Reviving our winning ways

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Reflecting On The Law By Shad Saleem Faruqi

 As a nation, we will be celebrating our 54 years of independence. But, regrettably, the enslavement of our mind still continues despite the colonizer having long gone back home.

HARI Raya is approaching and so is National Day. It is time to seek solace in prayer and renew our resolve to overcome some persistent problems that are straining the social fabric.

Among these are the deterioration of inter-ethnic relations and the ascendancy of some shrill voices of discord that trumpet all that divides us as well as trivialise much that unites us.

However, on a positive note, this is the season to count our blessings, which indeed are many.

First, is the area of constitutionalism.

Though the cup is not full to the brim, it is not empty.There is enough in it to relish, cherish, protect and preserve.

The Constitution has survived the vicissitudes of race and religious politics. Despite many political and economic crises that could have torn other societies asunder, our Constitution has endured.

It has provided a firm foundation for political stability, social harmony and economic prosperity.

Second is the wondrous durabi-lity of political cooperation among the country’s racial and religious groups.

The coalition of 14 disparate political parties under a sometimes shaky, but nevertheless enduring, political alliance is perhaps the world’s longest surviving political arrangement.

In 1955, two years before Merdeka, it was built on a spirit of accommodation, a moderation of spirit, an absence of the kind of passions, zeal and ideological convictions that in other plural societies have left a heritage of bitterness and violence.

A similar rainbow coalition is emerging on the other side of the political fence and this raises hope for the eventual emergence of issue-based rather than race-based politics.

Third is the success of our economy and development plans.

These have positive implications for the realisation of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Consti­tution and for the success of socially ameliorative programmes.

Fourth, Malaysia has successfully used the economy to unite its disparate racial groups.

By encouraging entrepreneurship and tapping the genius of the minority communities to supply leadership on the economic front, the Government achieved twin objectives. It succeeded in developing the country and also gave every community a stake in the nation.

The fifth sterling achievement is that despite periodic tensions and racist and religious rhetoric, the country’s enduring and endearing inter-ethnic harmony has few parallels in the world.

Instead of creating a melting pot, Malaysia painstakingly weaved a rich cultural mosaic and an extraordinarily multi-faceted society.

The sixth outstanding feature of Malaysia is the peaceful and cooperative manner in which social engineering is being accomplished.

Unlike some other societies with a similar problem of identification of race with economic function and the concentration of wealth in the hands of powerful minorities, the Government did not expropriate the wealth of one community to bestow it on another.

It embarked on a pragmatic expansion of opportunities to give to every community its share of the economic pie.

Many aspects of this policy of social engineering have succeeded, though there is much scope for improvement.

A seventh remarkable feature of the country is the emancipation of women.

In the work place, in schools and in universities, women are easily outnumbering men.

In the professions, they are making their mark and increasingly moving into leadership positions.

Recently, the Constitution was amended to outlaw gender discrimination in the public sector.

Eighth, Malaysia is an exemplar of a moderate and progressive society that embraces modernity and democracy and yet accommodates the spiritual view of life.

The imperatives of modernity and the aspirations of religion mingle together.

This not to deny, however, that there are strong cross-currents of obscurantism in the last two decades that are posing a challenge to social harmony.

Ninth, Malaysia has successfully kept the armed forces under civilian control.

There has been no attempted coup d’etat and no “stern warnings” from military generals to the political executive.

Even in 1969, when law and order broke down in the Klang Valley, the National Operations Council was headed by Deputy Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak who called the shots with the army and police representatives in attendance.

Another remarkable phenomenon is that the extra-constitutional military-industrial complex, that behind the scenes dictates policy in many democratic countries like the US, has not been able to displace civilian control over military and industrial decisions in Malaysia.

Tenth, Malaysia has successfully used education as a tool of social engineering and upward social mobility.
Primary and secondary education is free and open to all irrespective of race or religion. Tertiary education is highly subsidised.

Though the Government is unable to meet the aspirations of all who seek higher education, the opportunities for upward mobility through higher education are exhilarating.



However, how far our tertiary educational system emancipates us from servile dependence on and mental slavery to Western education is another question.

