For more about me, please read this.
Semasa budaya blog mula tersebar di Malaysia, ada satu blog yang diberi nama Kaki Cucuk Langit. Malang sekali, blog tersebut sudah tiada.
Pos kali ini ditulis bagi memperingati Kaki Cucuk Langit.
Gambar ini diambil di Moreton Bay, Queensland.
Dan ya, itu kaki saya.
The morning did not start cheerily. It rained. Is it not funny how weather affect your mood sometimes?
To keep my spirit up, I am posting this picture from Manly up.
It was a day in May some five years ago that I hopped on an airplane alone from Detroit to San Francisco. I rarely go anyway alone. That is partly due to the distress I experience each time I find myself in a new neighborhood. I like the comfort of familiar surroundings. Whenever I am away from wherever I call home, I find comfort in familiar faces instead. I had to make an exception for the trip to the Golden State this time around. The agenda was one that not many of my friends in Ann Arbor shared.
A group of Malaysians consisting of students and professionals in the Bay Area had met consistently for some time then discussing all things Malaysian over lunch, dinner or supper full of Malaysian delight.
They called themselves the Malaysia Forum.
In that May, they organized a meet up to do exactly the same thing at Stanford, only with more people in a slightly more formal approach. I was curious about them. I no longer remember where I first read about the group but what I remember is how their commitment to free speech impressed me.
It is easy to believe and practice free speech too openly nowadays. The same was not true five years ago in Malaysia. There was a culture of fear then. The Mahathir administration spread the presence of the State to almost everywhere. Even under a new administration that promised to be different, the shadow of the State was intimidating. To talk about certain issues so openly was most unwise.
With that as the background, for them to discuss issues that some considered as sensitive an off limit is a courageous thing to do. There is something almost romantic about the whole enterprise. Whereas freedom saw curtailment at home, here across the Pacific in a foreign land, in defiance, they practiced freedom.
I hold fast to the idea of liberty, even then. I told myself, if they have the courage to do so, I want to study them up close. I boarded the plane.
I learned that Malaysia Forum believes that the first step towards anything is a frank conversation between individuals. Through conservations and sharing of perspectives, it is possible for a person to understand of issues relevant to Malaysia better.
Malaysia Forum functions beyond an exchange of perspectives. It is also about realizing that you are not alone. Nothing is more reassuring than the fact that you are not alone in this world. Confidence from that knowledge encourages individuals to speak freely. Without that confidence, the State could bully individuals all the way through. To me, that is the value of Malaysia Forum.
Malaysia Forum has since expanded. Initially, it was more or less a discussion group limited to the Bay Area in California.
Five years on, it is a name that is not so foreign among Malaysian community — student especially — in the United States any more. This is apparent from inquiries the group received about itself as it prepares to organize a conference in the coming week at Columbia in New York.
The expansion does go beyond the shores of the New World. Groups like these are always driven by idealism, and the most idealistic of the lot are often students, although the group itself is not student-centric. As they graduate, some return to Malaysia and spread the same ”Malaysia Forum way”. That directly helps in deepening the culture of liberty in Malaysian society.
Others find themselves in other parts of the world. London is one of few other places where the discussion group has made its presence felt by holding small discussions every now and then.
The stress on sharing is not mere rhetoric. The group broadcasts many of its activities online so that others with respectable internet connection can at least observe the discussions. The upcoming conference for instance, which will include economist Jomo K.S and politician Khairy Jamaluddin among others, will be streamed live. To outsiders unfamiliar with Malaysia Forum, the tendency to stream everything live over the internet is probably the hallmark of the group.
It is this act of sharing that enriches frank and informed conversations within Malaysia Forum.
As group expands further, perhaps to Singapore and Sydney, something exciting and wonderful will definitely occur for those who enjoy good conversations about Malaysia.
First published in The Malaysian Insider on April 1 2010.
With over 200 pages, it will take some time to digest the so-called New Economic Model fully. I began by reading the speech delivered by the Prime Minister earlier today and I am only beginning to read the document proper just now. Given time constraint, I doubt I will able to able to go through the points presented comprehensively. At first past though, the NEM seems to suggest something favorable to me.
It appears to suggest the retreat of the state from the marketplace. The stress on frictions in the market due to subsidies and trade restrictions, the need of liberalization and reduction of government holding in some government linked enterprises are proofs for this. The term market is prominently used throughout the document.
There is more nuance than a simple retreat however. The speech itself suggests that entities like Khazanah and EPF will be allowed to invest abroad as part of effort to not crowd out the private sector.
That is good but it does not erase the fact that these entities still exist.
Affirmative action itself is still in force although the PM suggests that it will be reformed from race-based to need-based. Somewhere in the speech, the term market-friendly affirmative action appeared. I am not quite bought by that term. I rather hear the abolition of affirmative action but I am willing to give ground that need-based is far better than race based affirmative action.
The existence of national key performance indicators itself suggests a huge bureaucracy. It has been taunted as part of government transformation but I am not at all impressed with the idea of enlarged bureaucracy. Nevertheless, I am willing to give the administration a benefit of a doubt on this front.
