The Promises of 2020

After being awarded the Government Scholarship to do my A-Levels in the UK in 1990, right after my SPM exam, I was sent to attend a number of courses and camps. Most of them were motivational in nature under Biro Tatanegara, to build the next generations of leaders. And we were indoctrinated with “Vision 2020”, how Malaysia as a nation will move into the next phase of its development, to become a developed nation.

We were on par with Singapore back then, well ahead of Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Fast forward 30 years, in 2020, and now Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam are catching up. And we were nowhere near Singapore. They had surged ahead. And Tun M remained the answer still, back as our Prime Minister. How many more years can the old man stay at the helm?

The Vision 2020 was a grand one. But unfortunately, the machinery was the problem. We lack leaders. We just don’t was to be lead. We are not clear about our identity. And all I can see is how desperate we want to become Arabs, or at least it seemed that this is what we Malays aspire to... We can sit and list down the likely causes behind all this. But the main issue is a societal one. As citizens, we were just not ready to make the leap. And I have more Arab blood in me that the average Malay ...

My generation had become the one most to lose out. We had so many unmet aspirations, and the best I could do was to limit the damage and pass the torch to the next generation. I personally feel that my late father’s generation had it better. We messed it up somehow ...

2020 came with plenty of problem upfront. The economy looked bleak for the coming few years. The US is raging war again in the Middle East. It felt that is was the 1990s all over again ... Let’s pray that my pessimist worry is unfounded. We can’t afford another lost generation ... and more unmet aspirations come the Year 2050.

Most of the snaps taken in this entry was done using a Leica CL with Vario-Elmar-TL 18-56mm zoom