In 34 months, Malaysia will enter the new millennium where the first three decades of the 21st century will see more changes than in the past two centuries.
Children born now, for instance, will live on into the 22nd century and the Information Technology revolution will completely transform the way human beings live, work and play.
Are Malaysians ready for the Information Age? The Multimedia Super Corridor is an ambitious plan to position Malaysia as an international IT hub, but even if it is a success, it would by itself be inadequate to leapfrog Malaysia into the Information Society unless Malaysians become a nation of people with one of the highest rates of computer and IT-literacy in the world.
Equally important, Malaysians at all levels of society, from the government down to the ordinary citizens, must develop a new Information Age mindset to be able to meet the new challenges of the Information Society in the next millennium.
For instance, the Government must be prepared to usher in an open civil society, where government information, as a general rule, should be accessible by the people because it belongs to the people. This requires a change from the traditional philosophy under which the government’s information was regarded by the government as the government’s property and none of the people’s business.
The government holds this information on behalf of the people and should take due care to ensure the quality, integrity and authenticity of government information.
A general shift of focus is therefore required - from one of not disclosing information unless absolutely required, to one of disclosing unless there is very good reason not to do so.
In practical terms it must mean three fundamental changes in Malaysia:
Firstly, the full involvement of the Malaysian society in the formulation of future policies and new laws. The Government has completed a few cyberlaws which would be tabled in Parliament next month, as well as many other Bills with far-reaching repercussions on the livelihood of the people, like the Bills to amend the Land Acquisition Act and to repeal the Rent Control Act. But up to now, there are no indications that all these Bills would be made public to give adequate time for national consultation and public feedback before the Bills are tabled and debated in Parliament.
Secondly, the removal of laws, policies and practices which impede the growth and development of an open information society - including the repeal of the Official Secrets Act and its replacement by a Freedom of Information Act, and the removal of repressive provisions as to be found in the Printing Presses and Publications Act and the Internal Security Act.
Thirdly, a dynamic movement to enable Malaysians to take a quantum leap into the Digital Age and build an Information and Knowledge Society through a national "IT For All" campaign to promote IT-literacy to achieve the target of "One Family, One Computer" with two objectives:
* Malaysia joins the ranks of the "information-rich" nations; and
*Promote a high Internet take-up rate in the country by removing the fear of computers among the Malaysian population and thus reduce the internal division between the information "haves" on the one hand and the "have-nots" and "cannots" on the other.
In the 34-month countdown to the 21st century beginning on 1st January 2000, Malaysians must make themselves more prepared for the new challenges of the Information Society in the next millennium.
(5/2/97)