Published by Malaysiakini, images from Malaysiakini.
A plaque saying “The buck stops here” sat on the desk of former US president Harry S Truman.
Not surprisingly, the Truman Doctrine was known as the beginning of Cold War. He helped Greece and Turkey to push back Communist incursions. He blocked mainland China from taking possession of Taiwan in 1950, and fired Douglas MacArthur when the latter tried to cross the Yalu River in pursuit of the destruction of the North Koreans.
This then led to an armistice that paved the way for the creation of the North-South divide in the Korean Peninsular that still remains to this day.
More ominously, one can say that Truman stopped the land invasion of the United States and mainland Japan, an act which would have cost the lives of more American soldiers, when he agreed to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Pernicious and tragic as they can be, all of Truman’s decisions bring home the point that nothing can be done unless there is someone to do them.
There should not be any Truman-like leaders in Malaysia. Even Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, contrary to many misperceptions, thrives on listening. The four components of Pakatan Harapan are able to gel together because of this.
Anwar Ibrahim, the prime minister-in-waiting, has been known to listen well when issues are pressing. It was his ability to understand the cries of the people, even as recently as in Harapan’s first budget, that has restored the integrity of the government.
By agreeing to help the farmers and fishermen who are hard hit by the drop in the prices of their commodities, Anwar has displayed the uncanny ability to connect not merely with his constituents in Port Dickson, but with the rest of the country. As this is written, more financial assistance may yet be in the offing to offset the sufferings of the people.
However, having the ability to listen does not mean throwing caution to the need to do serious and more important work.
To be sure, much of the people’s victory of May 9 was spurred by the sheer excesses of Low Taek Jho, the 1MDB-linked businessperson who authors Bradley Hope and Tom Wright called the “Asian Great Gatsby.”
The flamboyant and flatulent lifestyle of Low – enabled as he was by former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak – brought the house of BN and Umno crashing down.
To talk and talk and talk
At the moment, Harapan does not have its own ‘Asian Great Gatsbys’; none of their politicians are flaunting the trappings of their office and wealth. Not yet anyway.
But the fascination of many politicians on the importance of townhall sessions is another faint indication of their inability to helm the burdens of their office. In turn, they have transformed the full weight of their office into a gabfest, to talk and talk and talk.
Yet what people in the streets want are not more speeches. The Sungai Kandis by-election, and others of the like soon after May 9, for example, averaged a turnout of less than 45 percent.
People were tuning out to focus on the importance of making their lives matter, by extension, that of Malaysia.
It only underwent a fillip when the voter turnout for Port Dickson increased, as people were hoping that Anwar could drive parliamentary reforms and good governance that would lead to jobs, jobs and more jobs.
To be sure, there is a psychological term for those politicians who have become somewhat addicted to perennial town hall sessions. The exact phrase is: projection.
When certain individuals or parties cannot perform, they resort to holding endless series of talks to “showcase” the extent to which they have done.
Yet, as Fareed Zakaria of CNN correctly pointed out, before, when commenting on the presidency of the Trump Administration, no leader should confuse “motion” with “progress.”
Despite giving off the sense of forward motion, a rocking horse stays in place. Thus leaders and politicians should not confuse townhall sessions and merely standing behind a podium with actual work. They must get cracking by coming out with real policies that can be tabled to the cabinet.
Indeed, true leaders are defined by the extent to which they can help people to put food on the table.
Malaysia does not need to go to war to make things happen. There is no industrial military complex that requires the military to invade or attack anyone to keep the military machine churning.
With a gross domestic product (GDP) of US$320 billion – this from a base of US$47 billion in 1957 – has always been a trading country. It is regularly within the top 20 export nations of the world.
A country like Malaysia needs a strong inflow of FDI. Of the US$55 billion that comes into Asean, close to 50 percent finds its way into Singapore.
Malaysia has to upend the table and be the one that receives that – without which the strong growth that saw the expansion of Malaysia from 1957 to 2018 could stop.
All of the above requires Malaysian politicians to talk less and show less showmanship, and do more to fix the economy.
Dr. Rais Hussin is President & CEO of EMIR Research, an independent think tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research.
