I refer to the letter Philharmonic Orchestra nothing but elitist extravaganza .
I must admit, I'm one of those among ‘plebeian masses’ who has not attended a single performance of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, so I'm rather ignorant of the foreign-to- domestic ratio of its musicians or of the low percentage of Malaysians, comprising just a sliver.
However, I once attended a performance of the Bangkok Philharmonic Orchestra in the same concert hall and most of them were Thais - or Asian at least.
Anyway, this fascination with having a totally foreign management or presence and calling it ‘Malaysian’ began in the 1990s, especially from around 1991 or 1992 when Malaysia's development policy came under the influence of the neo-liberal, free market, ‘border-less world’ propaganda advanced by the globalists - a latter-day term for imperialists and neo-colonialists, their influence of which was aided by the growth of the Internet and Malaysia's drive towards a knowledge-based economy.
Throughout the 1980's, I had been ever so conscious of Malaysia's efforts to protect and encourage the development of domestic talent. For example, TV commercials had to feature Malaysian actors and this created opportunities for produces like Faridah Merican, Meor Hashim Manap, Patrick Teoh, Constance Haslam, Antares and resident foreigners such as Mary Maquire and others whose names have slipped my memory.
The 70s and the 80s were decades when there was an emphasis on Malaysianisation and back then Anwar Ibrahim wore a baju Melayu and a social night out - for me at least - meant a trip to the pub or bar for an Anchor Draft or a Carlsberg.
Come the 90's and globalisation, it was different. Malaysia wanted to be ‘world class’ -- so all the above was reversed and we now wanted to be Western. That was when I swapped my screwdriver, soldering iron, multi-metre and oscilloscope for a pen and keyboard and became an writer on information and communications technology (ICT).
The PR agency in charge of the KLIA while it was being built was American, with American speaking staff. An American consultant, McKinsey was chosen to advise on development of the Multimedia Super Corridor.
The International Advisory Panel was selected from top heads of mostly western ICT companies and while its advice wasn't binding, it's a wonder why the Malaysian government did not also establish a Domestic Advisory Panel comprising industry organisations such as Pikom (Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry Malaysia) ands professional bodies such as the Institution of Engineers Malaysia, the Malaysian National Computer Confederation and so on.
All of a sudden, everybody became a fan of some British or European football team which they most probably have not seen play in real life, yet they buy their merchandise and adopt the same ‘us-versus-them’ mentality like the football hooligans who travel across Europe looking for a fight.
Malaysian fans have - most fortunately - not yet gone so far as to want to beat up the other guy to a pulp for the mere ‘crime’ of supporting the rival foreign football team.
Several of the mobile phone operators in Malaysia then had minority foreign shareholding, with the minority shareholder providing most of their senior management and that continues until today and in some cases, a European minority shareholder was the proverbial ‘tail’ wagging the Malaysian ‘body’ which comprised the majority share. That was back around 1997, though in my humble opinion, the Malaysian ‘body’ was owned by a company which had more brawn than brain, as it still does today.
Many international brand name hotels are mere Malaysian brick and mortar managed by foreign management - again Malaysian brawn with foreign brains. Well, I guess in this ‘border-less’ world, it does not matter who owns the brain as long as it makes profits from the brawn which remains competent in wallowing in its core competency of being precisely that - brawn.
An now we have the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra of which only 4% of the musicians are Malaysian. Well, even Anwar Ibrahim traded in his baju Melayu for a business suit in the 1990s and the new Malaysian yuppie or wannabe-yuppie has to be seen in Starbucks or Bangsar to be recognised as a ‘somebody.’ So should the MPO's preferences come as any surprise?
Well a globalist would say that in this age of globalisation and of the Internet, this is a ‘border-less world’ - where employers are free to hire the ‘best talent’ from anywhere in the global free market.’
A ‘border-less world’ indeed, in which employers (mostly capitalists) enjoy the benefits of freely sourceing the ‘best labour’ at the cheapest price anywhere and thus undercutting their own people to whom they must pay higher wages and benefits protected by labour unions and/or law.
A ‘border-less world’ indeed where as human beings we need passports and visas to cross national borders, while information, capital, water buffalos, dogs and cats don't.
Well, this little ‘party’ which began with the ‘triumphant’ collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War is unsustainable and likely to come to an end soon, especially with a highly likely deep economic recession in the US and the rest of the world and with growing resentment among workers whose jobs are lost to offshoring and H1B visa holders.
If it continues, two things can happen in the worst-affected countries. One could be a leftist revival which we are seeing in parts of Latin America and parts of Asia, such as Nepal while it never went away in Philippines.
However, I feel that most unfortunately, given the relative weakness of the left in the affected countries, the far right is more likely to come into power - much as Hitler and Mussolini did in the 1930s - promising withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan along with the re-establishment of protective barriers, tariffs, tighter immigration controls or even repatriation programmes for non- white immigrants, including those who've been there several generations.
