Ignorance – the enemy of change

By Philip Ho
klik4malaysia

We are in the 21st century, and would be celebrating our 54th Merdeka in less than three months time but what is becoming of Malaysia?

Has Malaysia progressed politically, socially, economically and technologically after almost 54 years of independence?

Especially when extremist NGOs like Perkasa whom the UMNO-led Barisan Nasional government are even afraid of, continues to spew garbage from their progress-challenged minds?

The racial and religious rhetoric has come to a sickening point in the past 36 months, but Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has just refused to take decisive action against what would have been deemed seditious and an outright threat to the peace and harmony of Malaysians.

It did not take long before Najib’s administration also joined in the bandwagon of racial and religious attacks against non-bumiputeras.

Malaysians, born in Malaysia, were ridiculed, insulted, looked-down upon and asked to go back to where we came from – China and India.

However, things took an ‘interesting’ twist when our Defense Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi blamed non-bumiputeras for not being patriotic enough as the civil defense force were primarily made up of bumiputeras.

If non-bumiputeras were ‘immigrants’ or ‘squatters’ as alleged by politicians, political parties, civil servants and certain NGOs like Perkasa, is it even logical to expect non-bumiputeras to join the defense force to defend a country that gives them an identity card but denies their citizenship?

More importantly, did not the current ruling government, BN, stay in power for over 53 years due to votes from 40% of the population in Malaysia, roughly 11 million non-bumiputeras?

How could they have achieved two-thirds majority in Parliament if not for the votes from the non-bumiputeras?

Who is being ungrateful now?

And why did the elected representatives continue accepting votes from ‘immigrants’ and ‘squatters’? This is such a mind-boggling mystery.

Anyhow, there is no Malay dilemma, Chinese dilemma, Indian dilemma, Dayak dilemma, Kadazan dilemma, and definitely no religious dilemma here.

The only issue that has been plaguing millions of Malaysians is the resistance to change.

The outdated monolithic system of race and religion-based politicking of over 50 years had failed to arrest the decay in family, cultural and community values our nation’s forefathers once held close to their hearts.

If Najib’s strong ‘recommendation’ of the mainstream media’s reporting is a true reflection of the political, social and economic climate of our country, then it would mean that the reports of Malays being a majority of the poorest people would be authentic.

This brings forth an extremely important question that must not be overshadowed by wild and baseless allegations of Christians taking over the government or Christianity taking over as the nation’s official religion.

Why do the suburban and rural Malays still make up the majority of the hardcore poor after 53 years of Merdeka?

Why are the suburban and rural Malays still unable to stand on their own after more than 30 years of NEP?

Should the suburban and rural Malays worry about Chinese, Indians, Christianity or even Hinduism, when their difficulties lies in putting food on the table?

When petrol, cooking gas, sugar, water and many other food stuffs are increasing in prices, do the politicians think Malaysians care about the alleged sex exploits of an Opposition Leader?

With household debt over 70%, does the government think Malaysians care about 100-storey tower, MRT, Iskandar region, national space program and also neverending Onederful slogans?

According to recently published statistics by the National Statistics Department, although the population has grown overall by 2%, the breakdown of the demographic details shows an alarming decline in the younger generation.

For instance, the population within the age group of 15 and below, had dropped to 27.2% in 2010 from 34% in 2000 while those above the age of 65 had increased from 4% in 2000 to 4.7% in 2010.

We are heading towards an aging population, but the leaders of the country are more preoccupied with feel-good slogans.

Life expectancy remained at 71 for the men and 76 for the women in the past 5 years, which could either signify the stagnation or even the decline of our country’s health and medical services in relation to new techniques, technology and medical discoveries.

However, politicians are more interested in their own political life expectancy after the elections, forgetting their promises to their electorate in the process.

Stillbirths and infant deaths reached 2,400 and 3,200 cases respectively in 2010, as compared to 2,200 and 2,800 cases in 2006.

It is unknown if there would be another increase in infant deaths in 2011 but one thing is certain, even if the 3,200 infants had not died in 2010, 1,280 (40%) of the infants would mature into adults one day only to be labeled as ‘immigrants’ and ‘squatters’ again 20 years later, although their votes would be much sought after when they reach the age of 21.

That, would be the future that awaits the next generation.

We should be ashamed to leave such a barbaric, if not prehistoric legacy of patronizing politics behind for a future generation while watching them sink in the dragnet of ignorance.

Because ignorance is indeed, the worst enemy of change.