Never mind the administration seeks to strengthen the public sector. How that strengthening will affect the size of the bureaucracy is something I hope to find out while reading the report.
Malaysia requires multiple reforms. Development in recent years proves that moving away from the status quo is incredibly hard, however. This is due to opposition mounted by beneficiaries of the current system, as well as beneficiaries of circumstances.
As the Najib administration puts in effort to address criticism directed against the flawed affirmative action, it faces fierce opposition from its own base in UMNO. There are at least two proofs to back this assertion.
First, while Perkasa is officially independent, the majority of Perkasa members ”are ordinary UMNO members”, as reported by The Nut Graph. Secondly, the editorial of Utusan Malaysia, which traditionally has been a very eager promoter of UMNO, supports Perkasa openly. Perkasa is an unrelenting critic of liberalization with respect to the affirmative action.
Perkasa and its allies fear the dumping of the current affirmative action. They are inside and they are loud. The internal opposition has already forced the Najib administration to postpone the announcement of the so-called New Economic Model several times now. How much eventual reform will occur on this particular front is suspect after deputy minister and a prominent UMNO member Mukhriz Mahathir said the new policy would have the spirit of the old New Economic Policy.
The preceding federal government also faced opposition from the inside, with respect to its effort to ensure judicious use of police power. The Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) proposal did not go through.
While the Abdullah administration then was already treading the path of the tattered, it still enjoyed huge majority in the House. Yet, there was no political will to deal with the police force decisively. The Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission was instead born, but critics say it is an ersatz to the IPCMC.
The Abdullah administration is now gone partly due to resurgent democratic culture in Malaysia, among other things. It is crucial to capitalize on the resurgence to seal the future of a more democratic Malaysia.
The reinstatement of local election is one way to institutionalize democratic culture. Unfortunately, standing in the path of further democratization is the Najib administration. Given the prime minister’s exhortation of the need for Malaysia to change, it is utterly disappointing to have him to prefer the undemocratic status quo.
Regardless of the outcome of all three cases, outside forces, which more often than not come in form of Pakatan Rakyat, have been crucial in pushing the case for both. Unfortunately, a warning is in order. While it can be helpful, outside force, i.e. Pakatan Rakyat, is no less influential in affecting reforms adversely.
Take the liberalization of the fuel subsidy regime under the Abdullah administration, for instance. The subsidy regime has proven to be disastrous to government finance. Massive expenditure dedicated to it sapped and is sapping resources that can be better used for other more productive purposes.
Yet, Pakatan Rakyat opposed such liberalization. In riding populist sentiment, Anwar Ibrahim even announced that he would cut fuel prices and, in effect, increase subsidy if he was in power at a time when global crude oil prices were going through the roof.
Fortunately, the restructuring of the fuel subsidy went through. Fortunately, partly because the populist path would have brought great damage to the economy in the long run. The reform is not complete yet but at least, it is moving along. What is of note is that the Abdullah administration only managed to push through the liberalization after suffering huge political cost.
Another example involves the proposed goods and services tax (GST) pushed by the Najib administration. The GST modernizes the tax system by addressing tax evasion committed by free riders who want every benefit but refuse to pay for it, or rather have others to pay for them.
There is considerable apprehension against the GST, especially when it is pushed by a government that does not have a stellar reputation in fiscal discipline and is perceived as corrupt. Yet, that in no way negates the need to reform the way government collects revenue because the solutions to all these concerns on government size and corruption are not mutually exclusive issues. They can be solved together.
Yet, Pakatan Rakyat is developing into a party of ”no”. It states that while GST is a good concept, it still opposes it due to a number of reasons. Lim Guan Eng, in an anti-GST forum, said that GST would tax everybody and painted the idea that not everybody is paying consumption tax at the moment. He backed his statement by erroneously comparing the fact of a narrow tax base relevant to income tax to the tax base of a consumption tax, which is a completely different animal.
Furthermore, quite conveniently, he was pretty much silent on two points that do not fit his narrative. First, the existence of a consumption tax in form of sales and services tax; all of us face prices after that tax at the moment, and that in effect says that everybody pays consumption tax.
Second is that the GST is to replace that consumption tax at a lower standardized rate with possible replication of existing tax exemptions, making the GST potentially not inflationary. The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs has made a stronger claim that the GST at the proposed rate is disinflationary.
Another argument against the GST from Pakatan Rakyat revolves around wealth inequality of Malaysia. But if the GST is not inflationary, then it should not affect inequality; if it is disinflationary, then it should have an equalizing effect on wealth inequality.
Whatever the effect of GST on price levels, the truth is that the GST system can be tweaked to satisfy a lot of concerns. Income tax rates can be lowered if there is concern about excessive burden. Rebates can be designed for some purpose. Exemptions can be made. Really, discussions on how to make GST better or more palatable than its current form need to take place. That it is not happening, though. Instead, Pakatan Rakyat is giving a solid no and prefers to ride on anti-tax sentiments. That is, in effect, a preference for the status quo.
First published in The Malaysian Insider on March 25 2010.