Jan 3, 2003
The most reliable path to an informed and intelligent citizenry is through informed discussion. How are any of us to be active participants in the daily affairs of the country when the fundamental facts are forbidden to be discussed? No man can be an informed member of society without easy access to factual knowledge. If we are ignorant, it is because those who could inform us knowingly deprive us of accurate information regarding current affairs. Worse, we are forbidden to seek to inform ourselves, and those who have information are forbidden to present it for debate and discussion.
The elected representatives cannot represent, the officers of the government cannot report their activities, those entrusted to uphold the law are themselves complicit in the breaking of it, and no one is allowed to examine closely their derelictions, on pain of unfair and unjust punishment. Such is the state of our country, that the scholar may not do his research, the student cannot improve his education, and the teacher is forbidden to respond truthfully to questions.
The public words of government officers are only the shifting curtain of concealment; their deeds, and the deeds of others, are held sacrosanct from any scrutiny. A comparison between the ideals of justice and the facts of government activity fails to meet the lowest standard. There is no country which is held in less esteem. What has happened to Malaysia?
The answer is apparent to all; but few have the courage to speak. The era of Mahathir has assumed the customary costume of dictatorship. The police, both secret and open, have acted to suppress the right to address malfeasance and criminality. In many cases the police themselves have been the perpetrators of criminality, yet those who appoint and supervise the police never investigate, never act to put the matter right. And who is to be held accountable ... none other than the prime minister himself. When bribes are exposed, does he act to bring the villains to account? Not once in his tenure of office. He covers over the criminality, which in itself is a criminal offense.
He is not alone. He has constructed a criminal conspiracy not unlike the Mafia of Italy and America. They prey on the public at will, manipulate the public business in selfish and unlawful transactions, direct the misuse of public funds, and allow widespread theft of public funds for political purposes. The Barison National is nothing but a cabal of unprincipled criminals, capable of any mischief their evil minds can conceive. But who has power to bring them to the bar of justice?
Where is the arena of open debate? Where is there dialogue on the proper affairs of government? Where is there any discussion of the corruption that is rampant in both the public and private sector? In Malaysia there is none. And that is the reason that Malaysia has no significant future. Where there is no strong desire for integrity, honesty and truth, there can be no significant progress. Building big buildings is not progress. Constructing roads and transit facilities is not progress. Progress is the open exchange of ideas and information; the desire to be truthful, just and fair in the execution of the law. Progress is the equitable distribution of the nation's resources. Progress is meaningful education, not the parroting of pre-digested pap prepared to meet a standardised examination.
Progress is the freedom to speak, freedom to act in accord with principles of integrity and character, and to challenge the inane egotism of a cruel and despotic politician whose interest is narrowly personal. Progress is the economic application of scarce resources in the best interests of everyone, not the social improvement of a select class of co-conspirators content to collaborate in the destruction of the soul of the country. Progress is the recognition by the people that they are being defrauded, their rightful patrimony stolen before their eyes, and that they are being placed in an impossible position of unrepayable debt.
When the people insist that the facts be brought forward in a forthright manner, to be discussed and debated openly, published in a free press, that is progress. Until then, nothing is possible. To think otherwise is to maintain a false hope of future escape. The country is in an intellectual prison, kept there knowingly by a cadre of corrupt politicians with a criminal mentality. So long as they hold power in Malaysia, nothing in the way of real progress is possible.
It is useless to expect much from those who have done nothing. The great hope is in the young, those not yet contaminated by the soul polluting poison of materialism and false progress of decorative development. More than half the population is under thirty years old. If there is to be progress, they must unite in a determination to rid the country of its disease. They must prepare themselves for leadership, and summon the courage and strength to oppose the evil which has taken the spirit of enlightenment and beauty from our country.
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