Transform or Reform?

Everybody wants to change for the better. But what is better? How do you ensure that the change is not for the worse? Sometimes one is not even sure whether the change (or changes) that came about is what you want and gives you a better deal in life or it's more retrogressive in nature. The same applies to a country as it does to a person.

When a person is transformed, we expect a change in his or her personality and character or maybe even in his or her physical look through modern plastic surgery. Always for the better but some old characteristics can be expected to remain, maybe in a more refined manner. If he were disrespectful or dishonest before, we expect hims to become respectful and honest. The change is not total but very markedly significant, moving from a negative to a more positive position or grading. But if a person is reformed, it means that he had undergone a radical change as in the case of a criminal who has undergone a reformatory confinement. We expect a restructuring of his or her personality, to the extent that some old habits or traits are entirely eradicated and replaced with new and healthy ones. A criminal might turn into a very religious and God-fearing person.high income=high cost of living

We in Malaysia seem to face a choice in our political development: a transformation (transformasi) or a reform (reformasi). I don't think anyone had cared to explain to us the difference except that one is mooted by the government in power and the other by the opposition. The government had embarked on a program of political and economic transformation, to become a developed nation by 2020. Well, we are only some six years away from the target and only three to four years away from the next GE.Much has been done by the government to transform things on many front with a very intricate/sophisticated system of evaluation which the common man may find difficult to follow.yee sang,prosperity for all (but the poor)

But certain things are obvious in spite of the success shown by the self-developed indicators. Some of the so-called political transformation in the parties that form the coalition government do not show convincing results and too much of the old characteristics remained as before or as some say in an even worse form. Can a party change or transform itself when most of the old personalities remain
without undergoing any radical change? The attitude they show in facing pubic complaints about rising costs (if you don't like the country go elsewhere, if certain things are costly don't buy them, let's cut public expenditure -on administration and services - and subsidies to reduce government spending etc.), show a haughty or some say, a stupid response. While many steps are being taken to reduce government expenditure, billions are being spent on the creation of multifarious Funds (who distribute them?), subsidising private companies which had taken over public services through privatisation and are not doing well because of exorbitant pay packets for high executives (often ten times or more that of senior government officials) and expensive management style not checked by government, and giving periodic handouts to the low income people to assist in keeping up with the rising cost of living.a long way to go

The transformation programs have been going on for a couple of years now and the public is evaluating their result. The old trademarks of the parties in power are still the same in spite of the addition of new faces for they must follow the ethics of the old vanguards or be thrown out. The reformists have been in power in some States for quite some time and are yet to show results better than the transformists.There seem to be too much squabbling in their ranks and one can understand why they cannot do much being surround by the transformists. The water woes in Selangor is case in point where the State cannot tackle the problem the way it wanted because of Federal influence.

So, transformasi or reformasi, things go on as usual. Do our young citizens understand the issue or are they too busy watching TV with all the choice of programs now made available by Astro. They seemed to so engrossed by the modern TV dramas and soap operas while the modern handphones served all other communication meeds, that they don't care if the costs of thing doubled or tripled. After all their parents are still paying the bills until they set up a home of their own and they find out that even a one-storey terrace house might cost almost a million ringgit. The water and electricity bill can take away a huge chunk of their income and annual evaluation rate for their homes might leave them constantly in the red.