We are moving backwards because after fifty years of so-called independence, we have replaced colonialism with feudalism. We are moving backwards because the Malays don't have a clue as to what they are supposed to do in this country, and the non-Malays are feeling completely dispossessed by the practice of double standards in this land which has exacted so much unfair tribute from their loyalty.

In other words, we are just a transient state.If someone asks whether you and I feel any sense of belonging to Malaysia, it becomes harder each day to say yes; it becomes easier each day to run from the question; soon you can throw a stone and hit someone who will say no.The sense of belonging to one's country does not come from a mykad which incidentally you can now buy in the back alley for a mere one hundred and fifty ringgit or less.

It also doesn't come as feel-good or feel-bad falling or rising in proportion to the size of one's bank balance from doing things in this country.It is more than some corporate rahrah culture for your organization, more than some charter or development plan from the communications or strategic planning department of a government organ, more than the manifesto of an NGO, more than the stirring of souls from the lyrical prose of a poet, more than a political speech amplified by some kompang in a ceramah here, a seminar there.

It certainly doesn't come from hankering for some durian fruit, hawker food, belacan paste or coconut drink; by the same token, you can't maintain it just by being steely against cost versus income disparities, political doublespeak, breakdown of law and order, dumptruck leachates on roads, soul-less urban sprawls, traffic jams and congested trains, contaminated milk and dirty kitchens, bursting hospital wards, flimflam education systems, inefficiencies and lunacies, tidakpathies and rilekxaxies galore, and all the thousand things we have had to stretch the limits of tolerance in order to remain equipoised when faced with them day in day out without one iota of any effort to improve the situation.

The sense of belonging to Malaysia is missing because no one in the government or out has ever been able to articulate it enough to tug the heartstring simultaneous to throwing a flash of light in the mind to such an extent that everyone will fire up all cylinders to do the utmost and beyond.

And that is because it has never been the focus in the mad race to achieve agendas written as if by monkeys given a typewriter and some bananas. Thinking clearly what must be the clear, guiding and inspiring end-objective and thinking thoroughly from a to z are missing elements made permanent; in fact to myocardial infarction of integrity, add neurophthalmologic disorder of problem-visualising.

And again that is because all eyes are on other things, all deftly defined by personal interest disguised as communal rights sharpened by turf protection. Should anyone then be surprised that all attempts will fail because they have been stacked without rhythm, reason or reality?

With this backwardization, it is impossible for this country to be anything but what you see everyday - feudalised governance, overpriced things, poor services, systemic breakdown, indifferent performance, lethargia of mind, paucity of ideas, superficial drifting from one evanescent moment to another, and a murky horizon.

These impermanences discourage people from putting their best feet forward and rolling their sleeves to do beyond their best today for a better tomorrow on the reason that they believe this is the place to be.

So much has gone so wrong that cries have turned to diffidence and diffidence has decayed to indifference. The backs of too many who had worked their guts out in the past era of half a century of generations are now broken; they will not ever want to see their next generations go through the same type of hell and sacrifices they have had to make in order to stake one's roots all over again in this place called home.

Nothing in life is free, so said many except we-know-who's. To pay for the sense of belonging, the currencies to use are intelligence, integrity and inclusiveness.

Everything starts with I.

Without these three great I's, you will only achieve a string of F's:

failed in the task, f#ked by the system, fired from the new world where things happen. All because of f-eudalism.

And when so many other emerging nations learn from Malaysia what must NOT be done, their sprints forward for the same global pie will be stronger, sturdier and more confident. As clearly as you can read this, that has already happened years ago.

Wouldn't it then be pathetic that the only race left for us to run is to scramble to find another country less progressive to compare with in order to assuage our misguided belief that we are better than someone? If you say no to this, you will have to say yes you are unconditionally satisfied with what is as is.

But the 'is' of today and the next fifty years will not be the same 'is' of the previous fifty years. The world will become faster, savvier, more ruthless in efficiency, more clinical in effectiveness. 'Do or die' will be the new motto, so that if we still can't do, what will that then leave us? If oil nets negative in the next few years, govt subsidies will drop and things like the NEP will not be sustainable. What then if the next engines of growth that they are only now trying to cobble together by riding roughshot over other more critical imperatives splutter instead? Lie again? Neil, with his insightful thoughts on Jeff Ooi's blog