Vission 2020

The former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr Mahathir Mohamad had a vision during his leadership from 1981 to the recent 2003, his goal of “unifying the multi-ethnic, multilingual, and religiously plural nation in Southeast Asia and become a fully developed nation by the year 2020” (Lockwood 2003; Furlow 2009). He named the national plan Vision 2020, a “project aimed at reconstructing Malaysian economy, society and identity” (Furlow 2009).

Dr. Mahathir presented Working Paper - The Way Forward at the Malaysian Business Council and this is the actual text he brought about (Wawasan 2020, 2008). He listed nine challenges faced in order to achieve Vision 2020 and the sixth challenge proposed:

The sixth is the challenge of establishing a scientific and progressive society, a society that is innovative and forward-looking, one that is not only a consumer of technology but also a contributor to the scientific and technological civilisation of the future.

With regards to that, Vision 2020 can be seen as Malaysia's main political ideology to achieving a more development country, be it politically, economical and socially. When Dr. Mahathir officially launched Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) in 1996, Xue noted that it became "the main vehicle to achieving Vision 2020" (2005).

From that, we can understand that, Malaysia's no censorship policy actually contributes to its political ideology. Thus, I will further explore about Multimedia Super Corridor.

References

Furlow, C. A. (2009) Malaysian Modernitities: Cultural Politics and the Consrtuction of Muslim Technoscientific Identities, Antropological Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 1, pp. 197-228

Lockwood, C. (2003), The Changing of the Guard: A survey of Malaysia, The Economist 367 (8318) pp 1-16

Wawasan 2020 (2008) The Way Forward - Vision 2020, Rakyat Jaya Sdn Bhd, viewed 12 June 2009

Xue, S (2005) Internet, policy and diffusion in China, Malaysia and Singapore, Jounal of Information Science, 31 (3) pp238-250