Toot…

What if your family lived in a home on island you couldn’t leave? With limited amount of food and safe drinking water, it would be very important to make things last, wouldn’t it? Especially when your family kept growing, and growing and growing! Well, it doesn’t matter where your home is because we all live on an island we can’t leave. So please, use only what you need because supplies truly are limited. We can do that.

The above is the transcript of perhaps the most inspiring movie clip I have ever seen – Island Home, by ECO (Earth Communication Office). For those of you who have never seen this, please do so at http://www.oneearth.org/

I vaguely remember that during my primary school education, my teacher did tell us to about taking care of the environment by doing the 3 Rs – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. I don’t think that their words actually have any impact on my thoughts and actions. In fact, now that I look back, I have the impression that they don’t actually care very much of the environment themselves. Hence, I am guilty that I am not such an eco-friendly person at all throughout most of my life.

If I was a good representation of an average Malaysian city school kid, I would say that perhaps the environmental impact due to our actions was one of the last thoughts in my mind. What do we know? We are just a bunch of pampered, text-memorising-and-regurgitating machines, trained in an exam-oriented education system. Yes, we are told that our actions are causing major environmental impacts on Earth, but are there any chances where students are allowed to experience for ourselves the damages we have caused to our Mother? A field trip to two locations, perhaps – one to a national park, another to our good-old-friendly-neighbourhood landfill. Oh wait, field trips aren’t that effective, I guess. All we have to do is oh, memorise say 80 over moral values. That will be enough to ensure that we all turn out to be ethical human beings. Good job, Malaysia! What a typical Malaysia “Boleh”.

As with many developing countries, Malaysia is criticised of trading off the environment for economic growth. During the reign of Mahathir, especially, Malaysia was knocked by developed countries, saying that we were destroying our most valuable heritage just to fill our hunger for more land. The response to these criticisms was usually a “mind your own business”. Of course, what do those developed countries know? After all, they are but a bunch of rich people looking down on us struggling developing countries. Oh wait, didn’t most of those developed nations do the same mistake of trading off environment for economic growth? Maybe it’s just me, but perhaps their words are something to be pondered and considered carefully.

“‘Malaysia boleh!’ is Malaysia’s national catch cry. It translates to “Malaysia can!” and Malaysia certainly can. Few countries are as good at wasting money. It is richly endowed with natural resources and the national obsession seems to be to extract these, sell them off and then collectively spray the proceeds up against the wall.”

“Most Malaysians are convinced that the eyes of the world are on their country and that their leaders are world figures. This is thanks to Malaysia’s tame media and the bravado of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. The truth is, few people on the streets of London or New York could point to Malaysia on a map much less name its prime minister or capital city.”

“The KLCC development in central Kuala Lumpur is an example. It includes the Twin Towers, the tallest buildings in the world when they were built, which was their point. It certainly wasn’t that there was an office shortage in Kuala Lumpur — there wasn’t. Malaysians are very proud of these towers. Goodness knows why. They had little to do with them. The money for them came out of the ground and the engineering was contracted out to South Korean companies.”

“As it is, Malaysia will become a net oil importer in 2011 — that’s just five years…… It is time to move on, time to prepare the economy for life after oil. But, like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, the Malaysian Government is more interested in stunts like sending a Malaysian into space when Malaysia’s inadequate schools could have done with the cash…… That’s not Malaysia “boleh”, that’s Malaysia “bodoh” (stupid).”

The above quotations are from an article by Michael Backman, with the title: “While Malaysia fiddles, its opportunities are running dry.” What’s interesting is that if domestic demand for oil grows at 4% per annum, Malaysia will be a net importer by the year 2010, a year earlier than that estimated by Michael Backman. But who cares? The more important thing is that Petronas’s net profit rose 7.7 percent to 46.4 billion Ringgit (US$13.3 billion; euro9.9 billion) in the financial year ended March 31 from 43.1 billion Ringgit in the previous year, right?

Please visit here for the exact news on The Star Online.

I wonder how the government is spending the 48.3 billion Ringgit in tax, dividend, export duty and royalties just from Petronas alone. Oh, why not build a 1.5 km tall building near Singapore? That’ll surely show the Singaporeans that Malaysia is more “Boleh”. Even if it doesn’t, it certainly will show those people in Taiwan and Dubai, yeah?

I wish there will be a time that everybody in the world, especially Malaysians, can use only what we need because supplies truly are limited. We can do that.