As we celebrate National Day it must be remembered that the stains of cultural and intellectual imperialism do not end with the attainment of political freedom.

Freedom is a state of the mind and, regrettably, the enslavement of our mind still continues long after the coloniser had gone back home.

Most of our universities blindly ape European curricula and European paradigms.

We ignore the knowledge systems and traditions of the East.

Our books, syllabi and intellectual icons are mostly from the West. Our list of experts, external examiners and guest speakers are mostly European.

Towering personalities of our own region are shunned. Decades have passed, but our servile minds have not woken up to the damage done to our psyche.

While parochialism and narrow chauvinism are not called for, we have to take pride in our own heritage and draw sustenance from it before supplementing it with wisdom from elsewhere.

Nevertheless, as the commemoration day of our independence draws nigh, we must count our many blessings.

There is much in Malaysia’s struggles and successes that is worthy of emulation by friends and foes alike.

This is not to say that we should be complacent. As we celebrate 54 years of independence, our laws and institutions, our values and our views cannot remain impervious to the changes and challenges all around us.

In the realm of law and politics, there are always new challenges and opportunities that beckon the human spirit.

> Shad Saleem Faruqi is Emeritus Professor of Law at UiTM and Visiting Professor at USM. 

Related posts:
The true meaning of independence 
Malaysia still in pursuit of full independence 

3 Powerful Skills You Must Have to Succeed in Sales

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by Sharon Michaels

A key to successfully sharing and selling a product, service or idea, is to ask questions and then listen quietly and carefully to the answers. Many of us try too hard to convince people to buy instead of discovering what our future customer or client really wants, needs and desires from us.

To succeed in sales remember these three listening and relationship building skills:

S – Sincerity – Listen without an agenda, it’s not about your needs.

E – Ethics – Don’t try to talk someone into something, listen to what they want.

A – Asking – Serve others by asking questions that will assist them in making a wise buying decision.



Building win-win relationships means remembering that it is not about what we want but what the other person wants. Here are three relationship building skills that when used regularly will have you increasing sales and creating satisfied loyal customers.

1. Listening sincerely and without an agenda. The buying process is not about you and your wants and needs, it is about the customer. Too many of us come to the sales table with our own agenda. We are sometimes too busy thinking about quotas, promotions and commissions. It’s not about us, it’s about the wants, needs and expectations of the prospective buyer.

A sales person with an agenda tends to push too hard and often doesn’t listen well. Leave your agenda at home. Sincerely focus on your customer and how your product can best serve their hopes, dreams and goals. Zig Ziglar said it best, “You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people what they want.”

2. Don’t talk someone into something, allow them to make their own buying decision. Doing what is right for everyone involved is the ethical thing to do. I’m reminded of a phrase from Dale Carnegie’s book, How To Win Friends and Influence People, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

Your role in the sales process is to present your product in a clear, concise and truthful manner—with integrity. The best customer is the customer who can make an educated decision based on what is best for them. A loyal customer is an educated customer. You are not in the convincing business, you are in the sharing business. Your job is to ethically offer the product, service or idea, explain the benefits and answer questions. Your customer or client will then make a buying decision based on the information they’ve been given. Making the sale is about asking questions, answering questions and building a trustworthy win-win relationship.

3. You can serve your client/customer best by finding out what they want, need and expect from what you are offering. Sometimes, we are so excited to share everything we know about what we’re offering that we forget it is about your potential customer’s expectations. What is important to you may not be important to them.

I’m reminded of a story: A young mother just starting out with a large network marketing company was excited and eager to share her business with other stay-at-home mothers. She was having coffee with a potential recruit as their children played near by. The young mother was eagerly showing her products and explaining the business potential. She went on and on about how she could stay home with her children and didn’t have to leave the house to conduct business.

The mother who was listening seemed to suddenly turn off her interest and attention. When our eager young network marketing mother asked her friend to join her in the business, the friend replied with a resounding, “No,” The business-building mother was shocked and saddened, “Why?” she asked. “Because,” her friend said, “I want to be able to do something that allows me to get out of the house and socialize with other adults.”

