Malaysia as a Brand - What do others see?

It's funny that eventhough we have been independent for 53 years now this year, we still really have this identity crisis or self image problem when it comes to promote the country as a tourism spot. We always project ourselves as multi-ethnic, multiracial country that can co-exist together and live in harmony. Or in common sense, we are a 'rojak' society. Do we really want others to see us as a "Rojak" society? Sound tasty, but, really... how does this work? We project ourselves as a boiling point of many cultures and but then again also promote ourselves as this moderate Islamic country. Is this on purpose so that the foreigners that come here will be confuse enough to even bother. If you go to Bali, Indonesia you can expect there will be one single theme to it and you can even see it once you arrived at their airport. The same goes to Thailand. There is one single underlying theme to every country and the foreignors will know what will they be experiencing. But, in Malaysia case, it can varied depending on where you want to go. Malaysia Truly Asia or Malaysia The Confuse Asia. Nothing serious. Just my personal thought.

The Theory of Broken Window

The theory of broken window suggests that a high concentration of petty crimes can lead to a higher and bigger crimes. The theory are made based on the observation of James Q Wilson and George L Kelling in New York transit. From their study, the reasons why crime rates are very high especially in the subway area was due to grafitti and vandalisme to the subway train that went unnoticed or ignored by the authorities. Because it is ignored or considered as small and petty crimes, the vandalisers there sees it as a signal for them to become more aggresive and starts to do much more serious crimes.

The theory also suggests that in order to reduce crimes, you must tackle it even at the earliest stage and that is at the broken window stage. By fixing the window immediately, it will leave the message to the would-be criminals that no rooms for law breaking is allowed here even for small crimes as broken window.

How does this relate to Malaysia? In my perspective, in order for the police and authorities to reduce the crime rate in Malaysia in a drastic manner is to focus more on the 'broken window' and take care of it immediately. Among the 'broken window' that worth mentioning is the dvd/vcd pirate sellers. Here in Malaysia, it is a norm to see this particular vendor selling the pirated dvd of the road or 'pasar malam'. They are breaking the law in broad daylight and it seems that the authorities just simply either don't care or considered it as petty crimes so it is not worth their effort to crack down their operations. However, if we follow the theory of the broken window, it leaves the impression that is ok to bend the law, and this will lead to higher crimes.

1Malaysia concept BN vs PR

I must admit the concept of 1Malaysia is a good branding exercise promoted by Dato Seri Najib for race unity although it has existed before from previous leadership through a different name. However, certain quarters has tried to linked it up with the same concept promoted by the opposition, DAP and that is 'Malaysian Malaysia'. The concept that DAP trying to promote is equality for all races in Malaysia. This means that all Malaysian are equal and no race have the special priviledge over the others. However, 1Malaysia concept promoted by Dato' Seri Najib have stated that it abides by the federal constitution and therefore the concept is not the same as DAP concept. This means it still recognise Malays to have special priviledges eventhough all races embraces the concept of having a 1Malaysia for growth and unity.

Brazil for instance is a good example of equality among races because there are no category for races even existed in the country. In their form or ID, there are not even a category for races. Therefore all individual is treated as Brazilians no matter what color their skins are. However, in reality in the country, there do exist groups that is white in skin color and a group that is black and brown. Generally, the white skin groups dominates the economy and trades while the darker skins dominates arts and sports. And in reality also, the groups that in position of power in Brazil and in the higher income bracket is the white skins.

This scenario that happens in Brazil shows the disadvantage of having no race category. The discrimination and displacement of races occured in broad daylight but since there are no race category there, there are also no law for race discrimination. The groups that have darker skins is been left out in the economics development and position of power and they can do nothing about because as individuals there whether you are black or white, you are a Brazillian. Or 1Brazillians if I may add.

So we now have to ask ourselves, which 1Malaysia concept that we really want to adapt? The BN or DAP?

High Income Economy equals Highly Focused Nation

The prime minister, Dato' Sri Najib have mentioned again and again that for Malaysia to achieve the vision of a developed nation by 2020, we must strive to become a high income economy. What is a high income economy? A high-income economy is defined by the World Bank as a country with a Gross National Income per capita of $11,906 or more in 2008.

By an analogy, if an average person who has a salary of RM3,000 to RM10,000 is considered a middle income, and RM10,000 and above is considered high income, what he should do in order to get that range of salary? Of course the first thing that he can thought of is to get back to school. A Master degree might get him there but a phd will definitely get him to that range. But this approach may take some time, and probably not cost effective.

Another option is some refocussing on his strength and skills. If he works now as an engineer, he still may be trap with that middle income, but by becoming a specialist engineer, he can get to that range. All that he needs is to focus on one niche area and be good at it. Malaysia can do the same. Look hard into what Malaysia is good at, focus very hard on it, be tremendously good at it and the global market will bend down to your knees and will forever be at your doorstep. Look as an example, Japan become a developed nation by focussing on automotive and electronics. Malaysia needs a niche area where the nation is already good at, focus all its resources to it, and become a specialist whereby all the global market recognise and will source it in Malaysia.

The Commonality Culture

The main objective of the creation of the internet is connectivity and information sharing. the ARPANET, the pioneer of the now world wide web was created just to do that..to solve the problem of how can one computer be connected to another computer and interchange information in realtime. From that simple objective, the internet has involved to what we are seeing today. Facebook, Twitter, blogger and other social networking are all created with one main reason; to connect everyone. Facebook now have 350 million users. Just imagine that. Even the population of Malaysia is 27 million. Facebook is a nation by its own and interconnecting the entire country and even regions.

So, what will happen if everyone is connected? You will start to have a commonalisation culture. A commonalisation culture whereby the issues discussed is the same, the information sharing is practically the same and even slangs and words are approaching towards commonality. I started to notice this when the news of MJ died. Everyone on facebook and twitter is talking the same thing and everyone gives their own personal view on the news. This would never happen 5 to 10 years ago. The same happens with the inauguration of Barrack Obama. Previously, the news are only shared one way.. For the first time in history of mankind, the news is shared two ways. You can get the main information plus also the side and less informal info on the same issue.

Is this commonality culture is good or bad? Only time will tell