MALAYSIA is a storied nation. Some 600 years of his and her story. Maybe more. But this Leader is not looking back.
It is looking forward to a shared destiny for all. Yes, recent events do not speak well for this future.
Castigations on khat and the zigzagging on Zakir Naik are bumps on the road to the future we must craft. Sometimes, there will be harvests. Sometimes, just thorns.
Shared destiny means taking the boon with the bane. Let the nabobs of negativism natter. Malaysia has purer pursuits to chase.
Malaysia was many things before. It was nameless at one time. Land before people. Always. Malaysia was terra incognita, unknown and unexplored.
Then it was Golden Chersonese, the golden peninsula of classical antiquity.
Malaya quickly followed. It was all these and it can be many more. But mind and muscle must merge before Vision Malaysia comes alive.
Before mind meets muscle, language needs settling. For Bangsa Malaysia to be possible, there must first be bahasa Malaysia. Not just Bahasa Malaysia, but all the languages that make Malaysia. Bahasa seMalaysia, if you will. Malay, English, Mandarin, Tamil, Arabic, Iban, Dusun, Kadazan and 100-odd others.
A nation that speaks in tongues speaks for many. One for all and all for one. Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno. Thus, is a united nation built. And thus, is its destiny shared.
A sharing Malaysia is also a developed Malaysia. Not one that is imprisoned in its rural trappings. Do not get us wrong. We are not against agriculture and things rustic.
After all, agriculture is the oldest of all professions. We tilled before we talked. No, we are not against growing farms. Spades and sickles are so old school.
Government agencies, development corridors and Malaysian telcos must come together to bring our left-behind farmers to the confluence where broadband Internet, cloud platforms and artificial intelligence meet to take farming to another digital level. Our farmers needn’t be poor nor rural.
Our farmers have an example in India to follow. There, farmers of small means are taking the road to technology in drones. Pardon the pun. With much help from startups.
Here, mobile applications help small farmers rent agri-equipment and sell their produce directly to customers, thus keeping the money that often goes to middlemen. Smart age such as ours demands smart farming.
Understandably, we cannot become a United States, where 80 per cent of farmers are into some form of smart farming. Nor a Europe, where the number is 25 per cent. With help, our farmers can be like those in India, who move from sensors to drones as techies often do.
Many roads lead to prosperity. But given our storied past, we can and must only take one: the Malaysian road to prosperity.
There is, however, a precondition. Malaysia must be a united nation first. Because a divided nation cannot chart a common destiny. Khat and Zakir Naik castigations tell us something about the kind of Malaysians some of us are. Shared destiny requires us to do better.