Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info

Sumber Asal Berita :-

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 05:32 PM PDT

AUG 25 — Last month, our prime minister spoke about the colonisation of the mind. "We might not be at war but there is the threat of the colonisation of the mind, our spirit and character," he said.

I happen to agree with him that there is indeed a threat of the colonisation of the mind, but perhaps not in the way he thinks.

I personally was not affected by the London riots, but my local area, Clapham Junction, was one of the areas of London that was badly affected. For days after I felt very angry every time I walked past boarded-up shops on my way to my local train station.

A friend of mine asked if such things could happen in Malaysia. Of course not, I said, because our authorities would get the water cannons and tear gas out at the first sign of trouble.

From the Malaysian side I heard and read a lot of comments about how such trouble hasn't taken place in our country because "God still loves Malaysia", or "see what happens when you have too much freedom." Even our political leaders have weighed in with comments like "this is why we don't allow demonstrations."

As someone who has been to rallies and demonstrations, and witnessed teenage boys smashing up the windows of one of my local shops, I can categorically tell you that riots and demonstrations are two different things.

Yes, some demonstrations descend into violence and riots, but that is the price a democratic society has to pay sometimes. There may have been riots or disturbances in the former Communist countries and some in America during the Vietnam War, but would you rather live in the USSR, or the US?

To me, a colonised mind is one that cannot tell the difference between a gathering of citizens intent on change through peaceful means, and a gathering of groups intent on malice and mayhem.

Then there is Ashraf Haziq Rosli. What a thing to have happened; as we Malays would say, "sudah jatuh ditimpa tangga". The mugging was sickening, but many people have been very generous and donated to "do something nice for Ashraf,"

Sadly it was a Malaysian poster who denigrated the effort, somehow claiming that there was no need to do anything for Ashraf because of the government's policies.

I have also read similar spiteful comments from other Malaysians who either ridiculed Ashraf for being out during troubled times, or poured scorn over Umno for the "publicity", or questioned the need for "paying" RM20,000.

Sad, isn't it? Londoners (and people elsewhere) were so moved by his plight that they were willing to club together to help him out. The people who donated the money didn't care about Umno, or the Malaysian government, or whether he was black, blue or white.

Malaysians (some, not all), on the other hand, can't even discuss what happened to him without bringing up race, politics and the government. Another sign of the colonised mind, perhaps, that some of us are unable to display a generosity of spirit towards a young man who had suffered a bad experience in a foreign land.

I would also like to mention Tahir Jahan. His son was one of the three men who were deliberately run into and killed in Birmingham. It would probably be fair to say that he single-handedly defused the very tense atmosphere in Birmingham (and possibly the entire country) by saying the following when many were itching for revenge: "I lost my son. Blacks, Asians, whites: We all live in the same community. Why do we have to kill one another? Why are we doing this? Step forward if you want to lose your sons. Otherwise, calm down and go home, please."

Powerful words, from a man who had just lost his son. So powerful that even the leader of the odious English Defence League was moved to say the following: "That was so f***ing dignified. We're going to hold a minute's silence for that boy ..."

That, in case you didn't know, is like Ibrahim Ali promising to hold a minute's silence out of respect for the death of a non-Malay. The British have embraced Tahir Jahan as a quiet hero. And in case you were wondering, yes, he is a Muslim. You see, to the British his religion didn't matter, it was how he behaved that matters. Thanks to Tahir, many more are beginning to admire the way his faith is sustaining him.

Compare his quiet dignity with the behaviour of some Muslims in our country every time they think they have been slighted or "insulted". Another example of a colonised mind, I fear: so many Muslims in our country are so used to thinking that the world is against them that they are unable to think objectively and rationally about anything and everything.

You know, I could write about the lessons the British could learn from us. How we prevent riots from happening. How we bring up our kids. But what would be the point in that? I would merely be perpetuating the view that some of us have about ourselves and our country — everything Malaysian is good, and everything Western is bad.

I don't deny that the riots have been very bad. It is frightening to think that there are people who think nothing of destroying things just for the "fun" of it, or because they can.

Yet out of the terrible things that have taken place, the British have shown an extraordinary kindness and generosity towards those who have been affected. Whether the victims were black, white, brown, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, English, Indian, Malaysian simply did not matter.

Would we Malaysians show the same kindness and generosity if a real disaster happened here? Or, true to our colonised minds, would we degenerate into pointless sniping about Christians helping Muslims (and vice-versa), Umno/the government milking the publicity, and how immigrants are a bad lot who always start trouble?

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

Corruption in Malaysia: I’m only bad if I steal

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 05:16 PM PDT

AUG 25 — Some of us in class did not mind being the photocopy errand boy. In those days of disrespecting copyright of academic books outright — which is another topic for another warm afternoon — the errand boy makes a bit.

Even if you made half a sen from each copy, it adds up to a few McChickens. The senior class knew of course since they'd do it too when it was their turn. You have to find a photocopier who can meet the deadline, you'll have to wait or return and at times urge them on. They were all small operators, so when machines break down as they often do they reprioritise orders.

They don't collate them, therefore you drag them home on the public bus and spend an hour stapling them. Then you head back to school in the morning, drag the bags, collect money and distribute them.

The class in time inclines to the person less likely to overcharge. The market corrects itself, eh?

Then there was a time when I was 12 I sold a 30-sen Hari Raya greeting card for RM3 to my friend's rich cousin. They were by my description some of the most exotic cards ever designed and produced by a primary school which will end up impressing the Raya pants off any friend he send it too. The spin was good.

Both examples draw me to the issue of corruption. Not that they are examples of corruption but that they exemplify why it is difficult to identify what is fair in everyday life.

Corruption 101?

