Tengku Razaleigh: People, arise, claim and demand

Malaysians, Tengku Razaleigh on accessing the current political situation in Malaysia to be bleak, asked the people to rise up to claim their institutions, and demand that our public institutions are answerable to them. We must wake up to our sovereignty as citizens, reclaim the constitution which constitutes us as a nation and guarantees our rights, and demand a comprehensively reformed government to restore public confidence. We must do this before it is too late.

Read the full article in the Malaysian Insider at Why I shall not be accepting Zaid’s offer
July 22, 2009
JULY 22 — I am honoured that Datuk Zaid Ibrahim should speak so highly of me, and consider me worthy of national leadership. He invites me to join PKR, and to dissociate myself from a party which he now finds fascist and racist.

I am under no illusions that Umno is bound for destruction on its present course. Neither do I hold unrealistic expectations about the possibility of reform when the rot has gone so deep.

I offered myself for the Umno presidency last year on an agenda of thorough-going reform. I proposed a complete democratisation of Umno by opening all positions to election by every ordinary member and abolishing quotas on candidacy. I said Umno must do this to be consistent with the principle of democratic governance demanded by the Federal Constitution. Every member’s vote must count, and every member must be free to offer himself for leadership. I was stopped by the quota system that I opposed.

I am the last person to entertain illusions about the ease of reforming Umno. The party that I joined half a century ago as an idealistic young man has indeed lost its soul. It has become corrupt, this corruption has weakened it, and as it grows weaker it is tempted more and more to fan racial feeling and abuse public institutions to maintain power. This is a death spiral.

I am aware of Umno’s weaknesses. I have not failed to point them out from a sense of loyalty to the cause for which Umno was formed in 1946, a cause which our present corruption betrays.

I am not in Umno because I “harbour hope of saving Umno” in its present incarnation. I remain because the cause for which Umno was formed, and the principles which guided its promotion, has not gone away just because we have lost our way 60 years later, and they need to be upheld.

The high principle of Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak and Tun Ismail, their devotion to nationbuilding, their incorruptibility, their sense of fair play and their devotion to duty, exemplified for me as a young man the meaning of this cause, and how it could be both Malay and Malaysian, nationalist and cosmopolitan, traditional and contemporary, at one and the same time.

The Malay cause was not premised on an eternal zero sum game between the native and the immigrant. We meant to build a nation united by a prosperous, confident and enlightened Malay community, not a permanent state of divide and rule by political lowlife. We meant to foster Malay leadership worthy of national leadership, and we looked to our common future as Malaysia rather than to our past as people accidentally brought together by colonial history.

So much is ideal. Yet it is important that we hold up ideals in today’s moral chaos. The future of our political system lies in a healthy, competitive democracy. If so, whether or not it looks realistic right now, we shall need a reformed incarnation of this nation’s most important political party. The Umno ideal which I embraced half a century ago has a role to play in the future we hope for.

A second reason I shall not be accepting Zaid’s kind offer is that things have deteriorated to the point that party affiliation is really not the issue anymore. The issue is how we are to save our country.

Our major public institutions and our political system have degenerated to the point that the public no longer trusts them. A democratic system of government cannot function below a certain threshhold of public confidence. The suspicious death of Teoh Beng Hock under the custody of a watchdog body reporting directly to a prime minister who has his own public confidence issues may have pushed us below that threshhold.

What we must do now goes beyond political parties. We need the rakyat to rise up to claim their institutions, and demand that our public institutions are answerable to them. We must wake up to our sovereignty as citizens, reclaim the constitution which constitutes us as a nation and guarantees our rights, and demand a comprehensively reformed government to restore public confidence. We must do this before it is too late.

Barisan Nasional caused Malaysia to become an "oil cursed" nation

Below is the speech in English at the Young Corporate Malaysians Summit by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, former finance minister and UMNO vice-president. How I wished someone will help translate the speech into Bahasa Malaysia so that those in the rural area can read it in the language they are most familiar with. Anybody wants to volunteer?

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In a speech I made in April this year, I spoke of where we stand in our developmental path and what I felt we must do to move forward.

I need to revisit that argument in order to develop it further.

