You walk the talk first

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL
The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.
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Wednesday June 18, 2008
You walk the talk first
Musings
By MARINA MAHATHIR


The Government wants us to change our lifestyles to cope with inflation. It is easier said than done since most people were having it difficult even before the hikes. The Government must first set an example by doing things it should have done long ago.

WITH the recent hike in fuel prices and the Government’s exhortations for us to change our lifestyles in order to cope, may I provide here some suggestions for the Government and those who work for it to “share our burden”.

1. Stop having meetings, especially out at resorts, far enough away to be able to claim transport allowances. Have online meetings instead or teleconferences. Use Skype or chat.

2. No need to order special pens, bags, T-shirts, notepads and other goodies for those same meetings.

3. No need to order kuih for mid-morning or teatime meetings in government offices, or nasi briyani lunches for those meetings that happen to end just at lunchtime.

4. Cancel all trips for government servants to conferences overseas unless they return with full reports of what they did there, who they met and what they learnt and how they mean to apply what they learnt at home. Ask them to do presentations to colleagues who did not get to go, on the most interesting and important papers that they read.

5. Scrutinise invoices for contracts to make sure they are truly reflective of what those projects or supplies cost.

6. Stop elaborate launches for government programmes. In particular, stop the buying of souvenirs, special batik shirts, corsages, bouquets and caps.

7. Make all civil servants and politicians travel economy class. That means really travelling at the back of the plane and not buying full fare economy class tickets that allow them to be upgraded to Business Class.

8. Stop having the full complement of police escorts to cut down on petrol costs. If they need to be somewhere by a certain time, start earlier like the rest of us. Wouldn’t be a bad thing for them to also experience a traffic jam.

9. Once a week (or more), have ministers use public transport so they know what everyone else has to suffer. This might provide them with the incentive to improve them.

10. Once a week, let ministers go to a market to buy food for their families with instructions to not spend more than RM100.

11. Get ministers to carpool. They might get more work done just by being able to talk to each other to see what can be coordinated between their ministries. For instance, the Ministers of Health and Women could discuss what to do about women’s health issues in the car on the way to work. Maybe have a secretary to travel in the front seat to take down notes on what was discussed. By the time they get to their offices, things can get implemented.

12. Once a month, get civil servants to work with one disadvantaged group in order to be better able to appreciate their problems. It could be blind people one month, hearing disabled people the next, orang asli the following month and people living with HIV/AIDS after that.

We could start buddy systems which pair one civil servant with one disadvantaged person and at the end of it, ask each pair to make recommendations on how to make life better for each other. This might get rid of the problem of desk jockeys, people who never stray very far from their desks yet make policies for people they know nothing about.

13. Have PA systems that shout out the name of the officers who have to serve people at government offices so that people get the services they came for and don’t have to keep coming back just because the officer was out having coffee.

No counter should be left unmanned for more than five minutes before the officer is paged to go back to their stations. This should cut down waiting time for the public and save them transport costs in having to keep returning just to get one thing done.

14. Government officers who lose people’s files should be fined and have their names publicised for being careless and causing inconvenience to the public. Instead of making the public travel to their offices several times to deal with their problems, they should travel to go see their client and deal with it right there and then.

And every officer who goes out of the office should be given a reasonable time to get his work done after which he is expected back in office so he doesn't waste time doing something else.

15. And newspapers should save paper by reporting real news rather than non-news that they carry, particularly nonsensical utterances by politicians.

As they say, we need to do this all together in order to make a difference. So if the Government and politicians make these lifestyle changes, I will do my part and change mine.

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Looking beyond the white blouse

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL
The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.
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Wednesday June 4, 2008
Looking beyond the white blouse
MUSING BY MARINA MAHATHIR

There are many different ways of thinking about the same thing, and if we insist that our way is best, we need to defend it with sound arguments.



I would nominate for “Small Mind of the Year” the announcement by a female student that our schoolgirls’ uniforms are too transparent, and therefore would lead to them being raped, have unwanted babies and all sorts of evil things.

I’m surprised they didn’t mention that these white blouses would also make them corrupt and power-hungry.

It’s nice that a student association is taking an interest in issues. But one would have thought it would complain about the general state of education in this country, rather than school uniforms.

In France, students are taking to the streets to protest against the poor quality of the education in the state schools.

It would be far more impressive if our students complained about the same. After all, they must wonder why they cannot get jobs after studying. Or do they blame it on the alleged state of undress of other people as well?

Perhaps complaining about the education system would reveal that this is why they have become so small-minded.

Instead of breeding big brains with the capacity to think issues out clearly and then hold their ground with solid arguments, we get grey matter that has been squeezed into tiny boxes by an education system that lauds small minds and thinks brains that think expansively are dangerous.

The easiest and cheapest counter-attack is however to use the “freedom of speech” argument, where hole-ridden proposals are recast as opinion, never mind how silly. But these are the same people who would never allow anyone with contrary opinions the same freedom to speak.

It’s an argument that took the Education Ministry rather too long to put down.

And nobody seems to have noticed that neither Minister nor Special Adviser on Women said anything either.

When there are statements like these, nobody should be so polite as to not simply say that it’s silly. Why should we be afraid of offending people who patently have not thought things through?

But we allow it for only one reason: they mentioned religion. Instantly this puts such dubious arguments out of bounds. I have heard people claim that drinking hot water is haram.