Corruption is a peculiar concept. Most of us do not need someone to explain to us what it is, but when asked to explain it to others we are then trapped by a series of general phrases. Dishonest, breach of trust, perversion of integrity and duty, the leveraging of office to gain, insincere and many others.

There are laws outlining them, but the argument has to be made on how the law has been broken which is why it is difficult to establish corruption.

Compare it with your garden-variety crimes which have evidentiary requirements but are less complex, like stealing. You either walked out of the supermarket with items stuffed in your pockets, or grabbed the wallet from some guy in the swimming pool locker.

I mean even things like gifts, the receiving of them, is hard to establish the corrupt value in it. Which is even more pertinent in this holiday season where hampers emerge at all our corporate doorsteps.

William H. Shaw and Vincent Barry in "Moral Issues in Business" postulate some easy filters to determine if a gift is indeed morally questionable.

First you look at the value, I suppose if all or any RM200 hampers are directed to the front desk of Prasarana in this season, MRT contracts would be OK compared to perhaps them paying for design and redecoration of their office space.

(Prasarana Nasional Berhad runs Malaysia's largest infrastructure project ever, the Mass Rapid Transit for Kuala Lumpur, which might come up to RM50 billion. But you might want to ask MRT Co the final cost of the project since they are set to be formed and then take over the project from Prasarana at its infancy for reasons only best known to the prime minister.)

Second, the purpose of the gift and third the circumstances it was given or received. Which already moves into the subjective part of the assessment.

Fourth being the position and sensitivity to influence the person receiving the gift. Gifts don't just come in red boxes, so in the same example above, senior directors in Prasarana should be wary of what they get over the holidays.

Obviously Shaw and Barry are at sea when it comes to Malaysia with their final three filters: the accepted business practice in the industry, company policy and the law.

The filters are not protection, they are points of consideration.

Without overstating the obvious, reducing corruption in Malaysia would require all parties to continuously revisit the issue and play their role with an understanding that the complexities of corruption, even it comes to plain gifts.

How then about overextended companies relying on government bailouts, CEOs rewarding themselves irrespective of financial results, firms spending on dubious programmes after they are instructed by higher-ups and ignore minority shareholders, government leaders who have very good assets and more?

Ethical discussions and self-regulation help corporations avoid the meltdown of morals in the economy and lose their collective conscience, but you can't feed on that alone.

We are all useless, long live our leaders

Corruption is not about ill-gotten gains alone, less mentioned is how it destroys a country's potential.

I'll state three.

In a corrupt society, individuals spend more time squeezing money out of an enterprise rather than see how they can better the enterprise. All parts of a contract are stripped down to where there is margin for profit.

A road contractor — most often a sub-contractor — will try to keep a higher margin of profit than usual because he has palms to grease. He is not worried that the roads are tarred badly, he probably hopes they are. Because a road that goes bad quickly will need another re-tarring contract.

Second, products and services are themselves stripped down so they are easier served. If the government procures telephones, then the basic components of a telephone become essential for the supplier. Any innovation that someone in the firm might have is seen as unnecessary unless it directly reduces cost.

But to increase client value, the bosses will shake their head and repeat the mantra, give them exactly what they ask for, nothing more. Risking more only increases expectation and cost.

Malaysia does make an exception when what is completely untested new technology or stuff that is "canggih" (cool). It does not matter if the man-management and basic leveraging of IT is poor in government departments, but if you can like get a biometric machine and make service even worse, then my government will pay for it.

Because you see the supplier can charge world-class prices without worry. We love our gadgets here in Malaysia, especially when they can shoot green laser lights.

Third, it leads to the low-wage trap for a layer of people in corporations. How? If companies get their contracts or revenue through their relationships with government rather than the value proposition of the company, then the biggest contributor to your company are your "special leaders."

It will be entrenched that it really does not matter if your company can actually do what it promises to do, but that the right people own your firm. It then naturally skews the income and profits to the top end of the firm, the capitalist class.

Hire many in the bottom of the pyramid but pay them less. They will be happy to earn (less than they deserve) doing not so much and the federal government will be happy there is employment, even if they their incomes are trapped.

MACC will save the day

The final challenge is the enforcement against corruption, and here comes the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC).

I'm not going to kick them over the past. Let's assume that they intend to fight graft.

The knee-jerk to their previous missteps is so telling. They showed media last month their new interrogation rooms in Putrajaya fit with large digital clocks.

Corruption is complex and the perpetrators are not your illiterate crooks stealing plastic folders at the reception of the Agriculture Ministry.

The problem is not going to be solved with large digital clocks. They have to move away from 19th-century criminal detection methods of questioning people for hours and days without evidence, forcing them to confessions and then defending the integrity of the confessions in court.

The complexity of most corrupt acts and the sophistication of the perpetrators go beyond thugs with badges forcing the truth out of you. The thugs might need to know what to ask, they might need to be educated enough to read past the cover of the Companies Act 1965.

This is exactly why they are stuck with minor infractions that they are capable of dealing with. A bribe from karaoke owner to an enforcement officer or a clerk who processes a payment for a "makan pagi" (morning snacks) for 10 that never happened.

The MACC doesn't need an interrogation room or more officers, it needs more lawyers and accountants.

The nature of corruption as it gets more refined and hard to spot in a world of mergers, Internet transactions, matrix-induced conflicts of interest, liberal accounting standards and cross border financial movements, the men and women who fight corruption have to keep up.

At the end of the day, the sad thing is a fair number of people will get away with corrupt acts. That is a given. What a society strives for is proof of real vigilance through your tax ringgit, that there is every chance the corrupt will be caught or live with the fear of being caught.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Khamis, 25 Ogos 2011

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

0 ulasan:

Catat Ulasan