MALAYSIA can be a great nation, but some of the people who get to lead the country have taken it everywhere else but there. Problems are a few, but two will do — politics and people. But first, a few words on what Malaysia comes blessed with, naturally that is.
Our nation has three things working for it: location, location, location. Never underestimate the geography of a nation. Malaysia's natural resources are the envy of the world. And there is the sea. Look east, west and south — Malaysia is a marine marvel. But where has Malaysia been? And where is it going? Here, there and in between. But never where a great nation should be.
Start with politics. It is often about power to the politicians and not to the people. People only matter when elections are held.
They will come in hordes in red, yellow, blue and green, knocking on doors they never knocked on before, promising this and that. In the 15th General Election, there will be six million more doors to knock on and as many promises to make with that number of young voters being added to the electoral roll.
And the promises will remain just that until the next election as they have often been. Until then, the durian plantation gets to stay, but not the villagers who have lost their loved ones, homes and possessions.
Until then, polluters pollute, scammers scam, traffickers traffic and the corrupt grow more corrupt. And if what is spewing out of some political circles is true, they want the corrupt to go free so that they can pay their way to Putrajaya.
They want the courts to licence their roving hands and let them go into the coffers of the nation, to borrow a phrase from John Donne.
Now, even the judiciary, the last bastion of justice in the nation, is being attacked like never before. As if such hubris-ridden politicians aren't enough, political parties are being turned into assembly lines for more of the same.
Political parties must be told this isn't the way to make Malaysia great. No great nation ranks 62nd out of 180 countries in the corruption index, as Transparency International ranked us last year.
Just look south, though we are often reluctant to do so, to see where Singapore is perched in the same table. Number 4. Now that is an ingredient for a great nation, though there are a few things there we can complain about.
Now, for the people. Malaysians, at least the 21 million voters, must take some of the blame for electing leaders who enrich themselves. We have let this happen for 14 general elections, not counting the umpteen by-elections since 1957. We must not let this happen in GE15. Malaysia's people problem has another blemish.
We are a nation of colours, but… Yes, there is a "but". To be brutally frank, we do not "know" each other. We quarrel more often than we are kind to each other. Consider this.
We were thrown together in this nation of ours to know each other, not to bicker about everything we differ on.
Yes, we Malaysians are of different ethnicities, but we are of one race. The human race. Give it a think. If we recognise this, we will help send the right leaders to Putrajaya who can then make Malaysia great.