Moral of the story: Ask questions and listen. Don’t assume that what is important to you is important to your future customers.

Successful selling isn’t about what you want, it is about how can you best serve the needs of your customers and clients. Coming from a sincere place of service, will help increase sales and develop loyal client and referral base.

Keeping the three elements of SEA (Sincerity, Ethics, Asking) in mind, you can easily and effortlessly find new customers and clients who will want to do business with you now and in the future. Selling your service, product or idea is about doing the right thing for everyone involved – it is about building win-win relationships.


Sharon Michaels is a business coach and the author of How to Give Yourself the Power to Succeed. She produces and hosts the weekly radio show, Women Enjoying Success and the blog Power to Succeed. Check out her weekly Ezine, Unlimited Success for Women. 

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A neighbour underestimated

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Ceritalah by KARIM RASLAN

The buoyant statistics coming out of East Kalimantan underline the extent to which the once-poor neighbour has eclipsed Sabah. And until Sabahans can exorcise their ghosts, Indonesia will remain an untapped mirage.
Image via Wikipedia
WE are living in an age of tremendous financial turmoil. Currency and equity market gyrations have dramatically altered relations between nations and entire regions. Indeed, the decline of US and European competitiveness and the attendant acceleration of Chinese wealth have been the most note-worthy developments.

What is less well-documented is the fact that these trends have also led to significant changes within South-East Asia with China’s (and India’s) hunger for natural resources driving prices ever higher.
This is most apparent on the island of Borneo.

In 2010, the GDP per capita in Sabah was RM8,450. By way of comparison, the GDP per capita in the neighbouring Indonesian province of East Kalimantan (or Kaltim) was over US$4,000 (RM12,000).



While the Kaltim statistics are inflated by skyrocketing coal, as well as oil and gas prices, the reality shows a marked increase in living standards for the province’s 3.2 million people.

In fact, Kaltim’s booming economy is also contributing to Sabah’s shortage of labour for the plantation sector.

Meanwhile, decentralisation initiatives (dubbed regional autonomy) meant that a greater proportion of the natural resource bounty was being retained locally.

Kaltim is Indonesia’s largest producer of both coal and oil/gas. At the same time there are plans to increase palm oil planting to well over 1.5 million hectares.

Balikpapan – the premier commercial hub with a population over 600,000 – is also a major transport and services hub.

The city’s Sepinggan airport (with over five million passengers a year) is Indonesia’s fourth busiest.

The buoyant statistics coming out of Kaltim underline the extent to which the once-poor neighbour has eclipsed Sabah and indeed Malaysia.

This is all the more ironic given the fact that for many decades Sabahans have felt imperilled by what they’ve perceived as waves of “desperately poor” Indonesians and Filipinos pressing at their borders.

Indeed, the control (or lack of it) of migrant workers has been an enormously controversial issue in Kota Kinabalu.

Sabah’s exponential population growth – most notably in the 1980s when naturalisation policies (covert or otherwise) were at their most pronounced – witnessed a dramatic increase from 929,992 in 1980 to 1,734,685 in 1990.

Indeed, it is arguable that Sabahans have been traumatised by the massive influx of illegals.

The state’s indigenous communities have seen their demographic and political leadership whittled away.
Unsurprisingly, they are deeply suspicious of Indonesians and Filipinos.

All this has made it difficult for Sabah to leverage Indonesia’s current prosperity despite the state’s strategic location.

Sabah has very poor connectivity with Kaltim, so much so that even the lengthy land border lacks formal road crossings.

Still, Indonesians – including Awang Faroek, Kaltim’s Governor – are lobbying hard for a link at Serudong along the Tawau/Kota Kinabalu road.

In the absence of an overland crossing, hundreds of thousands of Indonesian workers in Sabah have been forced to travel by ferry through Tawau’s meagre and unimpressive port facilities.

By way of comparison, the Entikong crossing between Sarawak and West Kalimantan has become a major thoroughfare with countless buses plying the route linking Pontianak and Kuching.

Moreover, it is estimated that some 3,000 Indonesian students are currently studying in Kuching’s many private educational institutions.

