I watched with great interest — and some sense of resigned regret — a recent video on YouTube detailing how South Korea rose to become a semiconductor powerhouse.
The story harks back to the days when the so-called Asian Tigers (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore) followed the trail blazed by Japan and showed the world the possibilities when determined leaders almost singlehandedly pulled equally determined peoples out of poverty to become first-ranked economies.
Malaysia had, for some two decades before the turn of the century, sought to emulate such an example through our "Look East" policies.
We chalked up remarkable strides, but never quite made it, leading to worries if we have instead entered what some describe as the middle-income trap.
I believe this has much to do with a very Malaysian Dilemma, something unfortunately being played out (replayed?) in our rather polarised debate about what we are as a nation.
Are we a multiracial nation, or are we a Malay nation? I had thought this was all settled in our early formative years as an independent nation.
If we need to scratch this "what are we as a nation?" itch every once in a while, will we settle for describing ourselves as a de jure Malay nation but a de facto Malaysian country?
Nothing will settle this debate once and for all, I suppose. That is the gist of the Malaysian Dilemma. No sooner have we thought it was settled than someone thinks it is fit to raise further doubt.
It is this extreme difficulty in arriving at a lasting consensus about the most fundamental aspect of our national existence that, I feel, prevents us from fully joining the ranks of the Asian Tigers.
It is a condition that was laid out for us as a fait accompli at the time of Merdeka.
While our de facto multiracial character may, in many ways, be advantageous, the fact that our rich Asian neighbours such as Japan and South Korea prize their homogeneity above almost anything else belies well-worn platitudes that multicultural nations have in-built advantages.
Culturally homogeneous nations like Japan and South Korea have less obstacles in their way as they ploughed headlong economically to catch up with advanced Western nations.
It may well be said that other multicultural nations, such as the United States and Canada, have had little difficulty becoming economically advanced.
This merits further examination. No two multicultural nations are alike in terms of their historical antecedents. Despite their cultural diversity, the Anglo-Saxon populations of the US and Canada have historically been overwhelmingly dominant.
The US was able to keep its biggest minority group, blacks, well subjugated as recently as the 1960s.
Francophone Quebec in Canada perhaps comes closest to Malaysia's experience in terms of the intensity of debate about what it means for Canada as a nation.
That the French Canadian minority is largely confined to Quebec makes it relatively easy to argue (and, crucially, win acceptance of the dominant majority group) that this large minority is a distinct society or "nation" within Canada.
Then, there is Singapore, but it is true that neither the Malay nor Indian minorities there challenge the political, economic and cultural dominance of the Chinese in any way or form.
All this leaves Malaysia with its multiracial and multicultural uniqueness, and rather splendid isolation.
In spite of this, we have come so close and yet so far to the goal of a rich and advanced industrial economy. Can we make that leap? It should come as a little surprise if or when we do.
It may come despite what we are as a nation or after we untie the Gordian knot that prevents us from reaching a self-sustaining consensus about what we really are as a nation.
* The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching
