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IN three weeks, 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 George Santayana warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. Friedrich Hegel had observed earlier that history repeats itself, to which Karl Marx added, “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”.
In February 1991, then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad 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.