Malaysia shall become an advanced progressive nation by the year 2020.This is our vision. In order to achieve our vision by the year 2020, we must organize a systematic strategy towards achieving our vision. We should lists down the steps that we should take in order to make Malaysia become an advanced progressive nation by the year 2020.
STEP 1.Define our vision. Our Vision is to make Malaysia as an advanced progressive nation by the year 2020.

STEP 2.In order to achieve our vision we must have missions to achieve. We must define the missions that we want to achieve. An advanced progressive nation must have certain missions to achieve. In my opinion, there are twelve missions that Malaysia must achieve in order to become an advanced progressive nation. These twelve missions must be made known to each and every citizen of Malaysia. The whole nation must have the same vision and missions. These twelve missions are:

1. Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil.
2. A United and Cohesive Society.
3. An Educated and Highly Technological Community.
4. A Religious and Highly Tolerant Society.
5. A Multilingual Community.
6. High Income and High Basic Salary.
7. Healthy and Excellence in Sports.
8. Food and Basic Necessities Affordable to Everyone.
9. A Law Abiding and Well Disciplined Society.
10. A Generous and Loving Community.
11. A Clean, Well Planned and Beautiful Country
12. Hardworking and Good Quality Workers.

STEP 3 In orders to achieve each of these missions; we must have the action plans. The action plan must be followed strictly by the nation. The leaders as well as the people must know exactly what to do in order to achieve our missions. The action plans must be practical and achievable.

STEP4. The results of the action plans must be analyzed and monitored periodically and corrective actions must be taken to rectify the outcomes in case the desired results were not achieved within the prescribed period.

STEP 5 Continuous monitoring and improving the achievement levels of the missions. The achievement levels can be measured objectively using a sample of the population.
When all the twelve missions have been achieved to a level of more than 50%, then Malaysia can be regarded as an advanced progressive nation. When all the twelve missions have been achieved to a level of more than 80%, then Malaysia has become a truly advanced progressive nation.

A country cannot be regarded as an advanced progressive nation based only on the high per capita income of the country. There are situations, the country may have high per capita income but the majority of the population lives in poverty. Although the income of the population could be high but if the cost of living is also high, the population will still be living in poverty. When the cost of basic needs are high, many people will find it difficult to pay the bills for their houses, foods, education, health and cars. Due to high cost of living, many people will have a lot of debts to pay every month. After paying all the debts they will have little or no money left to spend. In order to survive they again resort to borrow from bank that charges with high interests. End up paying every month to the bank with high interests and without realizing it they have becomes slaves to the bank. As a result, everyone in the country needs to work almost twelve hours every day with little or no time to enjoy with their family.

The cost of basic needs increase whenever the government increases the salary of government servants. Indeed it causes great distress to the others who are not government servants. What is the aim of making Malaysia a high income nation, when the cost of goods are always increase? Is having high income will ensure Malaysians to become prosperous. There is no benefit at all to have high income when the cost of basic necessities are also high. Can our government able to control the increasing prices of basic needs or not? As we have observed so far, the government is not able to control the increasing prices of basic needs. Mere advices and words of warning will not help to reduce the prices. Government is not able to control the increasing prices of the basic needs because the setting of the prices lies in the hands of traders and consumers. Traders are not worried whether the poor families (generally are Malays and Indians) can buy the products or not because the rich families (generally are Chinese consumers) at anytime can buy the products. Traders are only worried when their products cannot be sold in the market when they increase the prices. As long as their products can be sold in the market, the traders will continue to increase the prices. I still can remember when the prices of fish such as “Tenggiri” (Spanish Mackerel), “Jenahak” (Golden Snapper) and “Ikan Merah” (Red Snapper) used to be very cheap, but now it has become very expensive because there are peoples who can buy these fishes at high prices. The mushrooming of the Chinese and Tom Yam restaurants have created buyers to these fishes and has caused the prices to increase beyond the ability of an average income earner in this country to buy these fishes. Generally in Malaysia, the Chinese are the traders and wholesalers. As long as they are buyers, the Chinese traders will increase the prices as they are only interested in money and not the welfare of the consumers.

Everyone wants to have high income provided the prices of goods remain the same. A country with high income may not necessarily be that each and everyone in the country would have high income. It could be a situation where only a few individuals in the country have a very high income while the rest of the peoples still have low income. An average income is the total amount of income divide by the total number of population. On the basis of an average income, Malaysia may be regarded as advanced progressive country but in reality the majority of her population may still live in poverty. The buying power of the peoples does not depend only on the amount of salary that they get but also on the prices of goods. When the prices of goods are high, the buying power would still be low although the salary could be high. It is the buying power of the average population that determine whether the country is prosperous or not and not only the salary. In my opinion, although Malaysia may have high income or high per capita income but if the buying power is low, Malaysia is not an advanced progressive country.

We may build high rise buildings, modern highways system, and superb sport centers but the general population is not going to benefit directly on these development. Generally everyone in the country only wants a house of their own, a car to drive their family around and sufficient good food to eat. What is the use of Malaysia having high income, high rise buildings like PETRONAS Twin Tower and motorsport race track like Sepang International Circuit but her population on average is still cannot afford to own a house, an average standard car and to eat sufficiently good food. We have the name as an advanced progressive country but in reality we are not. Malays and the Malays leaders in general are very fond in having only name; shape and appearance of anything but are not really serious in achieving the reality. The Malays have a proverb that has shape their mentality and beliefs and become the main reason why the Malays are backward compared to other races. The proverb in Malay language is “biar papa asal bergaya”. In general, this proverb has shaped the beliefs and mentality of the Malays. Malays and the Malays leaders are only satisfied if they can achieved only the shapes, names and appearance of anything and they are not so motivated to achieve the reality. Many Malays wear religious attires as if they are very religious and pious but in reality they are not. What I think we are trying to achieve is only the cosmetics of an advanced progressive country and not the reality of an advanced progressive nation.

Prof Dr Nasoha Saabin
May 2011
Integrative Holistic Wellness Centre