We are stagnating. The signs of a low-growth economy are all around us. Wages are stagnant and the cost of living is rising.

We have not made much progress in becoming a knowledge and services based economy.

According to the World Bank, Malaysia's share of GDP contributed by services was 46.2 percent in 1987. Ten years later, that share had grown by a mere 0.2 percent.

Between 1994 and 2007, real wages grew by 2.6 percent in the domestic sector and by 2.8 percent in the export sector, which is to say, they were flat over that 13-year period.

Meanwhile, our talent scenario is an example of perverse selection at its most ruinous. We are failing to retain our own young talent, people like yourselves, let alone attract international talent to relocate here, while we have had a massive influx of unskilled foreign labour. They now make up 30 to 40 percent of our workforce.
Alone in East Asia, the number of expatriate professionals here has decreased. Alone in East Asia, private sector wage increases follow government sector increases, instead of the other way around. We are losing doctors and scientists and have become Southeast Asia's haven for low-cost labour.

I said that we are in a middle-income trap, stuck in the pattern of easy growth from low-value-added manufacturing and component assembly and unable to make the leap to a knowledge-intensive economy.

Regional competitors with larger, cheaper - and dare I say - hungrier labour forces have emerged. China and India have risen as both lower cost and higher technology producers, and with giant domestic markets.

The manufacturing sector which propelled the growth we enjoyed in the 90s is being hollowed out. There is no going back, there is no staying where we are, and we do not have a map for the way forward.

I am glad that the characterisation of Malaysia as being in a 'middle-income-trap' has been taken up by the government, and that the need for an economic story, or strategy, for Malaysia is now recognised.

We stand in particular need of such a model because we are a smallish economy. We cannot be good at everything, and we don't have to be.

We need only make some reasonable bets in identifying and developing a focused set of growth drivers. It is not difficult to see what the elements of such a growth strategy might be. Whatever we come up with should build on our natural strengths, and our strengths include the following:

We are located at the crossroads of Asia, geographically and culturally, sitting alongside the most important oil route in the world.
We have large Muslim, Chinese and Indian populations that connect us to the three fastest growing places in the world today.
We have some of the largest and oldest rainforests in the world, a treasure house of bio-diversity when the greatest threat facing mankind as a whole now is ecological destruction, and the greatest technological advances are likely to come from bioscience.
We have the English language, a common law system, parliamentary democracy,good schools,an independent civil service and good infrastructure.
These advantages, however, are declining. Our cultural diversity is in danger of coming apart in bigotry, our rainforests are being logged out and planted over, our social and political institutions are decaying.

I have spoken at length on different occasions about the causes and consequences of institutional decline.The decline in our society and indeed in our natural environment, originates in a decline in our basic institutions.

The link between these is corruption.The destruction of our ecosystem for example, is made possible by corrupt officials and business people.The uncontrolled influx of unskilled labour is a direct result of corruption.

These are problems we need to be aware of before we speak glibly about coming up with new strategies and new economic models. We need to understand where we are, and how we have gone wrong, before we can set things right.

You are young, well-educated Malaysians. Many among you have left for other shores. Record numbers of Malaysians, of all races, work abroad or have emigrated. Among these are some of our best people.They sense the stagnation I described.

There is a certain lack of energy, ingenuity and “hunger” in the climate of this country that young people are most sensitive to. In the globalised job market, young people instinctively leave the less simulating and creative environments for those that have a spark to them.

How did we lose our spark as a nation?

We have a political economy marked by dependence on easy options and easy wealth. Like personal dependencies,these bad habits provide temporary comfort but discourage the growth of creativity and resilience.

I mentioned our dependence on low-cost foreign labour.

The other dependence is something I played a part in making possible.This is a story I want to leave you with to ponder in your deliberations today.

Once a blessing, now a curse

Our nation is blessed with a modest quantity of oil reserves. As a young nation coming to terms with this natural bounty in the early 70s, our primary thought was to conserve that oil.

That is why, when Petronas was formed, we instituted the Petroleum Development Council. Its function was to advise the prime minister on how to conserve that oil and use it judiciously for national development. We knew our reserves would not last long.

