Moving Malaysia Forward

Malaysian-born M. Bakri Musa, a California surgeon, is a columnist for Malaysiakini.com and a contributor to Malaysia-Today.net. His credits have appeared in the Far Eastern Economic Review, International Herald Tribune, and Education Quarterly. His commentary has also aired on National Public Radio's Marketplace. This second volume follows the pattern of the first, Seeing Malaysia My Way, and carries the writer's commentaries from 2004 to 2007, a look at Malaysia under the leadership of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi. It is both reflective and prescriptive. Malaysia is generously blessed with many favorable attributes. Properly harnessed they would propel Malaysians to be among the developed and prosperous. Instead, the nation is today mired in endless crises, its leadership hopelessly distracted, and citizens dangerously polarized. Malaysian institutions, once the envy of the region, are today irreparably damaged through the twin blights of corruption and incompetence. These essays are a critical look at the leadership of Abdullah Badawi, and his management of these crucial issues facing Malaysia. The writer does not spare Abdullah's many enablers in his cabinet, party, academia, and mainstream media and others who still insist that the country is on the right track. Bakri Musa offers his prescription on improving education, tackling corruption, and weaning off the subsidy mentality, adopting the best practices elsewhere and adapting them to the specific needs and problems of Malaysia. In highlighting the achievements of the past, the writer points to the potential the country is capable of achieving.