Indices.
So, are we doomed “to rot in purgatory”? Are we heading south? Potentially, but, there is a way out, if only we want to take it.