I re-read the nine strategic challenges spelt out by the fourth Prime Minister. Mahathir Mohamad when launching Vision 2020 in 1991, and found to my horror that all the nine strategic challenges were abject failures for Malaysia.
It is precisely because all the nine strategic challenges of Vision 2020 as articulated by Mahathir in 1991 were abject failures today that Malaysia had regressed from a first-rate world-class nation to be a second-rate mediocre country in danger of ending up as a third-class divided, failed and kleptocratic state on Malaysia’s Centennial in 2057.
It is also the reason why Malaysia has become a very corrupt country, losing out to Indonesia, China and India over the last few decades.
At least we have the opportunity to arrest the national decline and descent and must not throw away this one chance of saving the country.
The 16th Yang di Pertuan Agong is right that Malaysia needs political stability to undo the wrongs and failures of the past but the Perikatan Nasional comprising PAS and Bersatu MPs in Parliament seem committed to do the very opposite – to create political upheavals and storms that will further speed Malaysia’s decline and descent.
What is worse, the person who launched Vision 2020 in 1991 and talked about the nine strategic challenges Malaysia must overcome seemed to have abandoned Vision 2020 and the nine strategic challenges.
This is what he said 32 years ago:
“By the year 2020, Malaysia can be a united nation, with a confident Malaysian society, infused by strong moral and ethical values, living in a society that is democratic, liberal and tolerant, caring, economically just and equitable, progressive and prosperous, and in full possession of an economy that is competitive, dynamic, robust and resilient.
“There can be no fully developed Malaysia until we have finally overcome the nine central strategic challenges that have confronted us from the moment of our birth as an independent nation.
“The first of these is the challenge of establishing a united Malaysian nation with a sense of common and shared destiny. This must be a nation at peace with itself, territorially, and ethnically integrated, living in harmony and full and fair partnership, made up of one ‘Bangsa Malaysia’ with political loyalty and dedication to the nation.”
Today, in 2023, Malaysia has never been so divided and polarised and the person who launched Vision 2020 is not doing anything to ensure the rise of “Bangsa Malaysia” with political loyalty and dedication to the nation but the very opposite – in the company of people to spread the divisive and toxic politics of race and religion based on lies, falsehood and fake news like DAP promoting Islamophobia.
I would advise all Ministers and MPs and all Malaysians to re-read the nine strategic challenges of Vision 2020 to understand where we have failed in nation-building in last six decades.