Having a university degree but we ended up worse off than Amahs 30 years ago, in terms of purchasing power. As mentioned in the clip, we will be labelled as poor not because of our lifestyle, our qualification, our social or how much we have done but our diminishing purchasing power.
Why social problems is so rampant in Malaysia? Take piracy as an example. Piracy is costing IT and entertainment industries so dearly for their hard work not getting returns. If you take a look at how genuine products are priced in Malaysia:
- An album (full length or mini) cost at least RM 20-50
- A movie DVD will cost around RM 20-40
- A copy of Microsoft Windows 7 sells at RM 525 at launch
Considering that an average Malaysian household earns RM 2k-3k per month in the city, wouldn't the pirated option be more viable for them?
- Pirated albums and movies sells at ~RM 5 per copy at the night market
- Softwares can be bought at RM 5 per copy
- If you don't mind paying for Internet and wait, music/movies can be downloaded for free
If I earn $2k per month, I don't really mind paying for at most $2 per song or $16 per album.
Why piracy is so rampant in Malaysia is not because we purposely want to pirate your copy of software or music. We earn so much less compared to our Western friends so the incentive of pirating stuff is much higher compared to buying genuine products. By the time those syndicates were taken actoin against, fining them is nothing because they've made enough profits to pay for the fine.
Most of the pirated stuff are in homes. Nobody openly admits it but looking at how much Malaysian earns, you know the answer in your heart. If you do a mind experiment now, by probability you can find pirated CDs in almost any Malaysian home.
In Aussieland, the moment your ISP found out you're torrenting large amount of media content, you get a warning letter already. They took action quicker. So don't play play.
You block websites like Piratebay to curb illegal content download and the next thing you get is hacking of government websites. Out of all targets, only Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission was prepared for attack. The rest were not spared - not even the Police's. I don't support the use of hacking but it served the government of Malaysia right because they didn't get our economy in shape.
So I appreciate if you have taken your time and watched the clip above. With nine years more to Wawasan 2020, how are we going to achieve high-income, advanced nation status by then, at the current state of affairs.
This is what Bersih2.0 is all about. We are not able to put up with such a regime anymore. Even if I don't enjoy the fruit of development right now, I can't afford to watch my children suffer.
If you don't care about Malaysian politics, I urge you to care about your future earnings and your children in Malaysia for the very least. If things doesn't work, change it. There is nothing wrong with opting for the alternative.
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