This is a very lucid article from someone whom I admire. It concern a gigantic development project in South Johore a state neighbouring Singapore. A real concern of sovereignty


13/06: Singapore Straits Times publishes my response
Category: General
Posted by: Raja Petra
A Kadir Jasin[The following is the reproduction of my response to the Straits Times which was published by the newspaper today, June 12. I e-mailed my letter to them on June 5. The letter was published almost in totality.]

THE ISKANDAR DEVELOPMENT REGION
PM Lee is taken very seriously
By A. Kadir Jasin, For The Straits Times The following is a response to a June 1 column, The Paranoia Of Suspicious Minds, by Senior Writer Janadas Devan. IN HIS column, Mr Janadas Devan posed the following question: 'So how is it possible for someone like Mr A. Kadir Jasin, a former group editor-in-chief of Malaysia's New Straits Times Press, to suggest that the Malaysia-Singapore (Joint Ministerial Committee on the Iskandar Development Region) may affect Malaysia's sovereignty?'
I am talking about sovereignty in the broad general term. I cannot recall any previous instance when a national project situated in Malaysia's sovereign territory had the ministerial-level participation of a foreign government. Unlike the Malaysia-Thai Joint Development Area in Kelantan for the exploitation of oil and gas resources, the Iskandar Development Region, to my understanding, is not a joint-development area. It is in Malaysian territory and is meant to attract not only Singaporeans but also investors everywhere.
By my definition, sovereignty encompasses the element of pride and dignity (maruah). It cannot be very dignified for a sovereign nation to have a minister from another country involved in a state-sponsored national project.
Your writer further stated: 'It cannot possibly be because he thinks (Mr Lee Hsien Loong's) use of the word 'consultative' means that the JMC will be a bilateral 'operations council'. Mr Kadir, a crisp writer in English, is too smart to believe such nonsense. 'But he, like many others in Malaysia, has raised this canard because, one, it carries a political percentage on the ground, and two, because they genuinely fear globalisation. The ridiculous fuss over the JMC's purpose is a stand-in for a generalised fear that the policies that must be put in place to ensure the IDR's success will threaten entrenched privileged domestic groups.' Yes, I take Mr Lee very seriously because I believe that the Singapore Prime Minister, being a crisp speaker of English and an articulate person, would not make a mistake of using such an important term as 'consultative'. To my simple mind, Mr Lee had understood the Joint Ministerial Committee to be a consultative mechanism. In short, the Malaysian Government, through the JMC, is consulting the Singapore Government on the development of the IDR. Unlike your writer, I do not take Mr Lee's words to be nonsense. And even if, as your writer put it, I raised this canard because, one, it carries a political percentage on the ground, and two, because they (I) genuinely fear globalisation, what is so terribly wrong about that? This is politics. The IDR is Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's major political decision - a gamble almost. He openly declared that the project was his brainchild. That it was his original idea. As such, to get the Singapore Government involved in whatever form is a political decision. I do not intend to engage in hair-splitting with your writer on his very strong accusation that 'they (I) fear globalisation'.
I do not fear globalisation. But it is good to have fear. Fear is in itself a motivation. There is a difference between fearing globalisation and being careful about it. Malaysia, like Singapore, is what it is today - multiracial, multireligious, multicultural and multilingual, and fairly successful - because it embraced globalisation long before the term became a mantra. Surely your writer is not about to deny that Malaysia is ethnically diverse because it has never closed its doors to outsider influences and to immigration. But your writer has chosen to ignore the fact that not only peoples but also governments are becoming more circumspect about the degree to which they should open their borders to globalisation. Your writer further asserted: 'The ridiculous fuss over the JMC's purpose is a stand-in for a generalised fear that the policies that must be put in place to ensure the IDR's success will threaten entrenched privileged domestic groups.' I am least concerned about the 'entrenched privileged domestic groups', whoever they may be. These groups are well-to-do and mobile. Even as we speak, some of them are investing billions of US dollars in Singapore's mega gaming projects or are transferring the control of their assets to Singapore. My concern is for the majority, who are still poor and are unable to compete in a laissez-faire economic environment. Incidentally, these very same people form the core support for the present government.
The writer is a former group editor-in-chief of Malaysia's New Straits Times Press.