Visit to Serendah gives me hope Malaysians are not indifferent to the need to save Malaysia for our children and children’s children by ensuring that Malaysia does not become failed state before Malaysia’s Centennial in another four decades

While sitting here listening to the speeches of DAP Selangor and Serendah leaders, a variety of thoughts swirled through my mind.

Firstly , why was I here when about four months ago I announced my political “retirement”.

But I retired from “competitive politics” meaning I will not be in the forefront of party politics and that I will not contest in parliamentary and state assembly elections, but there is no way for anyone to retire from politics unless he leaves for the next world – as politics affects every second of one’s life and we cannot be completely divorced from politics.

Secondly, I had expected to visit the house of Dr. Zubaidah Ibrahim to mark her entry into the DAP as a member. Dr. Zubaidah has quite a distinguished record.

She is Chair of the Kuala Kubu Historical Society, a former Deputy Dean and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya in 2011, and co-founder and Chair of the Fraser’s Hill Community Library Association until it was handed over to the Pahang Public Library Corporation in 2018. She is also a Visiting Lecturer at the University of North Sumatra, Indonesia and an Associate Faculty member of Singapore University of Social Science in the field of Translation and Applied Linguistics.

When I approached the venue just now, I thought Dr. Zubaidah has a very big house, but actually we have to change venue because another five Malaysians are to join DAP and there will be a large gathering of DAP Selangor and Serendah leaders.

Thirdly, this function in Serendah gave me hope about the future of Malaysia. Since I announced my political “retirement” on March 20, I had wrestled with the problem of the future of Malaysia and what type of a nation we are leaving to our children and children’s children.

We need to have a vision for the country for the future, not just about the present day.

This is why I have come to the view that the important question in Malaysia today is not who will win the next general election, but whether Malaysia will become a failed state before Malaysia’s Centennial in four decades from now.

What is the use of winning the 15th General Election if the Malaysia continues to regress and lose out to more countries, ending up with Malaysia becoming a failed state before Malaysia’s Centennial in another four decades, becoming an even greater kleptocracy or as Serendah leader Ahmad Tarmizi bin Yaacob mentioned just now, becoming another Yugoslavia?

In the past half-a-century, Malaysia lost out to Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam.

Will we lose out China and Indonesia before the end of this decade in the annual Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI)?

Will we lose out to more countries in economic development, even to Indonesia and the Philippines, come 2,040 or 2,050 – well before Malaysia’s Centennial?

As I discussed with Tarmizi just now, can we return to the old times when we are serious about the nation-building policies and principles in our Constitution and Rukun Negara – constitutional monarchy, parliamentary democracy, separation of powers, rule of law, good governance, public integrity, meritocracy, respect for human rights, Islam as the religion of the nation and freedom of worship for all other religions and national unity from our multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural diversity where there are no first-class and second-class citizens whether based on race, religion or region?

As Tarmizi lamented just now, Malaysia is now crippled by a ballooning problem of corruption and lack of national unity among the races, religions and regions.

Can Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, region or even politics, initiate a serious discussion as to “What Went Wrong?” in Malaysian nation-building, where we took the wrong turn in nation-building in the past half-a-century, that nobody in Barisan Nasional, whether UMNO, MCA and MIC, dares to come out clearly and unequivocally condemn the monstrous mega multi-billion dollar 1MDB financial scandal which caused Malaysia the infamy worldwide of being regarded as “kleptocracy at its worst”?

Where is the “tipping point” when Malaysians will regard themselves as Malaysian First, regardeless of whether they are Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans or Ibans? Do we need another 30-40 years for this “tipping point” or this could be achieved in the next general election?

The craze of the movie-world today is the film “Mat Kilau”.

It must be remembered that that Mat Kilau’s exploits were in Pahang in the 19th century, the story of how Mat Kilau revolted against the British.

In 2022, if Mat Kilau is alive today, he would probably be leading the Malaysian First campaign to ensure that the tipping point for everyone in Malaysia to realise that if Malaysia is to be a world-class great nation, everyone in Malaysia, regardless of race, religion or region, must regard himself or herself as Malaysian first must come about by the next general election and not to take another 30 to 40 years.

My visit to Serendah has been most useful, for it gives me hope that Malaysians are not indifferent to the need to save Malaysia for our children and children’s children by ensuring that Malaysia does not become failed state before Malaysia’s Centennial in another four decades.