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The success of institutional reforms relies on them being carried out quickly, riding on a strong wave of popular support and on the idealism of young people enthused by a reformist leader. Reforms done slowly and cautiously are not reforms; they are merely the tweaking of the status quo. Reforms carried out over a long period of time amount to conservatism.
Imran Imtiaz Shah Yacob is a trained lawyer and Malaysian political commentator. He writes for numerous international newspapers and online journals as well as hosts Face to Face, an interview segment of Malaysian/regional issues and personalities hosted on Malaysia Today. He also serves as Foreign Correspondent for foreign news organisations. 
Ooi Kee Beng, a true blue Penang-lang. Fellow at the world renowned Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore. He is the author of, The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and his Time (ISEAS, 2006). He delves into Malaysia and Singapore centric issues in a hard-hitting examination of the gut issues with Face to Face. 1. Imran Imtiaz Shah Yacob: You have since renounced your Malaysian citizenship. Were you unhappy with the Malaysian system? Ooi Kee Beng: I did that back in the 1980’s. A long story really, and probably boring to others, but to put things concisely, I was a very serious man in his 30s then, living in Stockholm, very much caught up in his own intellectual development. Sweden was just leaving behind its exciting period, I thought, and things were in flux, culturally and in many other ways. I had spent four years studying the Swedish political system, getting a degree in public administration in the process. After that, I desperately needed to learn more about politics and philosophy, so I spent 2-3 years doing my next course, in Western Philosophy. Some of the dead philosophers were exciting of course, especially Benedict Spinoza and Ludwig Wittgenstein in his more mature period. Contemporary political philosophy in Europe, as I then saw it then, was very much about questions of logic, and even ethical issues were presented as a matter of mathematics. This was very evident at Stockholm University. A big turn-off, I can tell you. It threw me into a severe crisis. To get out of that, I turned my interests to aspects of philosophy that did not deny the physicality of being, which studies of logic tended to do. This of course meant that I quickly moved into Chinese philosophy. I practised a lot of Taiji Quan. I was actually Sweden’s representative to international competitions in the early 1990s, winning the European Silver Medal in 1992, and coming eighth in the First World Championship in Wushu in Beijing in 1990. Anyway, I simply had to go to China in the late 1980s. That was where all those years of studies were leading me. At that time, young Malaysians were not allowed into China, so I applied for a Swedish passport, hoping that I could somehow end up with dual citizenship. It could not be done. The Malaysian Embassy would not allow it. I lived a couple of years in Beijing, just when the reformation of Maoism was faltering. As I saw it, that was all part of my philosophical development. This may sound strange, but after having experienced so much outside Malaysia, and having lived so long in Europe, the formality of a passport was actually nothing I gave weight to. One belongs emotionally to the place where one grew up, but throughout life, one grows philosophically as a member of the human race, not as a citizen. It’s as simple as that. What was vital to me was to discover things that my education in Malaysia and in the West had imposed upon Asians of my generation, the immediate post-colonial generation. To put it shortly, I was not giving up my Malaysianness, just my passport. 2. Imran Imtiaz Shah Yacob: Your Biography on Tun Dr. Ismail was widely reviewed here. Are you working on another book? Ooi Kee Beng: I write regular commentaries on Malaysia and on Southeast Asia for newspapers and journals in the region. My second compilation has just been published jointly by SIRD and ISEAS, titled Lost in Transition: Malaysia under Abdullah. But yes, I am working a couple of other books, one short one on Singaporeans in Shanghai, tentatively titled From One Global City to Another, and a difficult one on Dr Goh Keng Swee, one of the major architects of modern Singapore. 3. Imran Imtiaz Shah Yacob: You are of the view that the Right Honourable Prime Minister of Malaysia has lost the momentum for economic reform. Abdullah Badawi has in turn stated that he needs more time. Are we too far off the beaten track to development? Ooi Kee Beng: The success of institutional reforms relies on them being carried out quickly, riding on a strong wave of popular support and on the idealism of young people enthused by a reformist leader. Reforms done slowly and cautiously are not reforms; they are merely the tweaking of the status quo. Reforms carried out over a long period of time amount to conservatism. 
