“A bunch of money grubbing,’ greenhouse gassing, seal clubbing, oil drilling, Bible thumping, missile firing, right to life-ing, lethal injecting   hypocrites, whose idea of a good time is strapping a dead panda to a pick-up truck and running through a gay parade. – Comedian Richard Jeni, on the right-wing in the US. 

The many arguments against democracy can seriously unnerve you. 

Listen to Winston Churchill. “The best argument against democracy,” argued the great man, “is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”  The actor Frank Dane was even more pessimistic – “Get the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything.” 

It’s enough to drive a man to drink. 

But as we approach Malaysia’s 60^th birthday, we can take some heart in the fact that we haven’t quite reached the stage of missile-firing hypocrisy. 

Yet, we are a fractured nation, split between the political will and a religious won’t, a mutually suspicious, rural-urban chasm, and an East-West divide that could get implacable if not addressed. Presiding over this uneasy mix is a person determined to keep an unlikely coalition together by all manner of means.

It’s enough to give dirty politics a bad name.

And yet Premier Anwar Ibrahim has a lot going for him. Malaysia’s fundamental growth story is still intact, its resilient export-led expansion still sustained. 

Our education system can’t be all that bad because we continue to throw up entrepreneurs at a good rate. I know this because my wife has, for some years now, been on the EY panel that selects the country’s best. 

There’s a young guy, for example, who’s already the country’s largest vanilla producer and he grows it on small, high yielding, “intelligent” farms. Currently, Madagascar is the world’s largest producer, but it, allegedly, uses child labour, which is a no-no. 

Our boy doesn’t.  Which is why he thinks, that by expanding to East Malaysia, he will eventually secure 10% of world supply.

There is another who uses genetic sequencing to produce hardy and exclusively male prawn fry for sale to farmers: the male of the species is bigger. 

And yet another who fattens fly larvae by feeding them agricultural waste only to grind said fatties into protein for fertiliser and animal feed. On a large scale, it’s enormously sustainable. 

Tony Fernandes once told me that he was summoned to see Lee Kuan Yew the first time he landed in Singapore on Air Asia’s first flight. 

“He wanted to know what made me tick,” said Fernandes. “I replied that I thought it was because I was Malaysian.” 

Apparently, the old man gave him a hard stare, perhaps thinking he was being facetious. 

It may have been the truth. 

I’ve been in Singapore for almost five years, and I can quite unequivocally state Malaysians are far friendlier than their southern counterparts. Our dinner invites are almost entirely from Malaysians living on the island. The only exceptions have been a long-time friend and my niece. 

That is Malaysia’s true strength, the multi-racial, multicultural, experiment that’s so far been sustained by its people: the country of my childhood, the Malaysia captured by Lat.

That’s what we need: more Lats and less Mahathirs. 

ENDS