Navigating Malaysia’s next 20 years

The columnist shares thoughts on positive ways for us to move forward as a nation.

I’VE been thinking about the future a lot lately, particularly Malaysia’s future, and I thought I would share my ideas on how we, the rakyat, could navigate the next turbulent 20 years in Malaysia.Even before the existence of social media, Malaysia was always a stormy entity, but with its addition, it is downright torrential.

Many of us peace-loving people think that the answer lies with a new political party or a courageous new individual to helm the PM-ship. But after all the reading, research and scrutinising I have done about our political rat race for over 30 years, I do not think that the answer lies there at all.

We have seen good leaders before, but we have also seen greedy ones, and those that have nothing but power and wealth as their mantra.

I believe that we now have some really good and well-meaning leaders, but their moves are always checkmated by toxic social media narratives that are uncontrolled. Leaders’ decisions and moves are being stunted by well-meaning rakyat who are free to air their opinions online and on social media without context and decorum.

Truly, I always say that God is all wise and we have inherited the Malaysia we all created – by our very own selves! I can make a strong academic argument if asked, but one just needs to look at the kind of issues that create massive storms and the kinds of comments that come out of the hearts of most of us, with no sense of dignity and context accompanying them.

So how do we survive the rough seas of toxic narratives perpetrated by the rakyat, media influencers and opportunistic politicians wanting populist appeal? I have some ideas.

Firstly, we must learn new things that are necessary for our own survival. We must learn about races beyond our own and faiths that are not ours. Our education system, from school to tertiary level, cater to our concern for a job in an office or a factory. I strongly believe it is a travesty that our education system merely prepares us to become a tool of industry – no more, no less.

As we ordinary Malaysians can’t do much about the system, we must therefore look to ourselves to change. We must equip our own selves with knowledge of other races, other faiths, other views of the broader world. We must equip ourselves with knowledge of issues beyond what is raised on social media and our chat groups.

We have the Internet at our fingertips and soon we will have smiling artificial intelligence (AI) models to teach us things. Use all these tools.

If someone were to ask me what caused the decline of our nation, my answer would be our own ignorance of ourselves and the issues that surfaced. So we must read, reflect, question – with decorum, please! – and discuss online, in meetings and gatherings, even family and neighbourhood get-togethers.

We have the organisational ability to source the so-called experts and learn from them while plying them with question after question. The days of complaining, blaming and accusing must stop. The future of learning has come upon us.

Secondly, we must observe and understand as much as we can the idea of realpolitik. Realpolitik, I believe, simply means that to do good, a person or a party must work with a person or a party that does not share the exact same considerations.

What is the problem with this? Have we not survived and thrived with our spouses for 40 years? After the arguments, the crying, the sulking and the complaints, we survived with another who is 180 degrees different from us.

Realpolitik is understanding that all issues that leaders need to solve have solutions that appear in meandering ways, never a straight line. Straight ways of development can only occur under a military regime or an authoritarian one. Now, in those sorts of countries, leaders can force changes at will. But in a democracy, and in a world in which unfettered social media exists, not a chance.

Remember realpolitik when you think a leader is not living up to a bargain; realpolitik sometimes means waiting for the right timing, the right issue and the right tone to deliver and execute. Realpolitik is much like hunting animals where patience, stealth and cover will yield meat, but not loud voices and massive complaints.

Thirdly, we need to organise ourselves into a single group of citizens capable of mitigating any political, religious or social conflict. Let’s face the reality of our toxic political narratives.

For instance, some race-based parties have been planting the idea that people of other races and faiths are either enemies of the religion or simply out to destroy the race. Imagine if a racial or religious conflict is then instigated, and when the government responds – as it has to – its actions become ammunition for the Opposition lying in wait to pounce on the matter. How then are we going to resolve or progress further?

I have therefore concluded that we Malaysians need our own group comprising sensible, unbiased ordinary citizens of different races and religions to help mitigate conflicts of race and religion. The group would simply meet the parties involved and attempt to get to the bottom of the issue, calmly and respectfully. Since the group will have no affiliation with any political parties, opportunist politicians cannot further their toxic narrative.

Fourthly, we need to establish funding from our millionaires and billionaires to build the bridge between our civilisations. What I mean by “bridges between civilisations” is the nurturing of our young people as future leaders through strategic sponsoring of their studies and places of sojourn.

For instance, with our private funding, we can offer scholarships for Malays to study any field, but it must be in India or China so that these young people will learn the languages and cultures of these other nations and come home to help build bridges between their community and others. Similarly, scholarships can be offered to non-Malays to study any discipline but in Islamic countries like Indonesia as well as Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and even Saudi Arabia, which has seen massive changes in tolerance of other faiths and cultures.

I feel that this is the only road that we can take if we are to navigate the next 20 years successfully. It must be done by us, the rakyat, and it must be done together as a people to help steer the nation through rough waters and eventually in a direction of progress and mutual benefits.

If we have bad politicians at the helm, then we can still move our nation slowly but surely forward, and if we have good politicians, then we can facilitate our change together with them.

Prof Dr Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi is Professor of Architecture at the Tan Sri Omar Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Studies at UCSI University. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.