COMMENT | Given the previous failures of all prominent slogans, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s “Malaysia Madani” one is perhaps ill-advised but let’s also look at how it can succeed even as all others have failed.

From the time of independence in 1957, we have been a sloganeering nation but truth be told hardly anything has come out of it. In the last 40 years, slogans have come and gone but like trains to nowhere, it has not taken us anywhere.

Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad started his first term in 1981 with the “Bersih, cekap dan amanah” (clean, efficient and trustworthy) catch-phrase but his administration over 22 years was hardly that and quite the contrary, taking the administration to new lows over the three words, lows from which we are...