Is there hope for a broken Malaysia?

Is there hope for a broken Malaysia?

Mariam Mokhtar
Published: May 30, 2025 2:30 PM
Updated: 4:30 PM


Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

(English nursery rhyme)


COMMENT | You can tell a lot about a country by its pompous windbag academics, by its muted cabinet ministers, by its verbose leader, and by the fire-and-brimstone approach of its religious clerics. These people insult the intelligence of the rakyat.

We are worn out from decades of misrule, weary of the broken promises of our leaders, and wary of politicians who think only of themselves, whose sycophants are a waste of space.

Today, we are a nation that appears to be “sesat jalan” (lost our way) or “hilang arah” (lost direction).

A PM who promised reforms but failed to implement them has wasted our most abundant, natural, and precious resource - its people.

The talented ones will leave. They will not hang around. They have ambitions to be fulfilled. Opportunities to be sought. Challenges to overcome.

The prime minister and his inner circle think we should be patient, but for how long? The corrupt get richer, and those who abuse their power get even stronger.

Perhaps, some of the promised reforms will be announced in the months before the 16th general election, as bait, to tempt us to vote for his coalition. That trick may not work this time.

PKR’s mask slips

In the recent PKR internal election, the party members have shown themselves to be greedy, selfish, and petty-minded men and women.

They were concerned only with themselves and their personal ambition. They completely ignored the rakyat who lent their support to the party leaders.

The inner circle was obsessed with power, perks, position and prestige. Key personalities whom they knew would oppose their moves were removed.

The people of the inner circle have huge egos, and they have forgotten many crucial things.

• PKR is nothing without the people who believe in a “reformed” Malaysia.

• PKR might as well remain in the past if it keeps shouting “reformasi”, but fails to implement it.

• PKR’s inner circle members are too obtuse to understand that the future is what the party does next, and that is to trot out the reforms, now, and not at some point to be announced.

Who should we blame for this sorry state of affairs that we are currently in?

Our selfish politicians? The naïve but desperate population? Our less-than-adequate institutions? Or the affirmative action policies that crippled us soon after the May 1969 racial riots?

These apartheid-like policies gave rise to the NEP and the Ketuanan Melayu syndrome.


The cost of dysfunction

The New Economic Policy robbed Malays of their dignity and polarised society.

Non-Malay children must work twice as hard as their Malay peers and, at the end, may still be rejected by institutions which champion these apartheid policies. We deny the non-Malay Malaysians their rightful place in society.

The doubters among you did not believe that Umno-Baru and BN would be toppled, but they were.

Well, stretch that imagination a bit more and consider a non-Malay as PM. Why not?

We have lost some of our best talent to Singapore and the West. If truth be told, a sizeable percentage of the Singapore cabinet and civil service is probably manned by our most outstanding former Malaysians. It is our loss, but Singapore’s gain.

The real cost to Malaysia is incompetence, corruption, and widespread racial discrimination, which have damaged ethnic relations and the economy.

Putrajaya, the seat of government, has wide boulevards, impressive buildings, and landscaped parks, but the wide avenues are also a metaphor for the huge chasms in society and the enormous disparity between the haves and have-nots.


Corruption of religion

According to a minister, the police will come knocking on your door only if you speak out about the 3Rs (race, religion, royalty). Yet many people have pointed out that politicians who take pot shots at people of other races and religions are not censured.

A first-time visitor to Malaysia would be forgiven for thinking that the Islam that is practised here is mainly about covering up, of haram-and-halal restaurants, of the length of one’s skirt and shirt sleeves.

In some Muslim graveyards, deceased women are buried in a different section from the men. So, even in death, Muslims are not considered equal.

Such has been the corruption of Islam by wayward clerics that the true values espoused in Islam, such as kindness, patience, being charitable and just, are ignored.

The British left us with a good healthcare system, especially in the family planning division, but today, with private medical care, we put wealth before health.

Despite a thriving health tourism/industry, many politicians prefer to travel overseas for their medical needs.

Today, child poverty is a serious problem. So, was it former PM, Dr Mahathir Mohamad's vision of a 70-million Malaysian population that is to blame? Or the fact that clerics keep telling Malay mothers that children are a gift from god? Or that the normal family unit has been more or less destroyed by polygamous fathers?

Mahathir strengthened the affirmative action policies which were put in place by Abdul Razak Hussein, but successive PMs, including the incumbent, did nothing to do away with them.

With reform comes hope. With hope, we have a future.

So, who or what is the biggest obstacle to the implementation of these reforms?

MARIAM MOKHTAR is a defender of the truth, the admiral-general of the Green Bean Army, and the president of the Perak Liberation Organisation (PLO). Blog, X.