MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Drifting into disaster

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, began the litany of official confessions this week. He orders government websites, woefully out of date for years, updated. Not that they would. He issues so many even his office cannot say how many. No one cares if they are carried out. The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, says the cabinet re-affirmed the official policy of two years of teaching science and mathematics in English. It works well, he says, but he also why students fail in the two subjects. He calls this failure a "phenomenon", which it is not. It is bungled policy.

His cousin and education minister, Dato' Hishamuddin Hussein, on the other hand, has convinced himself, though few others, that the policy works well in schools. So well that Perlis orders its school principals and headmasters to speak in English at school assemblies. Meanwhile, the second Malay Education Congress last month asked the government to review the teaching of English. But Dato' Seri Najib's spin is that even the MEC accepts its importance.

The science, technology and innovation minister, Dato' Jamaluddin Jarjis, orders his officers to warn Malaysians through the mass media of earthquake and tsunami reports within 15 minutes. The deputy information minister, Mr Zainuddin Maidin, now orders Radio and Television Malaysia (RTM) to establish direct links with the meteriological department and police so disasters and dangers could be broadcast quickly and without waiting for orders from the top.

He insists RTM policy will remain an "infotainment" station, but would turn into a news channel when disaster or danger strikes. He talks nonsense. It would fail as surely as prime ministerial orders fail. In a flawed system, good intentions will not stop the rot no more than ministerial words would. If one must take the ministers at their words, the new policy affects only earthquakes, tsunamis and similar dangers and disaster, but not others. But then this happens, when policy is made on the run and as an aside. As now.

There is more. The minister in the prime minister's department, Dato' Nazri Aziz, told parliament today (04 April 2005) there is no immunity for graft, that the UMNO youth deputy chief, Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, was wrong when he said to a reporter of the International Herald Tribune last month that the government will ignore corruption before the general election, and "look forward". He said Mr Khairy is not in the government and his words carry no weight.

If it does not, why did the minister make the statement in parliament? He is more than UMNO deputy youth chief, he is Pak Lah's son-in-law, a law into his own hands, the second most powerful man in government. It does not matter if he is in office or not. Recently, he and his wife, Pak Lah's daughter, called on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in Jakarta. He was honoured as a state guest, and the meeting carried live on Indonesia radio and television. Who did he represent? The Malaysian government? His father-in-law? UMNO? UMNO Youth? Who sent him there? Why was not stopped from going? Did Wisma Putra, the foreign office, know of it? Why did it not stop him?

This meeting upset UMNO, the rumbles from the ground such that it redounds on Pak Lah. Which is why Dato' Seri Nazri had to deny what the man said about corruption. In one sense, he represents all that is wrong with Pak Lah's administration, which breaks down from within. Cabinet ministers and others speak at cross purposes, contradicting each other with impunity, with no attempt to right wrongs but quick to "explain", "order", "demand", "announce" policies and knowing they would be ignored. But it makes good headlines. In the past, this would be proof the minister is efficient and on the ball. Today, with weblogs and political websites on the Internet will not let them get away with these "feel-good" statements. Worse, this dissarray makes Pak Lah defensive as ever. He cannot act for fear he would lose even more ground. But that he does not , ensures it.

It is cut and paste all the way. It appears the BN government has but one aim: to complete its parliamentary term unscathed. The middle class moves away from it. It does not control political events as it could from 1946 to 1998. From 1998, one man does. His release from prison in September 2004 puts BN, especially UMNO, in shell shock. It thought it could control this "minor" insurrection. It could not. The man turned out a natural leader. UMNO's hostility to its former deputy president only made certain he would not return to it. But that puts BN, and UMNO, in grave danger. The opposition looks to him to lead. The best organised opposition party, PAS, has offered him its presidency. He keeps them guessing. He creates waves at home and abroad in inverse proportion to BN's difficulties in and out of the country.

The BN government has problems with every one of its neighbours. Mr Khairy might deem it a political coup to be received by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and have all Indonesia know of it. But in Javanese culture, he is fed a lemon. A Javanese has 30 faces, but a non-Javanese could hope to identify ten or so of these faces if he steeped in its culture. But if one knows it exists, with a good Javanese adviser, one can at least prevent mishaps.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew did not understand this when he hanged two Indonesian marines for an explosion at an official block in Singapore during Indonesia's confrontation of Malaysia, and paid a heavy price for it: he had to place wreaths at their graves before bilateral ties resumed, but on sufferance. His successors have not fared better.

Similarly, the BN government pays a heavy price for its unilateral repatriatriation of illegal workers, refusing even to a moratorium when the tsunami struck on 26 December. Malaysia is forced to scramble for workers from Pakistan, Nepal and elsewhere. Malaysia's best efforts to wean the workers back from Indonesia hits a blank wall. But it would have to but not on its terms. The Javanese psyche would see to that.

Malaysia blotted its copy book when the foreign minister, Dato' Seri Syed Hamid Albar, made statements about illegal workers he should not have. It raised temperatures in Jakarta. Bringing in workers from Pakistan, Nepal and elsewhere could help Malaysia's worker shortage in the short term, but it must in the end bring the Indonesian workers back. That would be at a heavy cost. Malaysia's edge in bilateral ties with Indonesia is no more. As with Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines. The new breed of Malaysian diplomats and civil servants does not understand the cultural niceties and run foul of them time and time again. But no attempt is made to right it. This belief that the world must fall in line with Malaysia's local standards is compounded by a diplomacy that has seen better days.

This can be resolved with effort. But only if Pak Lah would call on retired politicians and civil servants to liaise with the government to rework the flawed policies. His administration, like it or not, let matters slide into a confrontation. But he would not for fear it would show him a weak leader. In truth that he would not makes him so. The cabinet cannot, indeed does not, function; how could it when its members should have been put to pasture a decade ago.

A year after his massive election victory, he has yet to reshuffle his cabinet, his problems compound. That he and his ministers rush into print to show how weak they are, on the mistaken belief it enhances their role in government. It has the opposite effect. When cabinet ministers insist on being briefed before they talk to the press, it reveals their irrelevance. They should master their brief instead. To lift the country out of its morass, they must do this and more. But this is beyond them. And so they drift, and the country follows.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com