At the same time, direct flights (on local carrier, Kalstar) linking the two cities have further enhanced connectivity and opportunities for businessmen on both sides of the border.

Kota Kinabalu and Balikpapan are like step-sisters. A journey between the two cities requires an awkward and time-consuming detour through either Kuala Lumpur, Singapore or Jakarta.

The alternative is the nerve-wracking ferry from Tawau to either Nunukan or Tarakan ... neither of which are particularly attractive for tourists or business travellers.

But Kota Kinabalu remains a superb destination.

With its waterfront lifestyle, schools, hospitals and international flights, the city is poised to become a popular hub for Indonesians – from as far away as Banjarmasin, Makassar, Samarinda and Manado.

It is worth noting that all four cities are beneficiaries of the natural resources boom and growing faster than the national average.

Indeed, other Malaysian cities such as Penang and Malacca have become adept at tapping the Indonesian demand for healthcare, education, housing and retail.

It remains to be seen whether the socio-political trauma of past decades could be overcome to allow Sabah to maximise these opportunities.

However, thankfully, some of Sabah’s leaders are beginning to recognise their neighbour’s vast potential.

Flamboyant former chief minister Datuk Harris Salleh has been a major promoter of the cross-Borneo linkages.

Last year, he undertook a highly publicised tour across Indonesian Kalimantan.

Similar sentiments are raised by Sabah Economic Development and Investment Authority CEO Yaakub Johari who confidently said: “History aside, we see Sabah acting as a conduit between an expanding Indonesia and the dynamic Northeast Asian markets.

“Enhanced connectivity whether by land, air or sea is a must.”

Until Sabah and Sabahans can exorcise their ghosts, Indonesia will remain an untapped mirage.

Malaysian Election Reform: a panel for free and fair polls

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A panel for free and fair polls

Comment by BARADAN KUPPUSAMY

 For the select committee on electoral reform to be successful, there is a need for all parties to put aside partisan politics and work for what matters most – the best interest of the rakyat.

PAKATAN Rakyat should give a chance for the Parliamentary Select Committee to be formed and do its job of investigating and suggesting changes to the country’s electoral system.

As it is, their MPs have issued numerous statements ranging from outright boycott of the select committee to agreeing to participate but on their own terms.

They want Pakatan leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to head the panel, increase the number of Pakatan panel members from the current three or, alternatively, not to give independent MPs a place in the committee.

They also want the assurance that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak will not call for a general election before a full, complete report of the panel is published and the recommendations implemented.
 
Najib has said the reforms could be divided into immediate reforms and long term ones; immediate reforms could be implemented before the next general election.

But he has rejected outright the idea of reform first and a general election later, saying the Government reserves the right to call for a general election at any time.
 
Pakatan Rakyat is due to make known its stand on the matter soon, according to PAS deputy president Mohamed Sabu.

While Pakatan Rakyat decides, Parliament is set to debate a motion on the formation of the select committee on Oct 3, which will also include its terms of reference and possibly the members of the committee.

A parliamentary select committee, as the name suggests, is a committee of the House and tasked to deliberate on matters of concern; in this case, on election and the electoral process and submit a report to Parliament and make recommendations which can lead to changes in the relevant laws.

Select committee members must be MPs and exercise all the powers of Parliament to make inquiries, inspect documents, call experts witnesses and go on road shows around the country for evidence gathering.



They must act in a non-partisan manner as Parliament is supposed to be – that is, to act in the best interest of the rakyat.

That is why a select committee is headed by a minister of the Government of the day which has a majority in the House.

It is the Government that decides that the election system needs reforming and carries out the task of forming the select committee.

It is inappropriate for Pakatan Rakyat to demand that it head the select committee because it is the Government’s right to reserve that position for itself.

This means Anwar cannot be head of the select committee but he can be a member of the panel, if he so chooses.

Besides, such a committee has no place for an NGO leader or a civilian because parliamentary convention allows only MPs to be members of the committee.

But they can be called as experts witnesses to aid the committee in carrying out its duties which, hopefully, is the manner in which Bersih leaders will be engaged.

The Government’s right of way also includes having a majority in the select committee but that majority should be proportionate to its membership in Parliament.

