Dear Brian,
I woke up this morning to check the emails as last nite i was bit down
and slept thru. Now i am answering each piece and each point one by
one. I open yours first.
Firstly i must say i am encouraged by your email (2nd one) as it throws
a lot of goodness into the debate. Your line of thinking is what i would
say give me hope that there is someone out there who put good points for
our rightful intellects to chew on. I agree 99% with you.
The contentious 1% comes from this:
1. We are not a developed nation by design. We did not ask to be behind
UK by default. It was done onto us by the British when they came here to
suck us of all our bijih and getah and then gave us independence which
is more of an indemnity clause that we do not sue them back for all they
took from us. They eventually hold all the stock markets such as the Tin
Exchange and Gold Exchange and so on.
2. We are also a multi racial country not by our design. I am a 4th
generation chinese who suddenly wondered why he is born on a kiasu
Island and grew up by the beach of Port Dickson of a thin Peninsula.
Later I found out that i am a 2nd class citizen and my daughter who got
3As and the rest Bs in the last SPM is not given a UM seat. The China i
left behind was also sucked dry with opium from the British.
3. However when i was thick in opposition (as a PAS member who stood for
elections against Daim the then Finance Minister in 1986), i began to
know this creature called Dr. Mahathir and in 1993 encountered him from
the gallery of Parliament and that changed my outlook. I found out that
there is this thinking called pragmatism.
Pragmatism as i see it means you may play black to get white. It means
you may play dirty to get it right. It means doing the right things and
not just doing things right. From then on i speak alot of him in my
speeches and learnt of all things particularly MSC. I see heights and
achievements where others see disgrace and demons.
I love Dr. M's slogan for the MSC, "Malaysia's Gift to the World". I
hate the present MDec's "Driving 'dont know what shit' transformation".
It is plain, cliche, salesmanese, and uninspiring. Dr. M inspired me
that "yes i can!". And i did. So now, i wish to do the same to others.
But MDec is in the way. It blocks the juice and that inspiration from
the masses. It dominate the news and headlines as if it is the beacon
and icon of transformation. Bit more below.
On 5/19/10 6:26 PM, BRIAN RITCHIE wrote:
I humbly diagree. As Entrepreneurs, we don't need anything more than
tax exemption. I believe the Gov does grant that for some startups
that perform well though currently I think its tied to the grant
scheme which I do not favor.
Correct. As MDec is blocking the way cos its budgeted to do so. I quote
Dato Salleh Majid, when i was sitting with him at tea 2 months ago. He
said that govt machinery hamper entrepreneurs and SMEs. SIMIDEC and SME
Bank force the market away. So i am saying if MDec exists i has to play
its role. If not, then get out of my way. Thus my contention here is to
ask MDec to play what its original role was.
We are not a top world economy. Tun Dr. Mahathir applied that principle of
guided (read interference) very well to put us up there.
No European country has an MDec like ours. It is there to arrest the slow
process (USA took 200 years) of going thru evolution.
We are not going to repeat wars and market crashes to reach where USA is
today. We learnt from their past and thus M'sia has the benefit of
hindsight, and MDec can do wonders if it applys the right pedals to the
right rubber.
I disagree. Evolution as a whole relies not only in the hands of one
organization (MDec in this case - no offense to Rafe agn). People have
to evolve and change the mindset. Our first thoughts when encountering
a problem is, which agency to blame, etc etc. The Government has to
evolve to meet the need and growth of the public and the Internet has
enabled us. We are now without boundaries. So as we keep pushing, they
will be forced to move and evolve ( this is in the same metaphor that
we r not evolved. Not implying that we r backward). Honestly, I would
not engage the Gov and hope for them or any agency to start or push
something. Private companies are the usual experimenters that
influence the Gov. When you have giants pushing through and saying,
look, we need this done, they will move b/c they can't afford not too.
The world is not flat ( i actually wrote in some blog reply to that 'The
World is Flat' author) as it is tilted due to disparity in history and
resulting financial and social systems. In Berlin you are not mugged at
3am (my daughter partied till 3am there) cos the poor immigrant is
granted 650 euro dough money. Again, the West can do that due to its
evolution and revolutions of 200 years of wars, coups, beheadings,
besides entrepreneurship, decentralised guilds and apprenticeships. We
must be allowed to do our own French Revolution. But we are going to do
it our way, not their way. Yes their laws are matured. So are their
societies norms. We are not. Without rightful interference, we become
the Red Shirts of Bangkok.
--
Join Open Source Developers Club Malaysia http://www.osdc.my/
Facebook Fan page
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=98685301577
http://www.facebook.com/OSDC.my
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "OSDC.my Mailing List" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/osdcmy-list?hl=en