We saw our oil reserves as an unearned bounty that would provide the money for modernisation and technology. We saw our oil within a developmental perspective. Our struggle then, was to make the leap from an economy based on commodities and low-cost assembly and manufacturing to a more diverse, economy based on high income jobs.

Aware that we had an insufficient tax base to make the capital investments needed to make the leap, we planned to apply oil royalties to what you would call today strategic investments in human capital.

Whatever money left after making cash payments, allocations for development funds, etc, was to be placed in a Heritage Fund for the future.The Heritage Fund was for education and social enrichment.

In working out the distribution of oil between the states, who had sovereign rights over it, and the federal government, we were guided by concerns for equity between all Malaysians, a concern to develop the poorer states (who also happened to be the oil rich states) and a concern for inter-generational equity.That oil was for special development purposes and it was not just meant for our generation.

Sabah and Sarawak joined Malaya to form Malaysia because of the promise of development funds. Yet today, despite being their massive resources, they are some of our poorest states.

Instead of being our ace up the sleeve, however, our oil wealth became in effect a swag of money used to fund the government's operational expenditure, to bail out failing companies, buy arms, build grandiose cities amidst cleared palm oil estates.

Instead of helping eradicate poverty in the poorest states, our oil wealth came to be channeled into the overseas bank accounts of our political and politically-linked class.

Instead of being the patrimony of all Malaysians, and for our children, it is used as a giant slush fund that has propped up authoritarian rule, eroded constitutional democracy and corrupted our entire political and business elite.

Our oil receipts, instead of being applied in the manner we planned upon the formation of Petronas, that is, according to its original developmental purpose, became a fund for the whims and fancy of whoever ran the country, without any accountability.

The oil that was meant to spur our transition to a more humane, educated society has instead become a narcotic that provides economic quick fixes and hollow symbols such as the Petronas towers.

Our oil wealth was meant to help us foster Malaysians capable of building the Twin Towers than hire foreigners to build them, a practice in which we preceded Dubai. I would rather have good government than grand government buildings filled with a demoralised civil service.

It is no wonder that we are no longer productive, no longer using our ingenuity to devise ways to improve ourselves and leap forward.

Malaysia is now an “oil cursed” country. We managed to arrive at this despite not having a lot of oil.

When I started Petronas in 1974, I did not realise I would see the day when I would wish we had not uncovered this bounty.

Public assets 'looted'

The story I have told is a reminder of the scale of the challenge of development. My generation of young people faced this challenge in the 60s and 70s. You face it now.The story tells us that development is about far more than picking strategies out of a box.

You have kindly invited me to address a seminar on strategies for reinventing and liberalising Malaysia's economy. But the story of our squandered oil wealth reminds us that it was not for want of resources or strategies that we floundered.
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Our failure has been political and moral. We have allowed greed and resentment to drive our politics and looked the other way or even gone along while public assets have been stolen in broad daylight.

I encourage you to take up the cause of national development with the ingenuity that earlier generations of Malaysians brought to this task, but the beginning of our journey must be a return to the basics of public life: the rule of law, honesty, truth-telling and the keeping of promises.

The Malaysia we need to recover is one that was founded on laws and led with integrity. With the hindsight of history we know such things are fragile and can be overturned in one generation, forgotten the next.

Without a living foundation in the basics you might sense an air of unreality around our talk of reinventing ourselves, coming up with “a new economic model” and liberalising our economy.

So before we can reinvent ourselves, we need to reclaim our nation. That larger community, bound by laws, democratic and constitutional, is the context of economic progress, it is the context in which young people find hope, think generous thoughts and create tomorrow.

Source: Malaysiakini: Our oil wealth squandered

Comparison: Dr. Mahathir and Tengku Razaleigh

Normally, I try to avoid copy-paste, but we have been provoked by this Dr. Mamakdir to no end and hope more thinking Malaysians will read this from Malaysiakini (Master of divide and rule) and learn to discern which of these two elders are real statesman plus how to discern when the unscrupulous try to use racism to provoke:

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'Mahathir's recent comments are clearly racist, revealing his true character, and I have lost every respect for this man who, in my opinion, has taken the nation to ransom.'

