Cruel to be Kind

Last year, at a dialogue session with visiting Talent Corp officials including those from Pemandu, CIMB head honcho, Datuk Nazir Razak, talked about the need for Malaysian talent to return home. So the question that was posed was: “Why would anyone want to come back to a country which is perceived to be rife with corruption?” Nazir acknowledged it as a problem and responded by saying that such perceptions have to be changed and that the prime minister is paying serious attention to them. Did my question damage the image of the country? It is a serious enough issue that is deterring many young people from returning home and who perhaps, falsely, have been led to believe that in Malaysia, “you have to pay for everything”.

How are such perceptions going to change if in the first place we do not acknowledge their existence and take appropriate steps to rectify them? What better avenue than with young talented Malaysians who are able to accept that something is being done to address such issues? But for some quarters, most with blinkered minds, such questions are akin to “memalukan imej Malaysia”.

No, the country’s image is not being damaged by journalists who seek the right answers to many unanswered questions. It is being damaged by those who never want to confront or take on contentious issues.

Sometimes, you have to be cruel to be kind by asking questions that require straight answers. This certainly does not make me a lesser Malaysian.

Cruel to be kind
by R. Nadeswaran
http://www.thesundaily.my/news/163448