Policy Brief No.6

Vision 2020 Betrayed: Whither Malaysia?

In three weeks, the year 2020 will end. Incredibly, it has been a year largely devoid of any serious discussion of Vision 2020, its significance, and the lessons its achievements and failures offer for the future. The philosopher Santayana warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Hegel had observed earlier that history repeats itself, to which Marx added, “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”. In February 1991, then Prime Minister Tun Mahathir articulated a bold vision for the future of Malaysia in three decades, branded Vision 2020, soon after the New Economic Policy’s (NEP) Outline Perspective Plan for 1971-1990 ended.