This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on September 16, 2019 - September 22, 2019

“I prefer to remember the future.”

Salvador Dali, Spanish surrealist painter (1904-1989)

Happy 56th birthday, Malaysia. You have matured in more ways than one. You have certainly come a long way since your formation. The world has changed a lot from when Malaya, North Borneo (Sabah) and Sarawak joined together to form you.

The Cold War that defined your childhood is no more. The bipolar competition between the USSR and the US ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989. Out of this era began an age with the US as the only superpower. This was followed the phase of the multipolar leagues, from the G6 to the G20. The European and African Unions and Asean developed during this period. You played your part well in the region and the original six-nation Asean union grew to its present strength.

Yes, politically you evolved, well guided, into a stable nation, prospering your neighbours along the way. From the small and seemingly insignificant changes in your day-to-day life to the big and almost incomprehensible changes in world history, you have weathered the storms better than most.

The Industrial Age on which you cut your teeth has given way to the Information Age, and although many of your citizens still do not fully understand the Fourth Industrial Revolution, they speak it fluently (with conviction too) in the boardrooms, in classrooms and on political soapboxes. Yes indeed, you have come a long way despite your short history.

But what are you going to be 10 years from now? A well-meaning friend dared me to peer into a hazy crystal ball and divine your future. He said I should write what I thought your future would be in 2029.

Without benefit of foresight, I decided to look at some of the elements that would normally impact the history of a nation and this is what I think you will look like in 2029.

For starters, you will continue to be a good place to live in, nurture a family and retire.

You will provide stability for your citizens and a place for all to grow. You have shown that the late British philosopher Karl Popper was right when he was asked what a good government would look like. He radically contradicted the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, who said the ideal state is where the “best person for the job” ruled. An ideal state, as envisaged the fourth century master, was a republic ruled philosophers like himself, with a warrior class to protect the state, and a producer class to serve it with products, services and skills.

In The Open Society and its Enemies (1945), Popper retorted that it was not about developing a system in which the “best” ruled; the ideal system was one in which it was possible to get rid of bad rulers.

You showed that this system worked when on May 9, 2018, your children did just that. They overthrew a 61-year-old incumbent in search of a better alternative. And they can do it again. Of course, it is possible to overdo the disposing: like the Italians, who have had more than 60 different governments since 1946, or the Germans prior to 1933, for whom the frequent changes of government, among other things, instilled a deep distrust of parliamentary democracy.

You will be a place where tolerance will evolve into acceptance.

Tolerance is such a brittle word. It is like a piece of fragile glass that we gingerly carry here and there. What happens if you cannot tolerate another any longer? Chaos. The extremists who play on race, creed and religion have always exploited these prejudices and differences. They use fear as a weapon of choice to pit brother against brother. You will show, as you have shown the world again and again, from our fight against communism to speaking out against despots and autocrats everywhere, that there is more that unites us than that which differentiates us.

You will be a place known for fair play and good practices.

Corruption has no place on your soil. Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for personal advantage. It can range from small facilitation payments to debasing an otherwise sturdy governance structure. Corruption is not only ethically reprehensible, it also distorts the competitive landscape. It has no place in your bosom. Corruption involves at least two parties: the one who pays the bribe and the one who takes it. Both should be stamped out.

The most important weapon against corruption is transparency: transparent financing, transparent administration and transparent reporting. Corruption profits a minority in the short term but everyone suffers in the long term. You have experienced its painful side and you have shown that your people have the resolve to rid you of this disease.

You will be a strong player in the new global economy.

There is no way around it: capitalism is the all-dominating economic system. It is the system. But you know it is stuck in a crisis. In a world where Nobel prizes are awarded for financial derivatives (the Black-Scholes Model, anyone?), in which banks can lend nine ringgit for every ringgit they receive, in which neither customer nor seller understand the products they are dealing with, you have offered a possible solution. You championed Islamic banking against the advice of many.

A number of Western economists regard “Islamic banking” with a mixture of curiosity and envy. But you, Malaysia, courageously embraced it: you created a controlled section of your banking sector based on religious laws (prohibition of interest, ban on speculation and ban on investments in alcohol, tobacco and gaming, among others).

What is surprising is that this system works — and made it through the 2007/8 global financial crisis relatively unscathed — and that there is no equivalent in Western capitalism despite an interest in sustainable, ethical investment.

In actual fact, the system you champion is based on four basic global financial rules that are common sense in the first place:

1.     Be informed: Know what happens with your invested money. I posit that the globalised financial market functions according to the principle, “what you don’t know won’t hurt you”. Unscrupulous fund managers keep problematic information at a deliberate distance.

2.     Take responsibility: Know what you are earning your money with. The Quran, Bible and Torah, the divinely guided books, are not against profit, but they are unanimous in declaring that it should not be earned at the cost of others. Rule of thumb: it is better to earn with transactions than with interest. Do not reap what you do not sow. (Luke 19.22)

3.     Take risks and the accompanying losses or profits. Money lying  in bank vaults has a limited use-date. Money has to be invested and the risks managed. That you could lose in the process is a given. Investigate before investing.

4.     Practice humility: Hands off the put option (a security against a slump in the market) — one should not insure oneself against the will of God.

I see this to be you in 2029, an independent, exemplary nation standing tall among the great nations of the world. No rose-tinted glasses, just a fervent prayer for a strong finish.

So happy birthday again, Malaysia. As our friends the Irish are fond of saying, “May the road rise up to meet you; may the wind be always at your back; may the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields; and may God hold you in the palm of His hand.”

Zakie Shariff is managing partner of Kuber Venture Bhd, a specialist investment company. He is also a director of Universiti Malaysia Pahang.

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