a tale of 2 cities

i'm driving up to kuala lumpur today after having gone down to singapore a few days ago. i don't make it a habit to go to singapore as often as when i was younger mainly because the exchange rate makes buying more expensive in the island republic, but when i do go i always observe what has changed about singapore. and what i saw this time took my breath away. we didn't have to drive around, we took the MRT tubes to where-ever we wanted to go and the MRTs were fast and on time and they had MRT stations conveniently located in almost every conceivable place. The escalators in orchard road were fast. HDB housing areas were clean and well-maintained. In all the public toilets i used the flush was strong and the toilets clean. Road signs were clear and helpful, you could actually trust in their road signs to get you to where you wanted to go. Singaporeans, particularly the younger generation, were polite and civic-minded. i have had doors opened for me, sorrys and excuse mes when i was bumped into, no queue jumpers at eateries, polite drivers on the road. in short, they reminded me of when i am visiting a developed country. Of course, Singaporeans themselves would beg to differ: they are unhappy with the high cost of living, ERP road tolls, foreigners taking away their jobs housing school places etc all the normal grouses that you'd expect locals to bear against their government just as we in Malaysia do. But while Singaporeans grumble about social realities, they grudgingly concur when i pointed out all the good things their government had laid on the table for their convenience. Sadly, we Malaysians do not enjoy such amenities.
It is true that many foreigners make their way to singapore to eke out a living. One of my friends who is a lawyer told me how he interviewed over 300 job applicants for the position of secretary and almost ALL were foreigners, be it malaysians, myanmareans, indonesians, etc. i spoke to my sister's filipino maid and she told me in equally gushing terms of how living in singapore was good compared to the corruption and backwardness back home. "oh we do have the shopping places too but here you get all the latest IT gadgets". Another friend told me of his long walks across parks linked together by park connectors or bridges linking certain big parks in singapore together so that walkers could have uninterrupted nature rambles at their leisure. This isn't possible in kuala lumpur. the more i look at things the more i felt a tinge of sadness and remorse. one feels like a hungry child staring at all the cake goodies through the shop window. Why can't we make the same great strides towards developed nation status as singapore? Back in the 50s, 60s even right up to the mid-70s the Malaysian Ringgit was on parity level with the Singapore dollar. the current exchange rate is about S$1 to RM2.39. In Kuala Lumpur we have ugly massive concrete pillars supporting our monorails which aren't quite as fast and on time as we'd like them to be. There is little greenery in Kuala Lumpur. But i admit that the road system in Kuala Lumpur has improved much over the years. However, the lack of public transport is something which only the government has the resources to develop and this is sorely lacking in Kuala Lumpur. This isn't something new, my story. People say the grass is greener on the other side. Well, i have actually been to the other side and it is a manicured lawn. I just hope that someday we will reach developed nation status and not have to encounter too many hiccups along the way. Our politicians bicker and fight over scraps while others zoom by us. The people who run singapore focus on the job at hand and get it done, no nonsense and no excuses accepted. We have progressed haphazardly while they have made giant leaps over the same time frame. Will our politicians quit fucking around and please wake the fuck up?

Timely Rain

A few days ago the first blessed showers to break the recent dry spell fell, much to everyone's relief. We take a lot of things for granted in our little corner of the globe. Fresh water supply for one. If the El Nino-induced drought dragged on for longer our water dams would very soon run dry and we'd be rationing water. Like during that very severe drought in the early 90s when everyone bought buckets and waited for the water truck or took showers at relatives' houses which had wells.
It rained again today. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for more rain. And for God's blessings. We have much to be grateful for. Lest we forget how fragile we are.

Sign of the Times

The Lunar New Year has come and gone. Earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, Taiwan, Japan and now Turkey. The hot and dry season beats down with unrelenting dullness - I'm challenged enough to NOT be dulled and so far i'm ok. In Europe, floods and wet weather. The local economy seems to be on an uptrend, the local stock market post-Lunar New Year is rallying once again. Interest rates are "normalising" (a tick up). I'm changing jobs. The governing party is trying to buy over enough MPs to form a two-thirds majority in Parliament so that it can re-draw electoral constituencies in its favour. Some MPs take the money. Some take promotions. Our oil is going to run out in about 20 years.

Ahhh March, life goes on.

Freedom: Too much or too little?

Read a NST news report on Tuesday, Feb 16 that Kelantan Menteri Besar and PAS spiritual leader Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat also known affectionately as "Tok Guru" observed that: "cases of babies being abandoned are the result of too much freedom among the youth". I can't tell whether he is mis-quoted and after all, this is the NST we are talking about, the government mouthpiece, but i'd like to share some thoughts on the subject of freedom in Malaysia. I don't think that too much freedom is the cause of social ills. Rather, it is the lack of a good educational system that is to blame. Freedom does not mean wanton disregard for morals. Freedom does not mean abandoning one's values and condoning acts of mindlessness. It is rather the opposite. True freedom leads to enlightenment and into the light away from the darkness. Freedom means achieving one's true potential as a human being. Freedom means getting closer to the truth. The word "freedom" is much abused and our understanding of it through popular media is warped. We confuse freedom with chaos. the two does not mean the same thing nor does one inevitably lead to the other. The problem is one of culture. In conservative Malaysian culture, freedom is not a top priority. Observance of rites, social graces and customs are top priority. Not freedom which is almost alien to Malaysia. But herein lies the paradox. Our observance of the culture of obedience and adherance to authority does have its positive points but it also means that our leaders are given awesome powers and we have seen in recent years how this power has been wielded to serve only the narrow interests of the vested few. So in retrospect, and with all due respect to Tok Guru who is an honest, pious and humble soul, i beg to differ. Our social ills are due to our lack of education and lack of guidance which comes partly from the lack of freedom, true freedom. Freedom to information and freedom to seek the truth. We need more freedom, Tok Guru, not less. We need guidance and more education to go with that greater freedom. Some hiccups will occur in the process but it doesn't blacken the worth of true freedom. Let's have some more in-depth perspective here.

