The Malaysian Insider

NOV 17 — One simply cannot underestimate the power of education in shaping society. It has an awesome capability in influencing a person’s perspective towards the world, by impressing certain mind frames on those minds still naively free of scepticism.

A liberal society will require an education system that removes that naiveté and develops critically minded, sceptical individuals. In an ideal world, that is the function of early formal education. Our world — and certainly our society — is less than ideal, where the agenda of individual empowerment gradually yields its space to other agenda that does not empower individuals but rather seeks to cow them into certain moulds that erode individuality.

NOV 10 — Growth of six per cent of gross domestic product per year for the next eleven years. That, according to the prime minister, is the rate of growth that Malaysia requires in order for the country to achieve the much-coveted developed nation status. There is no doubt economic growth is important. Yet, as a measurement of success, GDP growth of six per cent per year and the application of industrial policy to achieve that are in many ways unsatisfying.

First off, the proper metric should be growth of GDP per capita. Malaysians who care for their own welfare should be more interested in improving their average standard of living rather than seeing the economy simply growing on aggregate.

NOV 3 – An optimist may take the view that politics is unifying. A realist will understand that politics is divisive. It is possible that this realisation is the reason why the Sultan of Selangor expressed his concern about the use of mosques for political purposes.

For better or for worse, political activities in mosques are inevitable, if there is respect for freedom.

Divisiveness is a symptom of difference in opinion and freedom of conscience. Any effort to eliminate such divide, in most cases, involves abolition of freedom. It is for this reason that I do not share his concern. Rather, I am more concerned with the roles of mosques in Malaysian society.

OCT 27 — As the libertarian I am, I can only sigh reading the 2010 federal budget speech delivered by the Finance Minister.

I begin from a point deep in the realm of skepticism. I never actually believed any government in Malaysia — now or in the near future, neither Barisan Nasional (BN) nor Pakatan Rakyat (PR) — would largely retreat from the marketplace to leave the market to its own device in most cases. There are simply too many political considerations that go against the notion of free market here in Malaysia.

Firstly, businesses are politically-connected to make the government pro-business. In fact, the government itself is involved in businesses through its oligopolies to crowd out private initiatives.

OCT 12 — I am unsure if I am recalling this accurately but in the back of my mind, amid cobwebs of vague memories, I somehow remember reading an Asimov short story in a stuffy old library at the Malay College in Kuala Kangsar. You will forgive me if it is not even Asimov’s writing. It may well be the work of some other science fiction author. What I do have vivid recollection is the plot of the story, however. From that story, I hope it may cause others to refrain from committing hasty generalisations.