Vision 2020 Revisited
When I wrote about Vision 2020 back in 2007, I saw it the way most Malaysians did then: a grand national ambition, a banner of pride, a promise that we were on our way to becoming a developed nation. The politicians spoke of it with gleaming eyes, the media echoed their optimism, and we—those of us on the ground—held on to whatever hope we could afford.
But my pocket told a different story.
Two ringgit and a borrowed ten from my daughter’s Raya money was my version of Vision 2020.
Gas in the tank, art on the gallery wall, and children sleeping elsewhere so I could keep us afloat.
A national dream colliding with a personal reality.
And now, looking back, the year 2020 did bring a vision, just not the one we were promised.
It brought COVID-19.
It brought masks, lockdowns, and the silence of shuttered mosques. It brought empty roads and crowded hospital wards. It brought the sight of overworked frontliners and undertakers in full PPE. But more than that, it revealed the spiritual rot beneath the surface of our national story.
It revealed a leadership that cracked under pressure.
It revealed corruption laid bare, not just whispered but displayed for all to see.
It revealed the machinery of government losing its bearings, its moral compass spinning wildly while people struggled to breathe, to feed their families, to hold on.
Vision 2020 became less about skyscrapers and economic targets, and more about what we failed to become.
And maybe that’s the true vision we were meant to receive.
Not a glittering skyline, but a mirror.
A mirror that showed us what we’ve ignored for too long:
That a nation cannot be built on slogans.
That progress measured by GDP and highways is meaningless if compassion, integrity, and justice are bankrupt.
That development without soul leads only to collapse.
And still, we survive.
We adapt.
We remember who we are beneath the propaganda and policies.
If Vision 2020 gave us anything of lasting value, it is this:
A bitter clarity.
A moment of reckoning.
A reminder that real vision has never been about perfect planning or political promises—it has always been the inner compass pointing us back to truth.
May we heed it.
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