Z is for Zilch

Now that the house of greed is falling around our ears and the thrust of globalised free market capitalism has been somewhat blunted, I suppose I can now talk about the people without provoking a howl of protest from our misadventure capitalists. I once grieved about the loss of the old Malaysia Hall in London and was told by a government minister that I was being sentimental. Being sentimental means that I have to live to see a new shrunk Malaysia Hall in a building that is hardly fit for purpose, in a less salubrious part of the capital, where the Great Hall calls for a redefinition of the word ‘great’ and serious questions have to be asked about the real cost of the place. Meanwhile, what’s happening to ‘old’ Malaysia Hall can be an interesting subject for a book.‘Development’ has been much-bandied in a world where globalisation’s hidden meaning is distinct from the ‘truth’ that we read in the press, or that we hear from their advocate fat cats. This is the globalisation of thought, profits, markets and greed. But now that their libertarian free market has crashed and the bottom has fallen out of their moneybags, maybe it’s time to talk once again in old fashioned terms: we need to look after the welfare of our people before we look at the global markets because people are the parts that make our society tick. Time now for us to expect ‘development’ plans to be inclusive, for the governments to be caring, and for the welfare of the people to be the first business of the state. For long enough now in what has been the free market world urged on by the captains of globalisation, in a planet where bankers go bonkers with their conjuring tricks (see sub-primes for a start, then proceed to derivatives), the ‘p’ for ‘people’ has been pushed down in their alphabet of priorities, right down to somewhere near ‘z’ for ‘zero’ or ‘zilch’.

I am encouraged to see comments by Naz and Awang and SSS61 and al-Manar in my last blog. I thank too those who have sent me emails to express much the same thought: that they are fed up of being shunted aside by greed. As SSS61 puts it, people in the area should be part of the ‘development’ and not shunted to the sticks. It is sad to hear the cries of those who have been pushed from areas where they are no longer needed but which they and their families have kept alive for so long.

There’s enough money in Kuala Trengganu for community building and housing (and by this I don't mean glitzy condominiums and Dubai-style hubris) if it isn’t squandered on glitzy projects and Krazy Cups, to line deep pockets and stuffed into the bags of those who have to bribe for votes. A people-centred development requires vision and imagination, welfarism and people-oriented town planning; so that our city will be what it always has been, a vibrant, people-rich civitas, a living community rather than a dead place of offices, banks and shops.

See also:
The Unbearable Lightness of Udang Baring.
Just Any Old Street.