There is one lesson for Michelle Yeoh’s winning the Oscar for the best actress: Lets unite all the races and religions in the country to compete with the rest of the world instead of competing among ourselves as in the last few decades.
What is worse, there are now political leaders who contend that a race and a religion are under threat and facing extinction, and all efforts must directed at the survival and hegemony of the threatened race and religion, when there is no basis whatsoever for such falsehoods and fake news.
This is one reason why Malaysia had never been so polarised along race and religious lines, with the divisive and toxic politics of lies, falsehood, fake news, race and religion holding sway in the political life of the country – and why even attempts to put anti-corruption on the top agenda to ensure good governance and public integrity have been converted into burning race and religious issues.
When the Transparency International (TI) unveiled its annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in 1995, we were ranked No.23 out of the 41 countries.
Twenty-eight years later, in the TI CPI 2022, we were ranked No. 61 out of 180 countries.
Malaysia has lost out to five countries in the original TI CPI 1995 list – Taiwan, South Korea, Spain, Italy and Greece – while other countries notably China, India and Indonesia had made giant strides in the war against corruption to close their gap with Malaysia.
If Malaysia had kept in step on the anti-corruption front with nations serious about good governance and public integrity, we should be among the top 30 countries in the world in anti-corruption efforts instead of occupying the lowly rank of No. 61 out of 180 countries and in danger of being overtaken by China and India before 2030 and Indonesia before 2040
It is painful to see the second former Prime Minister of Malaysia being arrested and charged for corruption, but if this is the price for Malaysia to be one of the top 30 countries in the world for good governance and public integrity, then the price must be paid and let more VIPs be arrested and charged with corruption and money-laundering.
But there must be no room for selective persecution, and the allegations of selective persecution must be taken seriously by the authorities, as to leave such serious allegations untouched is to undermine the two important concepts of the rule of law and judicial independence in Malaysia.