What Needs to Be Said, Should Be Said, Must Be Said, But is Yet to Be Said

Someone once said that in order to have a proper society, with an efficient government and a prosperous culture, we need huge amounts of social capital; we need trust, engagement and reciprocity. The name of that good man was Robert D. Putnam (Bowling Alone). Those three things need to exist in society for it, for democracy, to properly work; by properly work I mean that both the rights of people and the stability of the state are guaranteed. It is quite interesting to see how our Malaysian society measures up to these standards.
One of the first things we learn, growing up in this country, is that obedience is a virtue. We must not question or disregard authority. It is treacherous to do so. Now this is a problem. How can we practice both freedom and obedience at the same time? Is it not so that disobedience is one of the key characteristics of freedom? Is it not so that to be free means that one should not be forced to do and believe things that they do not want to? Which of these concepts do us Malaysians buy into; freedom or obedience? Which one do we, as human beings, buy into? Is there a difference between being Malaysian and being human? I ask this so that we do not confuse ourselves with illusions that might have been created to justify restrictions on freedom on the basis of us being Malaysian. We are all human beings, regardless of sex, race, religion, faith, gender, sexual orientation, class and caste. The same principles of rights and freedom should apply fairly across our species, not discriminately.
What strikes me as odd is that most of us do not seem to be aware of the fact that we have so many restrictions placed upon us. It strikes fear into me to see how passive we are as citizens, never engaging, never questioning, never participating, and never utilizing that defining trait of humanity; initiative. Our good people need to wake up and realize that they have a voice in this social system, a voice that can make a difference if they so choose. This is important, because without active engagement by all members of a society, social capital would be very low and the society (together with its inefficiently established institutions) will simply crumble into an oligarchy- a rigid machine where a few elitist individuals wield all the power and control over the rest of the society. A prime example of such a process is when a state that started out as a democratic one, deteriorates into an authoritarian government that decides everything without consulting the public, punishes dissenters, and rules with an iron fist. It concerns me to think that Malaysia might end up like that.
I suppose that there is really nothing new in this discussion. It has been talked about before, and most of do realize that we live in a not-so-free-environment and that democracy in Malaysia is just a pretense, for most part. However, realizing and acknowledging it is not going to cure the problem; not unless we start finding ways to address the issue and try to pro-actively deal with it. This is near-impossible, because, as I said earlier, Initiative is a very hard word to find in our Malaysian vocabularies.
Trust. Now this is the word we know well, but for all the wrong reasons. We are not known for having faith in others, are we? Well, not in my eyes, anyway. We are rather distrustful in many ways; partners always being suspicious of their significant others, individuals being constantly afraid of being backstabbed by friends, etc. It goes to the point that some of us do not even trust our own neighbors. Heck, some of us do not even KNOW our neighbors. This is not particularly good by any stretch of the imagination because such high levels of distrust often leads to an easily disintegrated unit of society, as no one has any faith in the system and will bolt at the first sign of trouble, abandoning everyone else. I know that that is very bluntly put, but the correlation with reality in our society is plain to see.
How about reciprocity? Do we, Malaysians, care about each other enough to want to build a stable, progressive and efficient environment for each other? Strangely enough, deep down, I think we all do, despite our pettiness. We want a place where our children can grow up without pressure, risk and danger; we want it collectively. No one really actually wants bad things to happen to others, but it is because of the way we have been conditioned (ruthless, cut-throat competition) that we care less and less about others and more about ourselves.
Hence, I think it is safe to say that we are not a particularly well-developed society. We do have some big problems, and dealing with these should be a priority one issue, because these are issues that will influence the future of our society. It is truly depressing that not many of us even want to acknowledge the matter.