ssenisuBPolitics

This title's play with word-architecture encapsulates (BiG word, huh?) that state of affairs that caught the attention of two leading lights, one local and the other a welcome visitor from across the Straits.

Retired deputy Prime Minister Musa Hitam and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, both agreeing -- on very rare occasions? -- that Politics and Business cannot, and should not, mix. The P ... and ... B should be d-i-v-o-r-c-e-d.

According to theSun, April 29, 2005: Both Senior Lee and Musa said there is no room for Business to be linked with Politics by the same practictioner. If you want to play politics, stay in politics. If you want to do business, stay in business.

Lee was speaking after delivering a keynote address at the World Ethics & Integrity Forum in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday. Musa also spoke at length on ethical leadership and corruption, and credibility of leadership.

In response to a question from the floor, Lee said: "Business and politics do not mix." Similarly, Musa said that "business and politics msut be separate".

Earlier, Lee shared some lessons of issues tackled by his government, including salaries of ministers, gocernment officials and its impact on corruption, and some interesting observations on regional happenings.

"Yes. Singapore's ministers are the highest paid in the world but they are also the poorest in the world in terms of asset ownership," he said.

When they are paid salaries that are derisory compared with those of their counterparts in the private sector, officials and ministers will be tempted to take gifts, Lee said.

Lee said Singapore has to keep on fighting corruption but the system works because everyone knows the government is prepared to act against the most powerful in the land.

An interesting note Lee made was that then-president Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines only had a salary of USD5,000 (RM19,000) a year.

"Do you believe he was living within his means?" he asked, the Sun repored.

"Look at his wife."

Will Malaysian leaders heed the Words of Wisdom?

Speaking on ethical leadership, Musa said the real test of has to be based on the character, personality and integrity of the leader himself.

"Politicians would claim that there is an abundant supply of ethical leaders, and if pressed further for naming one, we are sure to have 'me!' as the response," Musa said.

Musa also said the bumiputras had successfully ransformed themselves from a "normally conservative, rural, traditional and religious" community into a modern and well-motivated one".
This change has resulted in a tug-of-war between spiritualism, with all the goodness that it represents, and materialism, with all the corruption that comes with it.

"My won judgment, as of now, is that the materialism team is doing pretty well and, not only that. It is getting stronger by the day! Striving for material gains has become so much an obsession that any action is justifiable as long as the objective of material gain is achieved," he said.

"Any action in aspects of life, in business transactions, in government administration and in politics, all these where the use, or abuse, of power and particularly corruption, are beginnng to emerge as being taken for granted as a way of life. Some might even say that these have taken root root already!" (emphasis is desiderata's)

Desiderata's comments:

I think Musa was being diplomatic, although astute, in saying "Some might say ..." which I had highlighted in the preceding sentence. To me It should be replaced by "It's a common perception that these have taken root already!".

I also recall here the case of a Singaporean minister, facing an impending corruption charge under Lee's administratin, took his own life, in an act of shame? Will we ever see similar episodes enacted in Malaysia? No, I do not wish death on anybody, but will any of our leaders caught, or faced with unquestionable evidence pending against them in helping themselves to big sums of the state coffers -- will anyone of them bow his/her head in shame?

Back to the ssenisuBPolitics embedding, one politician who would recall with irnony would have been Dr Neo Yeee Pan, who had advocated this principle of separating Business and Politics when he was challenged by Tan Koon Swan for the MCA presidency. Tycoon Tan won the crown, but landed up in jail (in Singapore), and the rest is history with Tan's right-hand man Dr Ling Liong Sik inheriting the crown. If only Dr Neo had had Lee and Musa to remind MCA membership at large about their present wisdom, but that was another era, another team of players, mostly supporting that business-and-politics well embedded would propsper for the common good.

The current scene in Malaysia does not augur well for the nation's future. In Desiderata's opinion, the local state of affairs can be summed up in the title's structure -- the B and P sleep together back to back, B on top of P, or P on top of B, so entrenched that if our national leaders wish to pull them apart, it's a Hurculean task. Does Pak Lah agree with his close buddy (I hear the Tan Sri is an "adviser" to the Datuk Seri on certain affairs of state? Desiderata humbly stands to be corrected if he's remotely incorrect in this educated guess.)

Desiderata salutes these two statesmen (I think they are playing this role, more than the political, at this stage of their life...) for they know better. In between them, a century or more of politics would definitely qualify them to be the ones lending us, and generously sharing, their wisdom. Will we -- especially the polititians and businesspeople -- lend them their ears?