Giving Pakatan Rakyat parties three places in the committee is also fair when the Government only reserves for itself five places, which is quite proportionate to the respective representation of Parlia­ment.

The only issue that Pakatan Rakyat can raise is the allocation of one place to the nine independent MPs who act as a bloc in Parlia­ment.

The independents are not true independents but former PKR MPs who defected and now stand with the Government on any issue in Parliament.

Giving them a place seems unjustified but they, too, might have a cause to present.

The nearest thing we have had to a successful select committee, in recent times, was the 2004 select committee on the Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code that was headed by Datuk Seri Radzi Sheikh Ahmad.

It heard expert witnesses and made numerous recommendations.

This eventually led to amendments to both codes in 2006 that helped to strengthen the fundamental liberties of arrested persons, among other changes.

This current committee will also see changes to the election rules and process if given a chance to be formed and conduct its work.

Therefore, it is incumbent on the Pakatan Rakyat MPs to set aside partisan politics and work together to ensure that the people get what want – a free and fair election.

Layoffs sweep Wall Street, along with low morale

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By Lauren Tara LaCapra  NEW YORK

(Reuters) - In early summer, before layoffs began sweeping across Wall Street, billboard-sized photos of employees were plastered on the walls, pillars and elevator banks of Credit Suisse Group AG's offices in the United States and abroad.

The museum-quality prints, depicting workers from administrative assistants to senior executives, were emblazoned with motivational words like "Proactive" and "Partner." By mid-July, however, the photos disappeared and the Swiss banking giant began laying off 2,000 employees.

Security guards prevented employees from taking cell-phone pictures as the posters were stripped away, according to one employee who was present.

"It sent an entirely wrong message," said an employee, who was not authorized to speak publicly. "Management literally threw away that kind of money on something so trivial, while planning to cut thousands of jobs."

A bank spokeswoman declined to comment on the internal campaign or the employee's comments.

Credit Suisse's timing illustrates the unanticipated dangers of rampant job-cutting, which tend to run in cycles on Wall Street. Employee morale often plummets at a time when survivors are asked to pick up more responsibility and customer relations can suffer as service and relationships deteriorate.



CUTTING 'MUSCLE AND BONE'

What's more, layoffs inartfully constructed can come across to shareholders as Band-Aid solutions that at best temporarily cut expenses and at worst pare away reserves of talented people.

"They finished cutting the fat and now they're into the muscle and bone," said Tim White, a managing partner who specializes in wealth management at the recruiting firm Kaye/Bassman International in Dallas.

Credit Suisse has plenty of company in its cost-cutting campaign. HSBC, Barclays PLC, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Bank of New York Mellon Corp have announced plans to ax thousands of workers in recent months. On Thursday, Bank of America Corp Chief Executive Brian Moynihan sent a memo to senior executives outlining plans to cut another 3,500 jobs.

The planned cuts at Bank of America have pushed the number of financial sector layoffs this year to 18,252 -- 6 percent higher than in the comparable period in 2010, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement firm that keeps a daily tab on layoff announcements.

Some companies began the culling earlier this year -- HSBC has already axed about 5,000 employees, with 25,000 more set to get pink slips by the end of 2012 -- and others, such as Goldman Sachs, said that cuts will come by year's end.

That is not good for morale.

BITING INTO CLIENT SERVICE

Hours have become longer, trading floors have more open seats and fresh young faces are taking over offices where high-level personnel once sat. The highest-paid people can be easy targets for layoffs now, given the cost of keeping them employed and the eagerness of younger workers to take on their roles, even at less pay, executive recruiters said.

Changes in pay structures mandated in part by the Dodd-Frank financial reform laws have exacerbated the problem.

Banks that used to pay modest base salaries supplemented by opulent stock-and-option packages that encouraged meeting short-term performance goals now are weighting compensation toward base salary.

Managing directors at investment banks have seen a typical base salary double to $400,000, said Paul Sorbera, president of Alliance Consulting. Meanwhile, 2011 bonuses are expected to fall by up to 30 percent for top earners, according to pay consulting firm Johnson Associates.

