Malaysia's ethnic harmony between the indigenous Malay and the Chinese and Indian minorities came after years of able leadership and affirmative actions, which brought the Malays closer to par with their Chinese and Indian counterparts.
Indonesia, after years of fruitless efforts, under successive military-supported dictators, to expand its territorial limits eventually not only gave up such ambitions, but even ceded part of the territory it held and granted greater autonomy to other areas. It could then reduce the influence of the military in politics and get on with the job of exploiting its rich natural resources to usher in an era of prosperity and economic well-being for the people.Are there lessons to be learnt from the experience of these countries? Clearly, the chief lesson is that we must have stable and able leadership which even while looking after its own interests frames policies, both domestic and foreign, to serve the domestic agenda of promoting the economic well-being of its people and eliminating the causes of ethnic and sectarian strife.
But to my mind the even more important lesson is that the administrative structure must be improved and depoliticised. We started with an administrative structure that was the envy of countries like Malaysia. It was recruited on merit. Today, with notable exceptions, posts in the bureaucracy have become gifts that the politicians dole out to their favourites or sell to the highest bidder. Today, no conscientious police officer dare arrest even a killer without checking his political connections.