The perception of the people including leaders towards development in the 60s and 70s was more of a concept of durian tree with lots of fruits and all that the people had to do was just to wait for the fruits to fall. The definition did not assume any sense of participation by the people as they could just pick up what ever hand out from the government. It could be considered as the first phase of people’s response towards development, which as we all know is much more complicated than that. Rightly, efforts had to be made to imbibe in the people a new mindset that their response to development must be tantamount to some forms of participation in the process. The concept of Gotong Royong (self help) being popularized since the 70s was an effort to get the people to realize, even though the government could give them a lot of benefits, their benefits as individuals depended on their own initiatives and efforts. They must appreciate the necessity to increase their roles with the corresponding decrease of those of the government. The pattern of development is such that its benefits to the people depend on their own absorptive capacity. Admittedly, it is not an easy concept to tell as the people are more interested in what they can get immediately.
More importantly, the people must realize that the State and country have reached a stage of development where they have to depend less and less on the government for the development of their areas. Understandably, the government cannot do everything for the people. Nor can it do all the efforts of development, which is getting magnanimous and highly sophisticated, any more. The development of the country has to depend more and more on the people, the private sector in particular. The private sector has sufficient freedom to take initiative, command and marshal all the clever people to man its machinery to become the new engine of growth in the modern economy. Obviously, the role of the government is getting smaller and smaller. Therefore to politicize on the roles of the government in development is out of date. Higher expectation
The ground shifts further with the people having higher expectations of the government. The higher expectation of the people emerges and escalates as the state becomes more progressive and successful. Therefore, some surreptitious means have to be found to encourage participation of the people in development so that their rising expectations will not be too far out of sync with their ability to participate in the process. Basically, the people must be able to participate in more practical way in the process to maximize their benefits. Otherwise, the gap between the people’s expectation and their participation in development will grow wider.
Undoubtedly, the people are getting more responsive as efforts are being intensified to push quality development to reach them. But as they get more prosperous, they will change again as they think more in terms of what they can get out of the government’s development program; they are prepared to resort to political means in order to get the attention to improve their lots. Obviously, they want everything to be handed over to them; the concept of waiting rather than the theory of participation have become more prevalent. It is regrettable but it is the phenomenon that has got to be dealt with the era of rising expectation of the people.
Obviously, there is an increasing need to give more attention to development communication, as a tool to heighten the process of participation by the people in development, as the State embarks on the transition from the middle income to high income development model. The middle income development model is basically the process of trying to escalate industrialization and encourage mass development through better organization and more efficient management processes; the government has to undertake most of the jobs in the process in the absence of the substantial growth of the private sector.
It was obvious, since the 70s, the government machinery has been geared into the administration and management of the development programs. A number of statutory bodies had to be set up as then there were insufficient private sector organizations springing up. For example, at one time, the State government has to build roads, develop drainage and irrigation schemes and do other construction works.
Age of poverty
Obviously, the State government is quite appreciative of the function of development communication as a tool to improve the way that it wants to communicate with the people. Way back in 1965, with the introduction of the First Malaysia Plan, the State government had already realized the need to have some kind of communication program through which it could engage with the people and induce them towards change. It recognized the fact that the people must go through change in order to achieve their aspirations.
However, then in the age of real poverty, it had to emphasise on developing the infrastructure all over the villages. Therefore, it could not afford to have a good communication program to support development. The Information Department, which assumed the primary roles of communicating with the people, had to concentrate on getting the people to have certain amount of cohesion in facing the security threat from members of the armed Clandestine Communist Organisation (CCO) and have sufficient stability in the society.
Inter-personal engagement
As the ground keeps on shifting with the emergence of different groups, the subject matter of development has become more complicated. The mechanism is getting more abstract for the ordinary people. Therefore, the way of developing communication channel with the people has to be updated from time to time. Needless to say, development communication remains an efficient tool for the government to interact with the people as it emphasizes more on inter-personal engagement with people. In this respect, officers in relevant agencies must have more and more inter-personal communication with the people in order to draw them into playing active roles in the process of development, which is get more sophisticated and challenging.
Understandably, the concept of development communication, as a tool to heighten the process of participation of the people in development, has changed over the years. As the State embarks on the transition from the middle income to high income economic development, skills development must become part and parcel of socio-economic development towards the year 2020 and beyond. Hence, skills in development communication must also be developed to be able to communicate with the people at higher level and engage them in a more professional way.
Understandably, the government has been making conscientious efforts to get people to participate in development. The opposition on the other hand takes the easy way out by making promises that if it gets elected everything will be done for the people. As a consequence, conflicts of communication contents emerge between the government and people. Meanwhile, the expectation of the people keeps on rising and the opposition will be quick to blame the government for not doing enough for the people; the government is no good, it is inefficient. It must be changed.
Arguably, the opposition talks about change without means of achieving the objectives. For example, when a number of Communists Governments were brought down in Eastern Europe after the fall of Berlin Walls, people, who had been led by their noses, found themselves suddenly managing their own economy. As expected, their performances went down worse than those under the communist system. Then the people started to re-think and decide to vote for the communist party back into power in the subsequent elections.
More disillusioned
It is alright to believe in change, promise of changes but to deliver the promises is entirely a different matter. The people, disappointed with performances of people, who have been advocating change, near the end will get more and more disillusioned about the political situation. In other words, the records of people, who have been advocating change, in the government can be very disappointing at the expense of the people.
Understandably, the ground has been shifting with the shift in the mentality and attitude of the people within the context of the world economy. Other issues like human rights, environment, dignity of labor and greater rewards for the workers, also make it more difficult for the people to get into the groove of the more practical and difficult habit of fitting into development efforts. The situation represents the greatest challenge for development communication, in terms of contents, trusts and orientation in the overall efforts to get the people to participate more positively in the process of development. After all, development communication must be geared to heighten the process of participation.
Hence, there is a real need to design development communication strategy that can help to make development efforts more in line with the need of the time. The strategy must take into consideration the divide between the urban and rural sectors of the economy that is yet to be overcome even by the arrival of Internet.
Admittedly, there are a lot more to be done in order to make the engagement with people on general development issues more effective; the general feeling is that such engagement is really not effective now. For example, there is a conflict of information being entertained by some people, who still expect to have shortcuts and short change; they hope that the promise of change can be delivered. However, all right thinking people do not believe that things will work that way. They see the need for consensus between those in the government and those outside it to accept the premise of getting the people to participate more meaningfully in the process of development.
benuasains
**photos source: google.com images
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