clichÃ© – the _

[2494] Cheapening transformation

Transformation is a big word. It is not some word that should be used lightly. Use it too often for the smallest of things, it will turn into a clichÃ© and it will lose its meaning soon afterwards. In Malaysia, that is already happening with all the stress on transforming Malaysia under the 1Malaysia banner.

And so, in conferring an award to Prime Minister Najib Razak, World Chinese Economic Forum’s Michael Yeoh said, “[y]ou have contributed significantly to the transformation of the Malaysian nation.”^[1]

Transformation of the Malaysian nation?

With the ETP appearing stalling or at more kindly put, going slowly, economic liberalization halted halfway through, along with half-baked realization of the September 15 announcement of the so-called political transformation program, and moreover, not even 3 years in office, I would think there is hardly anything that could be transformed. Tweak yes, but transform? Far from it.

Remember, transformation is a big word. It connotes an action that changed something completely into something else. Maybe the ETP has it right when it uses (and overuses) the word transform. At least, the objective of being (yet another overused phrase) high-income nation suggests a completely different Malaysian economic reality that prevails today.

A moth into a butterfly, that is transformation. Ass to a donkey? Maybe not so.

In the past three years, what transformation have we seen? Is Malaysia today any different that in 2009? Some potholes in the city have been there even before the PM assumed office with Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s mandate. It will not take a transformation to cover the potholes. Yet, here we are living in transformation, so claimed Michael Yeoh.

You cheapen the word Mr. Yeoh. But I guess, since everybody uses it so cheaply, it does not hurt much. How more cheaply can the clichÃ© get, eh?

A mere less-than-three-years, and Mr. Yeoh and the WCEF granted the PM a lifetime award.

If anything, the supposedly transformation has hardly begun in earnest. The jury is still out there but Mr. Yeoh and the WCEF have jumped the gun. Overwrought, them.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

^[1] — PUTRAJAYA, Jan 25 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak was crowned today the “Father of Moderation and Transformation” by the World Chinese Economic Forum (WCEF), which said the prime minister’s “fair and just leadership” had benefited the Chinese community “tremendously”.

Najib was also conferred the “Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award” by the WCEF for his work and commitment towards transforming Malaysia.

“You (Najib) have contributed significantly to the transformation of the Malaysian nation.

“The Chinese community has benefitted tremendously from you for your fair and just leadership,” WCEF chairman Datuk Michael Yeoh said in his speech at the conferment ceremony here today. [Chinese economic group calls Najib ”˜Father of Transformation and Moderation’. Clara Chooi. The Malaysian Insider. January 25 2011]

[2478] The banality of mass opinions

I found myself in a party full of strangers once. I generally dislike this kind of parties (I like small intimate parties) but there I was in a middle of conversation among strangers. I was disinterested. I did not show it but tiring facade that is social etiquette demands participation and I had really nowhere to go without being rude. The settings was not a one-time encounter where I could risk being labeled as an impolite stranger. They know me personally, even if superficially, and I know them personally, even if superficially. One lesson arising from “repeated game” is that reputation matters. I did not want to be known that rude person. And I have been labeled as anti-social, sometimes even arrogant by some, but I guess, not without basis. Some stereotypes like being an alum of certain schools also work against me.

So, I try to be friendlier sometimes, but I distrust strangers, and that is a huge barrier for me.

But I listened to the conversation at hand even as I wished I was somewhere else, even as the topic of the conversation switched from one that bores to one that dulls.

Many have short attention span, forgetting what was said five sentences ago. I marked every single point of switch of topic, trying to entertain myself amid banality of mass opinions regurgitated to me, as if these opinions were the product of individual creative endeavor that worth the seconds and minutes and heavens, the hour it consumed. In truth, those opinions were first maybe written or said very well and good, but later repackaged for popular consumption, for the masses.

The mass opinions focus on the punch line, because it is easy. The logic, the rationale, the origin, the context, all pushed to the backroom, hidden, doors locked. Slowly, voila! The development of clichÃ©s. Gradually and suddenly, an argument designed for specific issue became the general punch line for all issues, losing its context.