The shift erodes Wall Street's former flexibility to lower end-of-year bonuses in bad times and forces a heavier reliance on layoffs.

The danger is that client service suffers.

"Banking clients abhor relationship-manager turnover," said Heather Hammond, a senior member of Russell Reynolds' financial services practice.

Investors, for their part, tend to view cost-cutting as a short-term solution that fails to address fundamental issues relating to capital, strategy and the ability to endure through hard economic times.

At Credit Suisse, some senior jobs have been consolidated as executives have been escorted toward early retirement with offers of bonus bridges and other payments, sources familiar with the matter say.

Managing directors in businesses that have missed revenue targets have been told to reduce millions of dollars' worth of headcount expenses, according to a managing director who received such a request. In some areas, including operations, legal and technology, more work is being outsourced and mid-level employees are being replaced by consultants.

"People are leaving resumes on the printers, hoping someone picks it up," the Credit Suisse employee said.

Some sources believe that banks are repeating their typical hiring strategy: Cutting staff levels too deeply in bad times only to rush out with open checkbooks when markets recover.

"When people are getting hired, fired, hired, fired, every two years, it's very difficult to run a business," said Conrad Ciccotello, a finance professor at Georgia State University who has studied the issue. "There is precious human capital destroyed in vicious boom-and-bust cycles that is costly to replace."

(Reporting by Lauren Tara LaCapra; Editing by Richard Chang and Jan paschal)

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Friends for all seasons - priceless

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People who are friends in good and bad times are priceless

Monday Starters - By Soo Ewe Jin

THE MAS-Air Asia alliance remains very much the talk of Corporate Malaysia. In the many analyses so far, the recurring theme seems to be about how erstwhile enemies are going to work together as friends.

My colleague used the Sun Tzu quote, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer,” to lead off the cover feature on the deal in StarBizWeek on Aug 13. Somewhere in the story, there is this quote by Tony Fernandes: “You don’t have to be an enemy forever, life is too short.”
Image via Wikipedia
Actually, there is not that much that separates the corporate world and politics as far as alliances are concerned.

In politics, it is said that there are no permanent friends, only permanent interests. Politicians are fond of referring to their adversaries as “strange bedfellows” but will not hesitate to climb into the same bed if it suits their interests.

In the world of high-finance, bitter rivals can easily sleep on in the same bed, so long as it is good for the bottom line.

For some business people, however, friendship is not a word that exists in their vocabulary. Many good friends who go into business together learn the hard way that years of friendship count for nothing once the business issues get into the way.



A friend told me once that he will never hire me, or ask me to be his business partner, simply because he values our friendship too much.

I once met a man at a hospital as he was dying. He told me how he had pursued wealth and success at any cost. If a family member or close friend went against him, he would not spare them any mercy.

“But look at me now. I do not have long to live. But if I recover, I will surely be a different person. I will seek the forgiveness of those I have hurt. I will forgive others. I will give back to society. I will try not to be so nasty to people,” he said.

I was there to bring him a message from a former business partner who was somehow not able to bring himself to see him personally. He told me to tell him that he did not hold anything against him and to wish him well.

Tears came to his eyes. “I wish he would come and tell me this personally. I have done so much harm to him and his business. But he still thinks of me and is concerned for me.” I told him, “I hope and pray that you will both meet up and forgive each other.” They never did. He died one week later.

I was thinking about friendship this past week after a friend posted on his Facebook this simple reflection: “It has been said that everlasting friends go long periods of time without speaking and never question the friendship. These friends pick up like they just spoke yesterday, regardless of how long it has been or how far away they live; they don’t hold grudges. They understand that life is busy and know that you will always love them.”

Whether we want to admit it or not, sheer numbers of acquaintances in itself is no reflection of the number of real friends we have. Just ask anyone previously in a high position who has retired and he will tell you about the sense of “abandonment” that one feels sometimes.

Suddenly, no one is free for lunch or for teh tarik, one such person told me recently.

This is not to say that it is not possible to have real friends within working relationships. But it can only come about if we are genuinely concerned about the person, and not just the title he or she holds.

