Pulau Batu Putih and Singapore

I was away for work when i received the text message from my mom on Friday evening

She was furious when she found out we lost the Pulau Batu Putih aka Pedra Branca case to Singapore

On my blackberry i was receiving endless emails and txt, most of it from angry malay malaysians

"Bodoh punyer kerajaan, tuh lah hantar lagi AG yang jaguh kampung, lawan dengan lawyer Singapore yang world class" to quote one of them.

To be fair, i think many malaysians, especially Malay Malaysians are very emotional when it comes to the word Singapore.

I admit that I dont know Singapore that well, prior to my current posting, and my first time to Singapore was actually last December.

My take on the Pulau Batu Putih case is very simple.

Yes, we probably could have prepared a better argument, but logically i think we have lost our chance almost 50 years ago.

The island was under the control of the British Singapore Colonial Office post independence, and obviously the letter as per above by the now infamous acting state secretary of Johor, M Seth bin Saaid is merely academic since it was written to the Colonial Office in Singapore only in agreement to what was the situation at that time (the light house was already under the administration of the british)

Some of my friends argued that we should have questioned the authority of this mr M Seth. Furthermore, the territory was obviously under Johore, and much further from Singapore.

But as much as this argument is logical, legally i dont think it has much weight.

At the end, the real question we should be asking is that why is it between 1957 to 2008, there was no official persistent protest from our government re the island? Even after Singapore was annexed from Malaysia, there was not much protest.

This i think is the essence of the argument from the ICJ.

Of course its a bit thorny that we now have a Singaporean outpost in our own territory.

But lets be a bit rational too.

If true Singapore is going to have strategic advantage towards Malaysia, be it military wise or what not, what would a mere stupid island be of any difference? Dont we all know what military prowess that they already have in terms of technological advancement?

In the end, i think its boils down to one thing.

the ego of malaysians against the singaporeans

Like any good football match, no one wants to go home as the losers

and all football matches, are just, well football matches.

I think if we are going to be carried away with this anger towards the singaporeans, we should really be channeling our anger in the right direction.

why do we waste of time cursing them for the things that they achieve, which really, is nothing related to us anyways?

I notice that Singaporeans dont really care about Malaysia. Well maybe they are a bit scared when we get nervy on issues such as this Pulau Batu Putih ( one Singaporean official who i had lunch with recently said that they are even thinking of preparing the citizens on any "possibilities" if Singapore was announced the winner)

I really think Singaporeans are really straightforward, kiasu and less emotional group of people than us. Well it can be of good or bad thing for them as well. Obviously they have used all this traits for the better.

I think we Malaysians should the same. We are very emotional, patriotic, hardworking (to some extent) and clever (to some extent) group of people. but i dont think we have channeled this anger or emotion or patriotism to the right cause especially when it comes to Singapore.

I have always said to my friends that my approach to Singapore is simple.

We have to be competitive and compete with Singapore, on every issue

I dont believe in all this nonsense that we complement them this and that

We must compete, heads on with singapore!

But competition doesnt mean that we are at war with them

Competition i think means that we must do our research and look at them properly

What do they do best, and what can we copy from them?

I dont understand why we malaysia cannot just copy from Singapore what they do best

Many people or officials in Malaysia, if we mention singapore, oh cannot cannot

but how to beat singapore in their own game when u dont even know how they play the game?

i dont think we Malaysians are any stupider than the Singaporeans

as a matter of fact, i think in terms of brain power, we are almost leveled

sometimes, i also feel that many malaysians who have brain, are better than singaporeans in terms of speaking skills , pr etc

but the problem is, we dont want to admit that as much as we hate singapore, we must also learn from them

and the funny thing is, singapore is so open about the things they do in terms of economy, education, transport that we can download all their policies from the internet!

i notice malaysian govt officials like to do working trip or study trip to London, what they learn also i dont know, but if you think about it, dont you think we malaysians should be learning from singapore, more than the british?

even the british wants to learn from singapore, and we want to learn from the british?

and singapore is our bloody neighbour!

we should even have a department in our intelligentsia on what to copy from singapore

then we dont have to waste time and money engaging all this consultants (many whom are based in Singapore anyways) on how to improve this ministry or that ministry

there is so much to learn from this singaporeans

most of it really is just common sense

but then again, common sense in malaysia is not as common as it is in Singapore

we need to fight singapore in this terms

not just cakap mulut bising bising, but then after a week, we dont do anything

im so convinced that we can really be at par with singapore if we get our act together

lets start by comparing the universities for example

lets pit UM v NUS

and put all our resources and thinking on how we can make sure UM beats NUS in the world rankings

copy from NUS what they do

steal the NUS professors if you need to

bribe them for the best tips if you have to

just do what ever you need to do , as long as UM can beat NUS!

im sure we can do it!

but we must choose our battles properly. We cant win on every front, but slowly but surely, if we concentrate, learn from singapore, we can one day beat them using their own strategies!

one more thing

forget about the past and forget about the politics

it will do us no good

this is especially for malay malaysians who just hate singapore's guts

for you guys out there, my advice is , if you hate singapore so much, then work hard for malaysia to be better than singapore lah

why cant we admit that yes, we thought by annexing Singapore, we were throwing them into hell's pit, but man, we were so wrong. move on lah.

we must also realise, that people or nation who are made to suffer, always emerge stronger. nations who are always on subsidy, will always be in bolehland..

but moving on..

now we know that Malaysia is behind Singapore on so many things, we need to put our act together, emotions aside, we must learn from singapore, to beat singapore

what is so wrong with that?

at the end of the day, it does not matter who plays the most beautiful football, it does not matter if you steal their best players, it does not matter if you copy their football tactics, what matters is who won the football match! Nobody remembers how you did it!

maybe malaysia should be like manchester united

strong, organised, yes we may not play beautiful football, but we get things done!

and yes, we are also now Premiership and European Champion League Winners!

I hope my chelsea friends are reading this post .. :p