4. Imran Imtiaz Shah Yacob: What is your impression of Abdullah Badawi’s first term in office? How would you compare him to Tun Dr. Mahathir’s first term in office. Ooi Kee Beng: Along with most other people, I thought it only fair to give Abdullah Badawi a chance over the first half of his mandate, for him to show what he could do. In the beginning, he did seem to want to live up to expectations. But all that is practically gone. He has slowed down on all fronts, and he has lost a lot of his credibility. What is most worrying is that he can no longer inspire Malaysians, and we know they want very much to be inspired. Mahathir, after a contentious first period, managed to inspire the nation, especially throughout the 1990s until 1997. Without going into the rights and wrongs of things, it is vital for a multiracial country like Malaysia, where one is always balancing one thing against another and ending up with no one feeling satisfied, that the sacrifices the common Malaysian feels he or she is making are temporary, and necessary in the short run. If enough Malaysians believe the country is moving ahead, then the compromises will be more happily made. If faith in the ability of the government to develop the country for all parties involved is lacking, Malaysians will begrudge their sacrifices. 5. Imran Imtiaz Shah Yacob: How would you describe Tun. Dr Mahathir’s treatment after his retirement as to that of Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) albeit the obvious differences. Ooi Kee Beng: The cultures are different, the cases are actually quite unlike each other. I don’t know if it is useful to compare the two cases, really. 6. Imran Imtiaz Shah Yacob: In a piece entitled ‘Fractured Society At A Crossroads’ you compared Maoism of China as akin to Malaysia’s ethnocentric policies. Is that a fair comparison when juxtaposed against the fact that the Bumiputeras were historically and are at present still economically disadvantaged vis-à-vis other races? Ooi Kee Beng: My main argument in that article, somewhat truncated in the tabloid version, is against the primacy of ideology. (The full version of the article can be found in Lost in Transition, under the title “Is it time for a harmonious Malaysia?”) Now, ideology, as I see it, takes many forms. It can be theocratic in nature, philosophical, ethnic, and so on. What is common to them is that they are closed systems of thought, and given enough time as hegemonic discourse, they become bankrupt. What you increasingly get from politicians all the way down to the people, are thoughtless platitudes, and loose statements conforming to the forbidding pillars holding up the dominant ideology. The dominant discourse’s mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, of unity and division, of befriending and alienating, soon pervade society. Soon, the population merely lives out the logic of the discourse in relating to each other. In the end, the stiffness of thought reaches such a level that the whole thing breaks down. The contradictions become intolerable, and the conflicts generated for the sake of sub-national level unity – class against class, race against race – lead to open conflict. The Chinese under Mao learned this the hard way, but thanks to Deng Xiaoping, they managed to turn things around. Today, they talk instead about creating a “harmonious society”, and not about one where the dominant discourse survives through its ability to divide the citizenry, as had been the case with Maoism, and is the case with Malaysia’s ethnocratic fixation. 7. Imran Imtiaz Shah Yacob: Recently published statistics show the Malaysian Chinese to be generally wealthier and better educated than their compatriots of Malay and Indian descent. However, some segments of this community still refer to themselves as second-class citizens of Malaysia. Could you offer a rationalisation for this perception? Ooi Kee Beng: I think they are not talking about economics. Being a citizen is about being much more than merely an owner of things. Anyone of any race needs to feel they are part of something they can be proud of. That is the issue. As I mentioned earlier, with the divisive race discourse in Malaysia, nobody comes out feeling on top of the world. Malaysians are officially divided in most ways into races, and our statistical knowledge is heavily based on the category of race. The only way to break out of this fixation is for them to start thinking in terms of class. That is the crux of the matter. Unlike China, we have had too little class-discourse. That was how the way was paved for UMNO-putras to become an endemic entity, that was how the NEP became blind to class within the Malay community, leading to rich Malays being given even more privileges while poor Malays without connections are left out in the cold. The left-leaning NEP founded by Tun Abdul Razak Hussein and Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman has become a racist right-leaning exercise. There are many poor Indians, many poor Chinese, many poor Malays. Let’s just say, there are many poor Malaysians. The country is rich enough, if some people at the top were not so greedy, to provide opportunities and help to all who need it. Leave the racial categorising of the common Malaysian behind. It is incorrigibly divisive and segregating. What Malaysians should consider instead is: Who makes most concrete gains from the perpetuation of racial politics? Is it a race, or is it certain individuals? They should ask themselves: Was Merdeka gained so that Malaysians could be segregated from Malaysians forever and ever, so that a few chosen ones could grow filthy rich from it? Is the present model viable in the long run, given the geo-economic changes now taking place? 