History: Learning From The Past, Living Through The Present

After a discussion with Prabajee a few nights ago, I started reflecting on history. Malaysian history, in particular.

The thing about history is that there are 2 main parts - the history of things that happened before you were born and the history of the things that you're living through.

Eric Hobsbawm - author of "The Age Of Extremes" once mentioned how difficult it is to write about the history of the era that one has lived through - with the same sort of impartiality that one writes about the history of things, before one was born.

With the latter, you're relying purely on secondary reference materials and sources and it could never be the things that you've seen for yourself.

Wherelse with the former, it's not just describing the situation, impartially - as one's own experience, opinion and perception is involved in coming to some conclusions.

We're much fairer to past history that we've never lived through than the ones that we have. That's what I think.


For instance, when we look at the leaders of the Tun Razak era, we look at it with such great admiration at the sort of outstanding individuals that it had produced - reasonable people with integrity, with a high degree of patriotism and whom had at the core of their intentions, the future viability of Malaysia.

Perhaps, no other country in the world had attempted such massive socio-economic reengineering and economic restructuring of society. But they attempted it, after a few rounds of bloodshed between the races. They attempted it, so that bloodshed will never be a regular feature in this country - as it has been in a few other countries.

They came up with a plan called the New Economic Policy (NEP) which had set the track for the 3 races - to achieve parity between the races and for them to become a nation, one day.

And at that time, nothing could have seemed like a better plan, to keep Malaysia viable. The NEP became the bedrock of our political stability, which in turn, allowed for high rates of economic growth to be achieved over the years - especially during the Mahathir administration.

And Mahathir kept us going on that track - planning that Malaysia will not only be an economically developed country by 2020, but also has a Malaysian nation, with all the "soft" qualitiies of developed nation, too. Come 2020, by hook or by crook, we will be a developed nation - in one form or another.

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But history is full of good intentions gone wrong or not according to plan. Communism was one. The institution of the United Nations is another.

There is no politician that can be held responsible for the things that he cannot foresee. Our interpretation of history should take into account the context, which leaders are faced with at that time. The fire-fighting is almost always about TODAY's problem - because that's where the pain is immediate.


As a snapshot of history, what we've done with the NEP is to save this country. There was probably no other viable solution to keeping this country from going into a race-based civil war - given what the economic circumstances were, back in the 1960's and early 1970's.

It isn't perfect and it will not be entirely fair, to the eyes of many. But it was a compromise that was reached by ALL the leaders (of all races, both from the Government and the Opposition) back in 1971.

They bravely decided on going down one significant path in Malaysian history - a difficult but necessary one. They deemed it necessary, for this country to ever evolve into a nation.

Nations may be built on idealism, but sometimes, the maturity and readiness of your citizenry dictates that you run it on pragmatism.

You can't shove down their throat something that they're not ready for - you must go only marginally ahead of the pace that they're ready for, to keep on their toes. Change and maturity will come - but it takes time and generations.

It takes time for the past hurt of history to heal (like collaborating with with former Communist countries and our former colonizers) and it takes time for new reasons to move, with each successive new generation. As the reason for the past fades, the reason for the future is being built - by the fruits of the labour and compromise of this country's past generation.

And that's our generation.

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Yes, the NEP could have been implemented better. But as a tool of eradication of poverty - it is a tool of social reenginering, par excellence. It created access to education and produced a large middle-class, within one generation.

As a tool of restructuring society, it was still a half-success - though someone should have told people about how difficult it is to achieve economic parity, between races with different economic cultures and emphasis.

If we took a snapshot of Malaysian history from 1971 up till 1996, the formula looked like it was working brilliantly.

We had a large and thriving middle-class, we had many Malaysian millionaires and billionaires, we were a hotspot for foreign direct investment, our GDP was growing at a booming 8-9% per annum, at least a quarter of our school leavers had access to tertiary education, we were just beginning on the next leap with Multimedia Super Corridor, we had Vision 2020 to march down towards and we had a Prime Minister (and even a Deputy Prime Minister) who was highly regarded both locally and internationally.

I remember what 1996 felt like - I was in university and Malaysia felt full of possibilities. We were caught in the euphoria - and Dr. Mahathir (despite critics on "mega projects", human and political rights) looked larger than life, as the chief architect of Malaysia. Many believed he should have retired at this point - though taking into account that Asia had a currency crisis looming, it was a good thing that he didn't.

And then the period of 7 dark years began - between 1997 up till 2003. And we grew up and grew old - drastically. Financial empires fell, companies that were imprudent and not managed well, began collapsing during the economic crisis. Tan Sris became technically insolvent, bail-outs were prevalent and so was the "fire sale" of attractively-priced landed and financial assets.

The stock market plummeted and retrenchments were rife. Although we were relatively insulated due to our currency pegging, but the impact was still quite hard and scary.

