STATEMENT
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Like a glitch, social and economic crises in the accelerated timeline of Wawasan throws systems into disarray. Modernity does not merely stop, its vehicular chassis crashes along the superhighway.
There is another sense in which time crashes, as when we have arrived at the future promised in Vision 2020. As it turns out, the future must be furtively deferred through clever bureaucratese: Wawasan 2020 is substituted with Wawasan Bersama Makmur 2030. But a Wawasan ‘future’ stripped off its utopic projections, is just the banality of hereafter in bureaucratic, developmental time. Without the immanent, utopic future, the ‘now’ we live in is reduced to a static point. The present crashes into a moment of immobility, inaction and stasis.
Wrapped in an endlessly looping video narrating over economic, political and social crisis within Malaysia at the end of 1990s, the video magnifies the intensification of social inertia experienced by the public in the aftermath of Wawasan accelerationism.
Automaton reading:
The Malaysian Government put forward several options for ways to mend the damage made by the "bargain". Some suggested that the government's punitive stance be extended to include any non-Malays who might be attracted to the "Malay" brand. Others argued that the removal of the stigma of "bargain"ability was worth the risk. None of the options were able to capture the attention of the general public more than the U.S. audience. The Malaysian audience was largely ignored by the media, with a notable absence in Thailand where the "Bargain" was signed.
"Why am I being treated to such a debauched dinner (in the morning) when I might have been served a large plate of fish."
At the beginning of the decade, however, there emerged a great stir again when, as a few days earlier, Mahathir had warned a large gathering of dignitaries not to fight in the streets and had not warned the delegates not to join organized labour. It was this great stir that set off a great deal of speculation about the likely link between the two.
At the beginning of the decade, there emerged a great stir again
Like a glitch, social and economic crises in the accelerated timeline of Wawasan throws systems into disarray. Modernity does not merely stop, its vehicular chassis crashes along the superhighway.
There is another sense in which time crashes, as when we have arrived at the future promised in Vision 2020. As it turns out, the future must be furtively deferred through clever bureaucratese: Wawasan 2020 is substituted with Wawasan Bersama Makmur 2030. But a Wawasan ‘future’ stripped off its utopic projections, is just the banality of hereafter in bureaucratic, developmental time. Without the immanent, utopic future, the ‘now’ we live in is reduced to a static point. The present crashes into a moment of immobility, inaction and stasis.
Wrapped in an endlessly looping video narrating over economic, political and social crisis within Malaysia at the end of 1990s, the video magnifies the intensification of social inertia experienced by the public in the aftermath of Wawasan accelerationism.
Automaton reading:
The Malaysian Government put forward several options for ways to mend the damage made by the "bargain". Some suggested that the government's punitive stance be extended to include any non-Malays who might be attracted to the "Malay" brand. Others argued that the removal of the stigma of "bargain"ability was worth the risk. None of the options were able to capture the attention of the general public more than the U.S. audience. The Malaysian audience was largely ignored by the media, with a notable absence in Thailand where the "Bargain" was signed.
"Why am I being treated to such a debauched dinner (in the morning) when I might have been served a large plate of fish."
At the beginning of the decade, however, there emerged a great stir again when, as a few days earlier, Mahathir had warned a large gathering of dignitaries not to fight in the streets and had not warned the delegates not to join organized labour. It was this great stir that set off a great deal of speculation about the likely link between the two.