heightened political and economic risk

Deputy Prime Minister Muyhiddin Yasin dismisses the Hong Kong-based political and economic risk consultancy (PERC) report in Jan 2010 that Malaysia's risk index has risen up a notch from December 2009 as coming from people who know not about Malaysia. I wish it were so. But with the Anwar Ibrahim trial for sodomy charges and what looks likely will be his eventual conviction next year, one fears for the worse in malaysia. If Anwar is convicted and goes to jail again, one can expect a showdown between Pakatan Rakyat supporters and Barisan Nasional's. All of which is bad news for Malaysia. As things stand, foreign direct investments to Malaysia are at an almost all-time low and there has been a precipitous outflow of funds from between 2008 and now. Bank Negara Governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz has brushed aside these concerns and attributed them to the world economic slump. But Malaysia alone has experienced these remarkable outflows. None of our other neighbours who are also affected by the world slump, has seen such outflow of funds. If the political stability which Malaysia has long been credited for has become our past glory sans post-March 2008 general elections, one can see where everything is headed. If there is an Anwar Ibrahim conviction and there are civil disturbances, the government WILL clamp down on civil liberties and use all available means to rein in anyone perceived to be linked to those disturbances. And past experience tells us that they tend to do so indiscriminately and with sledge-hammer blows instead of finely-tuned, accurate and just. It will be an excuse to crack down and for the government to re-assert control and hopefully (for the government) that by doing so, it regains its lost two-thirds majority in Parliament, that psychologically all-important water mark for the government to re-claim its legitimacy. One hopes that it will not come to that. But forces going in that direction have already been unleashed and it is hard to stop them once cut loose. It's a sad but all-too-familiar scenario for Malaysians. Our liberties will be pawned for the benefit of the minority ruling elites. At the end of the day, ordinary Malaysians, whether conscious of it or not, will bear the price for it. And what a terribly steep price it will be.

the great bust of 2010 (coming soon to an economy near you)

I'm writing this with 6 days to Chinese New Year ("CNY") and counting and the Malaysian stockmarket is so down that the bottom is nowhere in sight. Gone is the usual pre-CNY rally or maybe there could be a feeble run-up in the dying days of the year of the Ox. Frankly, i'm not surprised. I am in agreement with some economists who take a very dim view of events of the past couple of years, to wit, the pump-priming of economies world-wide with cash that ain't there. You see, when you prop up a corpse with no matter how much stuffing/binding ala "Heart of Darkness" John Malkovich the ending scene, the corpse sits upright but it's STILL dead meat. The vitality of the American economy is - how shall i put it - a thing of the past. We can count ourselves lucky that China and India are on the up and up thanks to their enormous domestic economies and that picks up a little of the slack. But don't hope too much. The Chinese economy is still but a third of the USA and India is even smaller. So all that pump-priming is wasted effort in my humble opinion. Let the corpse fall to the ground and let the shit hit the fan. At least we'll all get that short sharp shock (hopefully) needed to correct whatever inefficiencies in the world economy so we'd be re-aligned truly and better afterwards. Throwing money when you have no money to throw around is always bad business, me thinks. It leads to governments getting heavily in debt and that would drive long-term bond rates up per se. So logically they HAVE to raise interest rates in the US from the zero now. They have to, no choice about that. Well, we (Malaysia) are going to soon anyway. Hmmm, at least now i can afford to buy an economy meal with my interest from my savings. I hope.

Repression in the name of my feudal lord

Once again, Home Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein (note the last 2 names being that of his illustrious father, the late former Prime Minister Tun Hussein Onn) is threatening and gesticulating wildly only this time without physically brandishing a keris in his hand. The Home Minister has been actively encouraging people to lodge police reports so that police will have an excuse to crack down on bloggers. And he says he will not let detained blogger Aduka Taruna off the hook that easily even if others will. All in the name of upholding the institution of the monarchy that was precipitated by bloggers dissing the late Sultan of Johor who was in truth a ruler enmeshed in many "incidents" during his time as the boss supremo of Johor. Hishammuddin, you should be ashamed of yourself. You are the total opposite of the man your father was and had he been alive today, he would surely disapprove of your rough-and-ready actions. How do you justify clamping down on bloggers? Are you saying that the rulers are beyond reproach no matter what they do? Do you expect people to remain silent in the face of abuse and tyranny? Shame on you.