Politics, my take on it....
Last Friday as I was jotting down what my prof was writing down on the board, I received a Tweet from Munir saying that the infamous Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim was to deliver a talk in UCL later that evening. Upon hearing the news, I immediately began to be interested in attending the talk. I am not a bug fan of him nor his cause, but I do know that this man is a man with a renowned position as a global speaker, thus I finally decided to attend it and see for myself.
The talk was brief. He cane with his wife. The title was A struggle for justice and democracy in Malaysia, yet he didn't quite address it very well if you asked me. But I don't blame him though, he did seemed like he still have much more to say, unfortunately he didn't have the time to let them all out. He basically talked about the recently released budget, corruption issue, and how cronyism led to the failure of the current government in combatting poverty.
Is one asks me for a comment, I'd say 3 key issues need to be addressed first.
1. Mentality. People do work on this assumption that one is only capable of making changes only when one becomes a leader. True, but only up to a certain extent. One would agree with me once you are able to see the bigger picture of the issue at hand. You need not be elected as somebody in order to make a change. Maybe in politics you do, but there is only one Prime Minister, and there is many more of you out there, besides we are the ones who picked the PM in the first place, ain't it? Having power is the aim of joining politics, but it need not be absolute power. You can still do quite as much by being elected as an MP. It's only a question of making the most out of it. It's like having a gun with only one bullet to spare, you just have to aim well, then pull the trigger.
2. Address the right issues. You are all aware of the aim of politics; to make the country better a place to live in. Unfortunately the political scenario back at home seemed to revolve around the same old petty issues like an MP personal lives, liberation of mainstream media while the rest of the world is focussed on the economic situation at hand. Let's not take lightly the Eurozone crisis for it might happen to us of we are not careful. Though our economic structure is not in anyway similar to them, but the risks are still present. Our economy is still intact and our foreign reserve is sufficient, thankfully, but that doesn't mean we should rejoice now. This is the golden opportunity for us to rise, take advantage of the crumbling European giants and show the world what the 3rd word countries are capable of. You may argue that combatting poverty and ensuring that every Malaysian child gets adequate education are the first few steps in getting us there, but we need to move faster than that if we are to compete with the big guys. We need to combine our efforts in coming up with new, brilliant ideas in advancing ourselves and put our personal quarrels aside.
3. Comparisons work best in injecting motivations, true. We keep comparing ourselves with the success of others with hope that we might become inspired by them, or even to make their successes a model worth following, that we sometimes forgot our own strengths as well. Who said Malaysia is a country with no potentials? We actually are a nation rich with resources, be it physical or mental. Our own people are intelligent, but we got too carried away admiring the greatness of otherness that we overlooked our own. Take a look at Japan, how they managed to pull themselves up after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing. They came back stronger; they lived up to be their own identity, education is done in Japanese, yet their country is still able to bloom, wonder why? Because of their culture which they're holding on to. We Malaysians have our own culture, 'alang-along menyeluk pekasam, biar sampai ke pangkal lengan.' Unfortunately we failed to implement it in our lives, thus our culture is left to rot in museums and cultural exhibits for tourists to watch.
Implementation, that is yet another key issue which politicians seemed to undermine, but I wish not to speak of it now as I have other obligations to be carried out at the moment.
I leave the rest to you........
The talk was brief. He cane with his wife. The title was A struggle for justice and democracy in Malaysia, yet he didn't quite address it very well if you asked me. But I don't blame him though, he did seemed like he still have much more to say, unfortunately he didn't have the time to let them all out. He basically talked about the recently released budget, corruption issue, and how cronyism led to the failure of the current government in combatting poverty.
Is one asks me for a comment, I'd say 3 key issues need to be addressed first.
1. Mentality. People do work on this assumption that one is only capable of making changes only when one becomes a leader. True, but only up to a certain extent. One would agree with me once you are able to see the bigger picture of the issue at hand. You need not be elected as somebody in order to make a change. Maybe in politics you do, but there is only one Prime Minister, and there is many more of you out there, besides we are the ones who picked the PM in the first place, ain't it? Having power is the aim of joining politics, but it need not be absolute power. You can still do quite as much by being elected as an MP. It's only a question of making the most out of it. It's like having a gun with only one bullet to spare, you just have to aim well, then pull the trigger.
2. Address the right issues. You are all aware of the aim of politics; to make the country better a place to live in. Unfortunately the political scenario back at home seemed to revolve around the same old petty issues like an MP personal lives, liberation of mainstream media while the rest of the world is focussed on the economic situation at hand. Let's not take lightly the Eurozone crisis for it might happen to us of we are not careful. Though our economic structure is not in anyway similar to them, but the risks are still present. Our economy is still intact and our foreign reserve is sufficient, thankfully, but that doesn't mean we should rejoice now. This is the golden opportunity for us to rise, take advantage of the crumbling European giants and show the world what the 3rd word countries are capable of. You may argue that combatting poverty and ensuring that every Malaysian child gets adequate education are the first few steps in getting us there, but we need to move faster than that if we are to compete with the big guys. We need to combine our efforts in coming up with new, brilliant ideas in advancing ourselves and put our personal quarrels aside.
3. Comparisons work best in injecting motivations, true. We keep comparing ourselves with the success of others with hope that we might become inspired by them, or even to make their successes a model worth following, that we sometimes forgot our own strengths as well. Who said Malaysia is a country with no potentials? We actually are a nation rich with resources, be it physical or mental. Our own people are intelligent, but we got too carried away admiring the greatness of otherness that we overlooked our own. Take a look at Japan, how they managed to pull themselves up after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing. They came back stronger; they lived up to be their own identity, education is done in Japanese, yet their country is still able to bloom, wonder why? Because of their culture which they're holding on to. We Malaysians have our own culture, 'alang-along menyeluk pekasam, biar sampai ke pangkal lengan.' Unfortunately we failed to implement it in our lives, thus our culture is left to rot in museums and cultural exhibits for tourists to watch.
Implementation, that is yet another key issue which politicians seemed to undermine, but I wish not to speak of it now as I have other obligations to be carried out at the moment.
I leave the rest to you........
out of all the 3 points u pointed out, i only understand (and agree) the 3rd one.. susah ye nak paham bahase omputih london nih.. tinggi sangat.. makcik sampai kene bukak kamus dewan edisi ke 14.. hehe.. HIDUP MELAYU! :P
ReplyDeleteyeah.. but i do understand and agree to the part where u said u dont have to be elected to make a change. but u know how's people mentality nowadays. power is everything.. "KAMI NAK POWER" minumlah minuman bertenaga.. :D
mr katak.