This will be one of the most controversial topics of all time. ‘What is an ideal nation? How does one define an ideal nation?’ Everyone was born from different place in the world and were brought up under different culture and environment, therefore the perception of ‘ideal nation’ is totally different from one to other. While there is no good answer to this (capitalism vs socialism), there remains some indistinguishable characteristics that everyone agrees on.

Equality

Citizens should be given the same equal rights at the legislation level for their being as a first class citizen of the nation. Citizens are like the oil of a Buggati Veyron, if you do not have enough oil, the super fast and expensive car will not move an inch. Having the same rights as the next citizen beside you makes you feel content as when you suffer from economic crisis, they too will suffer together. You do not see the same class of citizen who earns almost the same amount of wages able to enjoy luxurious lifestyle just because one have a privilege over the other by default. As pointed out in this post, a nation’s growth will only be stagnant as no one will want to let others get a free ride over their hard work.

Freedom

Freedom is a universal right of any citizens. Probably the few good examples of nations practicing freedom will be United States of America, United Kingdom, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea. While the many policies implemented by these few countries may not be agreed by me, I do agree on their stand as a country of freedom, freedom even for their citizens to voice out their discontent towards their government. Some would say chaos will be unleashed when the citizens are given such rights and wreck havoc in the cities, but when you look at the recent rally by the Thais, it feels that the freedom in democracy is well in place. Any citizens who want to give its country a change for the better will never, ever want to resort to bloodshed. These are citizens who truly love their country and will not want to see their country going into the void. They do not want to stain their own country with blood of revolution, nor do they want the country to be trapped with a government which is undemocratic. Leave the bloodshed to the colonist and civil wars. Right mind thinking citizens will never ask for bloodshed in the first place.

However, when freedom is taken away and you indoctrinate rallies as an act of evil, the nation will only suffer as the voice of the mass will be trapped under fear, fear of being prosecute for raising your voice. Truth to be, we all had been through such situations before year 2004. Many would have known that some words and topics are considered taboo and should never be raised even in the coffee shops. This is a result of constant suppressing of the citizens and stripping them off their freedom to raise their voice for nearly 2 decade. And of all the rallies being conducted here, most of them were mostly fighting for what they deserve, their equality share in the system as a democratic nation.

Unity

An ideal nation, be it a capitalist or socialist one, will never be able to be a strong one without the support from all citizens. Therefore unity is essential for a nation to remain strong and firm to withstand the international pressures. Time can saved for the country to move on with more reforms if they work together towards it. This is true when parties for a democratic country are really championing for the people, but truth to say it cannot be seen so at here, yet. Most of the time are being used to prevent lopsided policies and dealings from getting a green light by the government in power, thus effectively serving the interest of the people of preventing misuse of citizen’s funds, but not at improving life of the citizens yet. In many other democratic countries, if you cannot perform, you will be removed by the citizens easily. And it is a practice for the current government in power to resign gracefully and apologize to their citizens on their inability. Together a nation stand strong.

Transparency

Good governance and transparency are parallel to each other. Transparency is not something that one can claim to be, it is something to which others must be able to perceive the existence of it. Unveiling many transparency models and revealing information slowly when being asked and pushed by others will be perceived by the citizens as an insincere gesture by the government to drag time till the next elections. While it remains a good thing to be transparent to the public, but the pace of revealing it will not be as fast as we climb back the Corruption Perception Index. There are too many things which are not revealed yet and should be disclose out for the public. All projects and dealings which are leeching the citizen’s funds should be reviewed and to come out with a good recommendation on the solution to it. And most of all, the people behind these should be dug out from their shelters and be prosecute in the name of public interest!

Being transparent is paramount in any country. Being transparent brings in checking by the public and confidence by investors towards the country. Sad to say that we are already far behind other South East Asia countries in terms of ‘country branding’ as a nation worth investing in.

These four core characteristics should be a must in an ideal nation as they are the foundations for an advance nation. Being advanced is subjective as it means being perceived as advanced by others. Nations should work hard towards this four goals in order to be an ideal nation. What is your take on this?