And the test of that friendship will come when you are going through a difficult journey, and he is there for you.
● Deputy executive editor Soo Ewe Jin is thankful for friends, near and far, new and old, who bring that special touch into his life, through good and bad times.

Malaysia still in pursuit of full independence

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Still in pursuit of full independence

Global Trends By MARTIN KHOR

Fifty-four years after Merdeka, Malaysia, like other developing countries, is still fighting for full independence in a globalised world which has grown more complex and crisis-laden.

THE Merdeka season is a good time to ponder over what independence means to Malaysia and the other developing countries that are still battling to overcome the disadvantages that the colonial era brought.
The problems of governance in a developing country, 54 years after independence, are still as complex or even more so when compared with the immediate post-colonial days.

In that first phase of independence, the developing countries were preoccupied with domestic battles – how to install domestic political processes and how to chart new economic strategies to get out of the shadow of colonial influence.

Most countries tried to shake loose from the control of foreign-owned mining and plantation companies, banks and retailers, by boosting their domestic public and private enterprises.

However, they were over-dependent on a few export commodities for a long time.

In the social sphere, there was the monumental battle to provide jobs, build up housing, schools and health systems, besides reducing poverty.

Today, many developing countries like Malaysia have succeeded, to a significant extent, to break the foreign-ownership grip on the economy and to diversify from commodities to resource-based processing, boosting manufacturing and property development.



While some countries remain poor and dependent on foreign aid, other middle-income countries have broken through into the development sphere.

Indeed, countries like Malaysia are now worried about being stuck in the “middle-income trap”.

They are no longer so competitive in the labour-intensive industries like textiles and electronics assembly because lower-wage countries have entered the scene, yet they find it difficult to break through into higher value-added sectors and activities, in order to upgrade their economic status.

While the colonial grip on their economies has loosened, the middle developing countries are now caught in the complex web of global inter-dependence, in which they have become significant players but are still not able to call the shots, nor equitably participate in decision-making.

The dependence of immediate post-colonialism is now replaced with the inter-dependence that comes with globalisation. In good times, the country soars with the world economy.

But in bad times, the domestic economy is at the mercy of rapidly falling exports and foreign-capital outflows, as the 1998-99 Asian crisis and the 2008-09 “global great recession” showed.

With the United States and Europe caught in a deflationary situation, the next few years will be another great challenge.

Will the middle developing countries sink with the major players, or break free to chart their own course?
The answer will probably be in between.

But “decoupling” from the crisis in the rich countries can properly be achieved only if there are vision and action plans, including national economic restructuring and greater regional collaboration.

Intense inter-dependence is also evident in the physical world, where the environment worldwide is collapsing because the pursuit for economic growth did not take into account resource depletion and pollution.

The science of climate change and the recent radiation from damaged nuclear plants both reveal that emissions in one part of the world affect health and life in other parts.

Global solutions are thus necessary, but negotiations to find them are bogged down by basic issues of North-South equity and the need for balance between the imperative for environmental protection and the immediate needs for development.

International negotiations are also stuck in the area of economics.

The World Trade Organisation’s Doha talks have stalled because of the unreasonable demands made by major developed countries on the big developing countries.

Despite the G20 Summits, the world is further away today from global solutions to the financial crisis than in 2008-09 when concerted actions were agreed upon to stimulate a recovery.

It appears that the US, Europe and Japan, all former colonial countries, are now afraid that their mastery over the global economy is being challenged by China, India and some other developing countries – Asean included.

The middle developing countries like Malaysia are no longer one-sidedly dependent on their former colonial masters.

But in the web of an inter-dependent and globalised world, they are still in the mode of responding to initiatives and policies of the major developed countries, or to the unfolding situation.

They do not yet have the power or confidence to initiate and coordinate their policies and take the initiative to put forward solutions to global problems.

But they now have the growing capacity to do

Fifty-four years after Merdeka, the world is still an imbalanced one, and our country is building more stepping stones towards full independence.

It must join other developing countries to get a full voice and a fair share in the benefits of the global economy.

In this complex globalised economy, the developing countries’ battle for independence continues.

Related Posts:
 The true meaning of independence
 Reviving our winning ways