8. Imran Imtiaz Shah Yacob: The Malaysian Chinese fear the loss of their identity as a result of the apparent imposition of Malay culture/Islam or ‘Malayness’ to use the slang expression. Yet, there has not been an official assimilation policy in Malaysia as compared to Thailand or Indonesia. What is your view? Ooi Kee Beng: Ethnic identity is a very strong force, but that does not mean it must inevitably be the defining and decisive force in the building of Malaysia. It has become that, and that is all Malaysians seem able to think about. But I believe that a future Malaysia is yet possible which expresses much more humaneness, moral strength and inspiring vision than is the case now. A visionary Malaysian leader today has to realise that ethnocentrism is the greatest danger that Malaysia is facing. He or she has to push the idea that the enemy of the Malay Malaysian is not the Chinese Malaysian, or the Indian Malaysian, and vice versa. But as long as resources are divided according to the logic of race, and policies are explained through the logic of race, racialism will continue to cripple the political thoughts of the Malaysian public. It is not that we need a clear idea about what Malaysianness in the future is to be. What is presently needed is space for the various communities to connect with each other, to have dialogue with each other, and to build bonds with each other. The political system does not allow that. If we live as Malaysians separated by transient class barriers and not by everlasting race barriers, the nature of Malaysianness will take care of itself. 9. Imran Imtiaz Shah Yacob: You said chances of Malaysia-Singapore ever re-uniting again is zero. If this is the case, and most pundits do concur, why then to your mind does Lee LKY keep bringing this up? Ooi Kee Beng: Well, I think he is asked that question a lot, and whenever he responds to it, it makes the news. He does avoid being drawn into that trap every now and then. It is not just he who is fascinated by this thought experiment. I think the issue stays alive in the minds of Singaporeans, and Malaysians living in Singapore, because the separation was also the genesis of independent Singapore. The discursive link in Singapore is unbreakable and unavoidable. 10. Imran Imtiaz Shah Yacob: On this note, LKY of late was reported to have said that Malaysia and Singapore could greatly benefit from greater connectivity and cooperation. LKY – ‘It is not a zero-sum game,’ ‘As we grow, they will grow, and vice-versa.’ Is this really possible when many Malaysians feel that Singapore’s actions always hurt Malaysia. The Formula One race for example is a sore point. Comment? Ooi Kee Beng: It is possible. We must keep in mind that nations complement and compete with each other at the same time. Malaysia competes with Indonesia, does it not, as it also does with other countries in the region and the world. When competition with forces outside the region becomes stronger than that between Singapore and Malaysia, then the need for the two to complement each other, and the need for them to create synergy together, and to let the past rest, will become undeniable. 11. Imran Imtiaz Shah Yacob: You’ve written on the subject of the harsh treatment of migrant workers here. This issue cuts both ways. RELA says that illegal immigrants are a threat to national security – the spike in crime rates. However, Malaysia needs these workers to develop. Do you see a way out? Ooi Kee Beng: I think it boils down to the issue of having laws that are well thought out and that give specific attention to basic human rights and to the changing situation at hand. Following from that, it is also about proper law enforcement. It is dangerous for a society to rely on amateurs and semi-professionals to keep law and order. We do have a police force to take care of such matters more systematically and fairly, but it is one that is in need of reforms, resources, inspiration and leadership. The problem starts with the fact that we have so many illegals in the country. Now why is that so? If and when we officially identity the cause of that basic fault, and acknowledge it in policy making, can we start solving the problem more permanently. It takes no genius to see that proper law enforcement is not possible if the culture of corruption is widespread. That goes for other areas as well. Incompetence and corruption are bedfellows, as we know. Let me also say in conclusion that even illegal immigrants have human rights that have to be respected. To make certain of that, we have to have professionals managing the situation, not part-timers and laypersons. 12. Will the United States economy sustain a prolonged recession, and what will be the impact of a long-term slowdown upon South East Asian nations? We are living through a shift in economic power at a global level. The USA has had a good run at an optimal level. It cannot continue doing that in the 21st century, and so will shrink in comparative importance, down to a healthier level. The world economy will become multi-polar, and what we are seeing now is that shift actually taking place in front of our eyes. The impact on Southeast Asia of US economic shrinkage will be limited, and that shrinkage itself will allow the sole superpower to settle at a more comfortable and sustainable level of economic influence. Face to Face interviews are conducted by way of e-mail unless otherwise stated.
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