1) I had a long chat with my usual friend Najieb Mokhtar regarding our society polemic, it is about a societal disease that we do not know it root cause. The disease called "mudah lupa" that seems has no cure and vaccination.
2) Our conversation started, when I was asking his opinion, when seeing Singaporean politicians remain alerted and do not derailed from original path setted-out by their founding farther, the late Lee Kuan Yew. Even though they were on the upper-hand, they still remain competitive against us. I asked him, what are the value system they embraced, is it because the culture that existed for thousand years or anything else? Let's put aside the feeling insecure, since they were minority in terms of populations and geographical locations, surrounded by Malay archipelago islands, which naturally would create a feeling of insecure and very alert by the surrounding environments. But if we want to put aside Singapore due to it geographical location and racial population, why other developed countries such as Germany, Japan, USA etc, not having the same polemic like us? To me they are the one who's should derailed as they have developed earlier than Singapore, furthermore their geographical location and racial population are not the same as Singapore had. And again the same answer uttered "We have a disease, a societal disease, and it is called 'mudah lupa'". He reiterated "When we acknowledge it as such, it will be easier to heal it. Just like "melatah", it is also societal. Not many bangsa has 'melatah'". Unfortunately, for thousand of years, we never had the initiative to find the cure of "mudah lupa", why, could it be because we are succumbing (redha), fated (takdir), putus asa etc. He answered again "I do not know, but since we do not have the initiative to correct (heal), we remained the same. Unlike other society. Perhaps it could be our inferiority complex, led to accepting the disease a normal and carry on life as usual i.e. neglecting it. Over time we lose the race when other races has thrived.
3) If we look at Japan and Korea, I can understand the effects from the value system they embrace. Korea were on the same par as us in the 70's, but their economy progressing by leaps and bounds since then. Japan's economy on the other hand were dilapidated after loosing WWII, but progressing tremendously after that. These two countries have no mineral resources at their's disposal, they have only human capital to count on. But they still can progress and develop, in fact they fared better than us. Why? The culture that Japanese embrace and similar value system embrace by Korean, that derived from the same culture as Japan called Bushido. I think this piece of article from China Daily Newspaper which I copied on February 7, 2016 is relevant for reader to understand the Japanese business culture that's having strong sense of purpose and placing values like diligence before profits. This culture resides in the Japanese society/culture for thousand years already.
4) I am argued to him, saying Tun also doesn't really find medicine to cure this disease. Tun diagnosed the symptom, but doesn't found the cure. His initiatives and policies i.e. Look East Policy, Buy British Last etc., doesn't produced tangible result. He even spoke about Muslims are no longer follow Islamic teaching as enshrined in the Quran. We were too busy dealing tactical matters than having strategic thinking. Eventually we loose focus and left behind by other races. Mahathir have tried to implement this, unfortunately it failed to produce a tangible result, and leadership after him made the situation even worst. Ironically these values now embraced by the non Muslims. He talk about our education system that do not emphasis the right values that should create quality students and graduates, that should eventually will contribute back to the society - not that kind of student who's know how to pass the exam only.
5) Najieb answered, "Tun diagnosed and he knew, but the number of people against him outweight his single effort. Why are these people against him. It's the Malay disease. He can only contain the disease and that was when he was in power. Now the disease is an epidemic and he's without power. I do not touch on religion because society today is hypocrite. But you can see, when the disease is not cured and contained, even corruption is rampant....We are very Jewish i.e. degil (recalcitran indeed)".
6) Our conversation end there, but our mind remain clueless. And this has led me to ask readers out there - your opinions and suggestions on what should we do to eradicate this pandemic.
