Moving from enforced regulations to personal responsibility means we not only need to ensure the practical aspects of ensuring everyone has equal access to “personal responsibility” at best, we need to build or even rebuild trust.
All in Malaysia
Power distance and our “VIP culture”, which may have worked in different instances in the past or indeed in the present for a given objective, is unlikely to be conducive to future economic development objectives
When it comes to competition, if Malaysia’s largest firms primarily compete among themselves for an “island-type” market size, how productive can they actually be?
Questioning the wisdom and the authority of the past is how progress progresses. We will not achieve a true merdeka of self-determination for our country if we, at the societal level, do not ourselves possess a merdeka of our spirits.
Our National Recovery Plan must chart a path towards a more sustainable and inclusive prosperity. We must be ambitious, bold and imaginative. But most of all, we have to be patient.
Trust grants a sense of security in society that those being governed will be taken care of by those who govern. It builds a foundation for society to build on…
Without attempting something bold, our every social, political or economic possibility will always be “20 years away” or some faraway vision for us to achieve.
Ultimately, while we must certainly care about infrastructure and the economy, it is real lives and real people that form the centre of our preparations towards more frequent tail events.
But what I think we need to spend more time on is this redistribution of power and privilege across society. And to do this, we need to accept that those with power and privilege need to give substantive amounts up.
Trust is key to an all-of-society approach to tackling Covid-19, but trust must be earned, not just assumed.
Understanding the psychology of Malaysians is important because no institution, technology, “best practice” or even culture can ever be effective if it does not “fit” the social norms, and therefore psychology, of its people.