talk is cheap, sir!

The Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak was in London this week, thus giving Malaysians staying in London a reason to make a pilgrimage to the Malaysia Hall.

It is an open secret that there is a higher likelihood of you rubbing shoulders with or at the very least, catching a glimpse of elite Malaysian politicians here in London compared to back in Malaysia.

After everything is said and done, I cannot say that I am much impressed by the things he said or even the manner he goes about saying those things.

His reponses invariably ranges from 'It is a complex and delicate issue' to 'I will need to discuss the matter with the cabinet' to questions posed by the audience, which covers topics from the relevance of the New Economic Policy (NEP), jurisdictions of the Syaria and civil laws in Malaysia, the educational opportunities in Malaysia and so much more.

But then again, he is only the Deputy Prime Minister after all - a fact which was lost amongst some of the audience members who participated in the Q&A session at the end of the talk.

You may ask him about the direction the country is taking, how the economy is generally doing, what the Government is doing to alleviate the flood victims in Johor and expect a generally acceptable response but please do not go asking him about the finer details about the immediate educational pathways after SPM, the exact contents of the math syllabus for primary schools and expect him to give a complete, point-by-point answer.

The civil service is there for a reason anyway and so too the other Cabinet ministers. But I digress.

With regards to his speech, there are times I felt that he is talking more about how Malaysia ought to be rather than how Malaysia it is now and what we could do about it - which is not necessarily a bad thing but it does make one wonder he was merely being naive or simply detached with the social and political undercurrents in Malaysia of late.

One of the larger gripes I have with his speech was when he claimed - or at the very least, seemed to imply - that the sole prerequisite one needs to have for advancement is sheer hard work and then goes on to make the observation that most of the current crop of politicians came from a poor background to sustantiate this claim.

I can only assume that this so-called prerequisite apply categorically to political advancement in Malaysia, especially since intellectual merit does not feature as one of them.

He must also have conveniently forgotten his own background as the son of the second Prime Minister when making this peculiar observation.

If he believed that he could convince the audience that all you need to succeed and rise through the ranks in Malaysia is hard work, hard work and more hard work through that statement, I think he has seriously misjudged his audience's powers of deduction and assimilation.

He might have been able to get away with it if he were addressing some isolated, submissive audience back in Malaysia but he would do well to remember that the Goverment's grip of local news does not extend beyond the boundaries of the country.

Malaysians overseas are not subject to the daily onslought of the local media - replete with its biases and mind-numbing propaganda - and have a wider access to other source of information such as alternative news sites, blogs and foreign news channels.

Hence, they would not be as willing in swallowing such lofty claim especially if - in the words of the Deputy Prime Minister - it is not "backed with credible evidence."

It is safe to assume that a few of members of the audience last night are here in London precisely because they have discovered much to their despair and frustration that merely working hard and doing your best is not the ultimate ticket to grant you that "vertical social mobility" which he proclaimed Malaysia is so richly endowed with.

For all his talk about equal opportunities in Malaysia, there is still the thorny issue of the New Economic Policy (NEP) which through some obscure means has been surreptitiously transformed from special position to special rights of the Bumiputra and the Government's flip-flop attitude towards it.

He talks about the need to fine tuning the NEP to ensure that it will succeed in achieving its original aims but how does one know that when the goals are simply changed at the whims of the Government and when any useful academic discourse on the matter is completely offlimits?

He talks about building trust and respect between the races and his affection for "synergistic relationships" but how does one achieve that when there are politicians finds it more expedient to view the world through the racial prism and reduces everything to simple black versus white or us versus them disputes, running loose in the Government?

He talks about the current obsession to "manufacture human capital" to complement the country's first world infrastructure but forgets that the surest way to do so is to lead by example and to walk the talk.

He talks about the need for "accountability and transparency" in the Government but seemed more content to pass the buck around and less willing to spend the resources to set the country and Government's machinery on the path towards achieving that goal.

In the end, he is almost always saying the right things - or rather the things all of us would like to hear - but the reality on the ground is not as rosy as he made it out to be.

The bottom line is that one cannot begin to fix a problem whilst at the same time admit that there is none; one is either extremely deluded or stubbornly ignorant to do so.

And to think that such things could come out from the second most powerful man in the country is not a very reassuring thought to say the least.