To improve ourselves, we all should accept criticism and use your own judgment, acknowledge our mistakes and analyze the views from a different perspective.

Maybe Malaysia will be like Hong Kong if we are still ruled by the British. Why not, it’s better than the way it is now.

thanks uncle kit for this interview!

Human being contribute nothing to Mother Earth except pollution and destruction. She doesn’t need us….we need her.

i don;t have a big problem when it come to “MEGA PROJECTS”, it when people with friends in high places get certain “privileges” in getting these projects or running a goverenment linked company

good for you!
no need to comeback since malaysia is hell to you.
but malaysia to me, is heaven, and will fight for my rights till the day i tapau! just like LKS!

aku punya falsampah!

“Proton – Malaysia should NOT have a national car. You cannot get sufficient economies of scale with a population as small as Malaysia’s when it comes to car manufacturing” Backman

What about toyota, nissan and honda? Proton is a waste because idiot runs it.

“Putrajaya – removing civil servants from ordinary society does not make for good government” Backman

Putrajaya is not meant for civil servants, Putrajaya is for those who serves the govt and they are indeed not from ordinary society.

“KLIA – all that infrastructure, very little air traffic and it still takes forever for your luggage to come though – it is ridiculous” Backman

KLIA was built for the future in Malaysia. The only thing different about Malaysia’s future is that we count as the year passses by. We have vision 2057 to make KLIA pack like tin can sardines.

“Petronas Towers – the lower floors are mostly full of lift shafts – you can’t rent out a lift shaft” Backman

It is not about the shafts Backman, it is the people, ketuanan melayu, bumiputras and their NEP. We know much better than you do, but thanks anyway.

Because Mandarin is not the country’s national language?

He becomes a Malay (the term ‘bumiputera’ is what leaders in UMNO concocted to justify some becoming Malays though born of another ethnicity) when he is a Muslin, speaks the Malay language and follows Malay customs. That’s how. He does not need to be a practicing Muslim merely professing to be one is good enough: Article 160(2) Federal Malaysian Constitution 1957.

one question, how does a MAMAK becomes a bumi only after 2 generation?

It is akin to culture developed over the years – call it Mahathirism if you want.

His comments are valid and not even radical but moderate and are mere reflections of the thoughts of the average Malaysian who only wants his or her country to progress. There is nothing wrong with that. So why focus on his nationality and his domicile? We know it is not the singer but the song that matters.

Why should Malaysians react so defensively when reading comments from foreigners which are less than flattering about their country when the same comments by their own receive not a flicker of emotion? This is all about misplaced patriotism.

Backman makes very moderate comments about the failure of leadership in a country which has been under an oppressive regime for the last 20 odd years.

The xenophobic response from Rafidah Aziz who has long outlived her ‘shelf life’ and should have been discarded because to consume it would be detrimental to one’s health, is to be expected of a leader like her – corrupt, who as Malaysia’s own Fat Lady (a title she has ‘earned’ for herself) has had to beg her boss not to spank her in public. She did get the spanking though but in private – the length people like her would go just to keep her job and not her principles!

It is true that Mahathir did not need the likes of Greenspan or Friedman to tell him that his country could ill-afford to experiment with industries like sponge iron and automobile manufacturing. Economics has nothing to do with the old man’s vision of political Malaysia. Economic concepts like “Economies of scale” are alien to him just like the “English common law” he maintains is alien to Malaysia. It has little to do with his fixation at trying to win the world’s attention to his maverick ways either. The fact that Malayawata would have collapsed in the 60s if not for the heavy tariffs and import duties imposed on imported steel bars flooding the market from countries like Taiwan, has nothing to do with his decision to move into projects like Perwaja and Proton. It has everything to do however, with the Malay saying “Sambil menyelam minum air” and why not?

These two projects have served him well personally. They were cash cows for UMNO, himself and his cronies. Should they collapse and they did, it is because feasibility studies have been wrong. But weren’t foreign consultants ‘consulted’ for their ‘views’ so that policy makers could get to see and read what they want to see and read?

Even the likes of Alan Greenspan and Friedman could not save a country like Malaysia.