And then there was what happened to Anwar Ibrahim, reformasi and the largest split and political revolt, the Malays had ever seen. It was bitter. It was painful and it was unproductive. It compromised the independence of the judiciary in our eyes. It damaged our confidence in the police.


But as far as political consciousness is concerned - it was a wake-up call for the baby-boom generation (those born between 1967-1978). And a few things were born from there - Malaysiakini, Dateline Malaysia (which had created the platform for the rise of 1 Minister (who founded Puteri UMNO) and one Deputy Youth Chief) and to a certain extent, the maturing of UMNO - that the opinion of the common Malaysian, cannot be taken for granted and that there were limits to acceptable action, in politics.

The wound within the Malay community started healing when Anwar was acquitted in 2004 - and many believed this to be due to the non-intervention of the Abdullah administration, within the judiciary.

But it is fact that when there is a split in UMNO, the whole business community (and not just the Bumiputra ones) suffers.

It's destabilizing and it has a medium to long term impact, in splitting the Malaysian talent pool - based on their political allegiances. Small developing countries cannot afford such splits - it's too costly for them.

Think of that, before you start taking sides and joining political camps and planning an overthrow of any current regime.

Menang jadi arang, kalah jadi abu.

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And today, we have the Abdullah administration. We've had 3 years of it. We've had more press freedom and openness, than we've had in a long time. The freedom to hold Ministers accountable on on any issue, without the Prime Minister clamping down on the issue, has probably never been wider.

And we've seen efforts at building up institutions of governance, human rights, GLC accountability and those that will promote transparency. We've certainly seen a lot more interesting and critical stuff, in the newspapers lately - albeit, still with a little bias and massive spin-doctoring.

We've seen some hard thinking and soul-searching done for the 9th Malaysia Plan and a focus on human capital development is recognized, as its main pillar. And execution of the Plan, has been recognized as a pillar, too.

We've seen efforts towards some major new thrusts like biotechnology and a focus on development of the states other than just the major states like Penang, Selangor, Johor, etc., via the return of agriculture, as a thrust of development.

But we've also seen election promises staying ahead of implementation. And perhaps, that has to do more with excessive promising and spin-doctoring, than it does with slowness of implementation.

If there is one lesson for the Abdullah administration for the next election - promise less to the people. Malaysians are an unforgiving lot, when it comes to unkept promises and exaggerated claims.

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But where change has begun to be implemented - it has reared its own ugly twin.

Let's take GLC reform, as an example - in the old days, no one knew if Malaysia Airlines (MAS) was being robbed in broad daylight, with the Government having to pick up the tab, of nationalizing losses, at the end of the day.

Today, Idris Jala is being constantly monitored for his decisions in Malaysia Airlines.

Our GLC CEOs seem to be more answerable to the media and the people, than our elected Ministers and Members of Parliament are. And the critics are fast and furious, always looking for the chink in the armour.

Wahid Omar of TM, Che Khalib Md Noh of TNB, Syed Zainal of Proton, Idris Jala of MAS, Badlisham Ghazali of M-Dec, Iskandar Mizal of Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation - I take my hats off to you, for your bravery in taking up these thankless "national service" jobs.

All of them could be doing better (and having a less pressured time) in multinational corporations, but they chose to stay and fight for what's important for the country.

And sometimes, to withstand the unreasonable demands and spotlight of all Malaysians, who think they can do better. Kudos to all of you, for your patience and perseverance.

And sometimes, for being the unfortunate fall guy for decisions that has arisen from political intervention.

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Yesterday's plans will not work for tomorrow. Although it may have worked for yesterday, or maybe even today.

The seeds of our political strength yesterday (like having an almost fully Bumiputra civil service, relegating the education system as a tool for national unity and channeling the distribution of patronage and wealth through UMNO) may be the source of our economic weaknesses tomorrow, if not today.


There is a future price for everything we've decided on - but frequently, that price cannot be foretold. We only know what the price is, of not doing the necessary things in the present - like not having the NEP, would have possibly made us Indonesia during the economic crisis. Empty stomachs fuel the fire of revolt, more than any other factor.

And it is for this reason - that we cannot keep looking to the past for a blaming point. Every political and economic decision is based on its own context and constraints, in time and space.

It is unwise for the young to play know-it-all. For one day, your mistakes will be villified by your next generation. You can only hope that you're making the right judgement calls, so that the future of Malaysia will not be compromised.


The world is bound to change (like the effects of the rise of China and India and globalization)and the best that we can do, is to be well-advised and to be prepared to adapt. Hindsight is 20/20 and it's never fair to impute that things should have made sense to our leaders, much earlier on.

In the history that we live through, it's important that we remember that it's just not our leaders that get carried away with the euphoria - most times, we do too. And it's unfair for us to blame it on them - when we did not see it coming either.

There is no credit in apportioning blame to others and looking wise on hindsight. Anyone can do that.

The real question are: what can we do to prepare ourselves and Malaysia, for tomorrow's challenges? And how do we play the most effective and constructive role in it?