In his speech at the ground-breaking ceremony for the new Utusan Malaysia headquarters in Kuala Lumpur this morning, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak urged the 72-year-old Utusan to transform itself if it is to stay relevant.
He said Utusan must be more than Umno’s mouthpiece and must be a medium to build an intellectual culture and a critical society.
He said that the groundbreaking ceremony must coincide in a paradigm shift for the newspaper – going beyond “race, Islam and country” to play a pivotal role in helping the government achieve its transformation plan.
But is Utusan capable of being Najib’s “partner to government” in forging a 1Malaysia and to implement the New Economic Model (NEM) reforms to overhaul the Malaysian economy to break away from the decade-long economic stagnation and middle-income trap to take the quantum leap to become a high-income developed country?
In the past year, Utusan has positioned itself as the biggest enemy and critic of Najib’s 1Malaysia as well as NEM.
In fact, in my 44 years of political life, I have never come across Utusan Malaysia which had been more irresponsible, communal and unMalaysian than in the past 24 months after the March 8 “political tsunami” of the 2008 general elections.
Never before had more Malaysians turned away from Utusan Malaysia – and I for one had stopped being a daily reader of Utusan, first time in 44 years!
Can the biggest enemy and critic of Najib’s 1Malaysia and NEM undergo a paradigm shift as to become their true standard bearer?
Or will it continue like Canute to spearhead the resistance to the tide of change in Malaysia?
I am prepared to wait and see.