Missing plane an alarm for Malaysias leaders to wake up from socio-political NIGHTMARE It has been the 14th day into the mysterious disappearance of MH370. Without the assistance from so many countries, we alone would not have achieved anything today, perhaps still fumbling over South China Sea for any clue of the missing plane. The abuse of fake passports by two Iranians was disclosed by the Interpol. While our military radar detected some unidentified aircraft over our air space in the wee hours of that Saturday morning, it was the Untied States that helped corroborate that it was indeed MH370. Part of the key components from the flight simulator in Captain Zaharies house would have to be sent to the States for analysis. In the latest development, from the commercial satellite images provided by the US, Australia said it had spotted some suspicious floating objects in southern Indian Ocean. To be honest,. We alone have not done much in this whole thing although the chaotic and deliberately deferred dissemination of vital information has completely exposed our deficiency, and this definitely does not augur well for our aspiration to achieve the status of developed nation in a few years time. It is no secret that we lack the ability to reflect on our own shortcomings. The only thing we are good at doing is to outright strike out any external criticisms. For instance former prime minister Dr Mahathir has slammed the outriders, in particular foreign media, for picking on our misdeed in our search operations. It has been generally agreed that the first thing we must do after learning that a civilian airliner has gone missing is to locate it before reviewing what has gone wrong with our operations. Some say we should put the nation above all else and have called for all Malaysians to stay united to see through the current crisis. However, without having the ability to reflect and improve, we will make the same mistakes again in looking for the doomed flight. Why is it not possible to address the deficiencies in our management the same time we search for the flight? Passengers were allowed to board the flight on stolen passports because of incompetency in our passenger inspection procedures. We lacked the necessary technicians to analyze data because of our incomprehensive education system. The fragmented and messy pieces of information protruded our outdated management style, and all these could have spawned from our rigid system and mentality. Besides lofty nationalism, we also have other factors pouring in, such as politics and ethnic sentiments. When we won the Thomas Cup in 1992, the Malaysia Boleh slogan started to be chanted loudly all the time, and indeed it seems that nothing is impossible with Malaysian politicians. It is not a bad thing to inspire the nation, but we simply lack the competency and management to follow. 1998, Mahathir implemented capital control mechanism to fend off currency speculation, once again allowing the country to shun the necessary reforms while entrenching the Malaysia Boleh self confidence as if we had made our country a role model for the developing world as the government people claimed. We were indeed fortunate because we had oil wealth to allow us to practice the Malaysian-style management to fend off foreign competition. But the relatively comfortable life numbed our nerves s management began to get lax while our competitiveness slipped. According to the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), Malaysia saw the largest drop in science and maths performance among 59 countries in 2011. Even with such conspicuous slide in various sectors, our leaders seemed to care more about their positions and status. Probably we would continue to immerse ourselves in our perceived achievements if not for this disastrous incident. Students performance in government exams has improved over the years and an at least 5% GDP growth is within reach year after year. But the crisis has rudely awakened us to the fact that there are many, many areas we need to improve. We should learn from countries like Singapore and Australia. Singapores defence minister Dr Ng Eng Hen has said the MH370 incident has spurred the Singapore government to look into what it can learn from this crisis. In the meantime, the Australian prime minister Tony Abbott made a prompt report to the parliament after his country spotted objects that could be from MH370, while AMSA instantly hosted a media conference in a show of true transparency in handling such an international disaster. If this thing were to happen in Japan, the government should have apologized to the international community, whereas we lack the empathy and would employ such a crude tactic in handling the intrusion of Chinese passengers families at the press conference. To transform the countrys economy and to make Malaysia a high-income country, we need to lure large numbers of foreign investors and tourists. The question is, can we ensure them their safety? Do we comply with the universal value of treasuring life? Still very, very far from getting to the bottom of this mystery, it is imperative that we handle things prudently and make amends for what we have deviated.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 08:22:23 +0000
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