Two Towering Malay(sian)s

One acknowledged "Towering Malay(sian), Tun Mahathir pointed out in his blog yesterday the headlines in the day's Star newspaper as he alluded to the federal government's myopia:

1) "Malaysians bearish on Economy"

2) "Tough road ahead for man in the street"

3) "Economic downturn to cause drop in passenger volume"

4) "Third quarter may be mixed"

5) "Moody's gives negative rating on gaming"

6) "F&N quarterly profit declines on property"

7) "Britain makes record interest rate cut"

8) "Fund to prop up South Korea stocks"

9) "Iceland's swap loss set to fall"

10) "Bonuses of top Wall St execs to be slashed"

11) "Toyota forecasts huge drop in profit"

12) "US vehicle sector faces 'critical' period"

13) "Snoring judges' verdicts overturned"

I do not think I am far wrong when I say most Malaysians fear the worst and feel "exposed" in this climate of economic uncertainty and suspect the government is in denial or worse still, clueless about measures to mitigate its impact on the nation at large. The BN government is under siege and cancer striken UMNO is almost completing the surgery which will incise a tumor to be transplanted with another. Yup! A leadership change in the midst of this political and economic storm. The patient may not survive the successful operation.

Malaysians are looking for heroes and we have two in Raja Petra Kamaruddin, a champion of free speech and social justice, and Zaid Ibrahim, a man of principle and a voice of reason who may well have set the conceptual framework for achieving Bangsa Malaysia in his speech at the LawAsia 2008 last week. We do not yet have our Barack Obama but when we finally see the CHANGE come our way, my hope is that these two towering Malay(sian)s be in the cabinet to effect the transformations they so passionately fight for.