I received a random NGO invite to an event but since the subject matter was of great interest to me, I decide to attend and found out that Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Pak Lah) was the keynote speaker. After all it was held at Technology Park Malaysia (TPM) and approved by the Science, Technology and Environment Ministry when I was still on the board of the Malaysian Technology Development Corporation or MTDC.  

Now, however, the promoter and developer unfortunately is more famous for the Cowgate affair.

The Technology Park Malaysia was designed to be the first knowledge or technology park wherein small and medium-scale companies from all local industries moving up their value chain can open offices under the concept of an incubator park-type facility.

It was designed to be different from the Kulim Hi-Tech Park or even the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) at Cyberjaya, although TPM also sat squarely within the MSC geography.

Both Kulim and Cyberjaya were high-end technology parks but not designed or developed to be anything more than preferred locations for international companies or foreign direct investments, with rather generous terms to attract their investments. The MSC at Cyberjaya included new convergence technology companies.

For example, Intel has been in Malaysia for more than 40 years, and they moved their very high technology motherboard operations to Kulim Hi-Tech Park. Dell Malaysia used their operations in Penang and Kulim to promise five-day delivery from Malaysia of their custom-made orders of Dell computers to US government employees.

The knowledge economy dream

I left Mimos Berhad more than 10 years ago. Therefore, it was good to return to TPM and see it beginning to take the shape and form of an incubator and/or innovator park.

I found it hard to believe that I actually met two individuals who declared that they were local vice-chancellors (VCs), and gave me their cards. In the first decade of the MSC, the only VCs I met were those of foreign-owned varsities and were usually funded and operated by the foreigners themselves. These now were both young Chinese Malaysian gentlemen and working for Malaysian investors.  

That was good and great news. Unless there are local angels or funders, our knowledge economy will remain a pipe dream.

The event was hash tagged #WYSK or What Youth Should Know. Clever, I must say. Their series of lectures was called the Global Leadership Series, and Pak Lah’s theme was: Malaysian Youths and the Challenges: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. It was co-organised by a group called MAD Inc and SAME, or the Secretariat for the Advancement of Malaysian Entrepreneurs.  

The event was Chinese-driven of course and with a sprinkling of Malays and Indians for a good superficial showing of diversity.

There were only two exhibitors but the talk by Pak Lah was interesting enough and the food was good. Pak Lah handled most questions well enough to demonstrate his clarity of thought and mind. The moderator was a very young person and was unable to understand one questioner because the person, although a Malaysian, spoke with a strong Manchester accent. Must have lived there all his life. So much for Manglish versus Manchester English.

We had a relatively young audience but I did not get the feeling that these ones were real entrepreneurs or innovators either. There was no buzz of the presence of real entrepreneurs.  Even the SAME counter had no fliers in English or even in Malay; only in Chinese. SAME is supposed to be a government operation, as they have the national logo deployed on their brochures.   

I told the young ones at the booth that such an action was not acceptable. After all we are Malaysians, the Education Ministry’s failure aside.

My integrity question to Pak Lah

I first congratulated PM Pak Lah for introducing the word ‘integrity’ into the public and popular lexicon of Malaysians. He launched the Integrity Institute of Malaysia and made this a common popular word.  But I also lamented that I am now confused that the word seems to have lost all of its meaning.

The former chief secretary to the government, Mohd Sidek Hassan, had defined ‘integrity’ as ‘doing the right thing even when no-one is watching’. But, in the case of 1MDB, they do all such things with everyone watching; aided and abetted by social media and check-mated by other MPs and even a former PM.

Then, we have an Umno cabinet minister who addresses a prince of Johor with the words, “we will whack you!” Come on, as my wife argued, this is language we should not even use with any other human being, leave alone for the institution of the crown prince of Johor who is potentially the next sultan of Johor. So much for integrity in Malaysia.

But the BN government teaches and preaches in our Rukunegara that we are called to “protect and preserve the dignity of the institution of the sultans or royalty”. Does the minister’s verbal abuse of one representative of the institution really uphold this moral code, which citizens are charged to observe?

Integrity denied

The most primary level that integrity is denied is in our human and daily life. Integrity is a spiritual quality of life which we all gain at human birth, and most religions believe that it is a God-ordained quality.

It also means, each of us has an option for choices in life, right or wrong ones, and there is really nothing anyone can do to stop us, including our parents or religious authorities. Nevertheless, because we are really very human, and never perfect, we will always make mistakes with these choices; whether good, bad or ugly ones. That is in our nature of being human.

When we do not accept this embedded shortfall of integrity within ourselves, we can easily take an arrogant or hurtful view of life and view all others’ weaknesses while we are not reminded of our own. This creates what I call, ‘a dignity problem about life issues’, and is usually made visible through our conduct in our work or lived spaces.

Therefore, in 2005, after Pak Lah became PM and spoke at a public forum in Putrajaya, I proposed that all public servants must be directed to switch their sign-off from the one of British heritage and legacy towards a more responsible and accountable model: “Saya Yang Bertanggung jawab!”

He had replied that it was an excellent idea but I am still waiting for his Umno government to put it into practice so that we can see public servants true sense of dignity recovered in public life. Today, most public servants do not feel they are accountable for the public interest, but instead most want to only serve the majority sectarian interest. Dignity is therefore denied.