On Dr M, just stay retired

The Smaller Mamakdir: I wish to respond to the letter, 'Dr M, just stay retired'.

Contrast this to that other old veteran Ku Li, who is advocating greater racial and national unity through encouraging change and acceptance of a more egalitarian Malaysian society. On the other hand, Mahathir seeks to rejuvenate his waning influence through a divide-and-rule strategy.

Mahathir's recent comments are clearly racist, revealing his true character, and I have lost every respect for this man who, in my opinion, has taken the nation to ransom. Why should a man like him keep destablising the country when his projects like the crooked bridge are abandoned?

Always Malaysian: Some quarters argued that Dr M has honed his 'divide-and-rule' tactics into a perfect art. But this may no longer be effective with the emergence of the new and free media.

Nevertheless, the public needs to be educated and enlightened on how such a strategy is being employed from time to time, regardless of whether the ruling coalition or opposition partnership may be using it. This is part and parcel of further enhancing the democratic process in the country.

Will we see a series of articles on this issue in the foreseeable future on the local and even foreign case studies of this devious art of 'divide and rule', the modus operandi of its proponents, how to detect such its manifestation, how can the public combat this socio-political menace and avoid being divided to the nation's detriment, etc?

Exposure is needed so that the public will be better informed when making political choices through the ballot box.

Malaysia is not to be divided up and ruled!
Malaysia is for all Malaysians!

Ong: Maybe the MACC advisers are not resigning because they want to follow Tun Mahathir's example. For many years, Mahathir has been complaining that although he is the Petronas adviser, his advice is never sought, and when he takes the initiative to give advice, his unsolicited advice is ignored. These MACC advisers obviously remember Mahathir's slogan "Pimpinan Melalui Teladan".

However the MACC advisers cannot be compared to Mahathir if both of their work performance are evaluated. When Mahathir sees something in Petronas which he feels is not right, he takes the initiative and springs into action with his advice and criticisms despite that they are likely to be ignored.

All the MACC advisers may be a lot younger than Mahathir, but unfortunately they appear to be a lot more lethargic compared to him. Their eyesight are not so good. What the general public can see, these advisers cannot see. Their hearing are also impaired. They cannot hear the public pleas to them to start acting their roles as advisers and watchdogs. They only manage to hear when such pleas turn to shouts.

What a pity - if only these MACC advisers follow Mahathir's leadership by example. They do not also follow Mahathir's example of springing into action even though knowing that any such action is just for show.


On Cabinet approves royal commission

Disappointed: A royal commission has been approved by the cabinet to look into the cause of Teoh Beng Hock's death? No! It is only there to look into the MACC's interrogation methods.

So, who will look into Teoh's cause of death which is what Malaysians really want to know? The court-appointed magistrate's inquest findings will only represent the judgment of a single person instead of a team of people from the royal commission. There is something wrong somewhere!

GH Kok: In view of Teoh Beng Hock's death and the pattern of MACC assault on Selangor Pakatan Rakyat government prior to that, we also hear of mysterious attempts to sabotage the Penang state government through the Kampung Buah Pala issue.

The pattern is slowly emerging of an elaborate and systematic attempt to undermine the Pakatan state governments by unseen hands working through federal agencies and other parties.

There are also theories that Najib plans to call for a general election in 2010 and therefore the pressing need to undermine and weaken the Pakatan before calling for the election.

It seems that all available weapons are now being used against Pakatan. There seems to be no limits. It started with Perak and now the campaign is in full flight simultaneously in Penang, Selangor and Kedah.

In view of this assault, it appears that Teoh Beng Hock is but a collateral damage. How many more victims of this "war" are we going to see? We the rakyat of Malaysia must stand firm against this assault.

We must keep our eyes and ears open and not participate in questionable activities. We must report to the press (online press) any suspicious happenings in our area or in the course of our daily life. Let the light shine on all happenings in every nook and cranny of this country.

The federal civil servants, who are always suppressed and bullied by their political masters, may they too shed light on all such abuses of their agencies. Bring it all out into the open and let the whole world see the truth. Courage is needed for the price of democracy is eternal vigilance.