If someone proposes a ban on anyone drinking hot water because it is not allowed by a certain religion, do we simply let it pass?

Once upon a time, someone said that it was impossible to land on the moon. If someone still says that today, do we still treat it with reverence?

We see small-mindedness everywhere, with simplistic arguments and solutions to everything. Nobody seems to want to do the hard work of bolstering arguments with hard facts and evidence.

We seem to be proud of not using our brains, as if it’s an organ that is meant just for show. Never mind that in some people, once they open their mouth, the size of the brain becomes evident.

The assumption is often made that the smallness of mind is in direct proportion to the amount of education the person has. But we often see so-called educated people displaying the same narrowness of thinking.

Perhaps it is a factor on how much exposure someone has. I think we should take someone like those who say things like “clothes cause rape” and put them in forums where they have to defend their arguments.

If their arguments can actually stand up to the test, then they’re worth talking about. But how much should I bet that they won’t take up the offer?

I once witnessed the total shock someone with a dubious argument received when he was invited to defend his policies at an international forum overseas. He was so confident he was correct; it did not occur to him that there would be counter-arguments.

Left unable to defend himself, he started to blame others and the organisers for “setting him up”. This is what happens when one lives in an environment where small-mindedness is encouraged, where debate and discussion is discouraged.

If we truly want to develop, we need to teach our children that there is a big world out there; and to be part of that world, we need to learn how to think differently.

We need to realise that there are many different ways of thinking about the same thing, and if we insist that our way is best, we need to defend it with sound arguments, not retreat into the realm of opinion.

Even opinions must have a sound basis, not plucked from the air.

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A knee-jerk response, again

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL
The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.
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Wednesday May 7, 2008
A knee-jerk response, again
Musings
By MARINA MAHATHIR


The world is too dangerous, therefore women should be kept at home to be safe. Such logic smacks of a patriarchal attitude that is so prevalent in our society; that women cannot fend for themselves and need to be ‘protected’.

IN MY last column I wrote about the need to revamp entire political structures to incorporate more women into decision-making structures. There was absolutely no reaction whatsoever. It might have been too shocking a suggestion, despite the fact that half of our population are women.

The idea of putting women in true leadership positions, where they lead all Malaysians, not just women, must have seemed too radical to even contemplate.

This week we find ourselves with the very reason why this must happen.

In response to the recent spate of young women being caught overseas for smuggling drugs, the Foreign Minister, along with the Home Minister, intended to propose to the Cabinet that all women travelling alone must get their families’ consent.

(The Foreign Minister subsequently clarified the proposal was only meant for those below 21 years old. However, the Prime Minister has shot the idea down. – Editor)

It is extremely revealing that neither minister saw fit to consult the Women, Family and Community Development Minister on this issue.

Is this because they forgot there is such a minister? Do they view the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry as some junior inconsequential ministry that cannot make “important” decisions like this? Small wonder women have not gotten very far at all.

This “brilliant” proposal requiring women travelling alone to get consent before they do so brings up many questions.

Say this was, by the biggest stretch of the imagination, an appropriate thing to do, how would anyone implement it? Would Immigration officers be required to check that each young woman travelling has a letter of consent?

With our new smart passports, we don’t even talk to any Immigration officer. Will we now see women forced to forgo the machines and queue up instead?

At heart it smacks of a patriarchal attitude that is so prevalent in our society; that women cannot fend for themselves and need to be “protected”. But that protection entails curbing women’s freedom for “their own good”.

That was exactly the logic the Taliban used to keep women at home. The world is just too dangerous. Therefore women should be kept at home to be safe, even though this curbs their access to education, employment and even healthcare.

It’s the same mentality that says that women should be told to cover up so that they won’t get raped, or not carry handbags so that those won’t be snatched. Or that books should be banned so that people don’t get ideas that “may” be dangerous.

It’s a mentality that accepts that the world is a bad place and, worse still, nothing can be done about it. Criminals roam free so people must curb their own freedoms so that they would never get in the way of these bad people. Men are inclined to rape, so women must never provoke them.

Funnily enough, nobody suggests that for the protection of women, men should be locked up since they make up the majority of rapists, bag snatchers, thieves and murderers. This is a real indictment of the police since we seem to accept that they are incapable of doing their jobs.

This mentality pervades all levels of society in every way. We have so little confidence in our own people that we imagine that at the slightest opportunity, they will, in a very childlike way, become influenced.

I attended a forum on the banning of books and heard one person say that we should not allow certain books to be sold because our children might read them.

I had to wonder whether he meant orphaned children with no parents or any responsible adult to guide them or all children. Why do we forget about our own responsibilities to teach our children the right values so that they can judge for themselves?

Sometimes I think we don’t want to do the right thing because it is too hard. Educating people to be more savvy about the people they meet, to be more alert when they travel, to be more critical about what they read are all the tools we need to protect our people, including women and children.

But it’s not easy and it takes time before we see the results. Still, that doesn’t mean we should not do it. Just because we still have car accidents does not mean we should stop road safety campaigns; nor should we ban cars.

Our officials can avoid these types of silly proposals if only they thought of consulting people and getting realistic feedback.

They should consult a wide range of people and then weigh what should be done. They should look at empirical data and see which groups of people are particularly vulnerable. Then, and only then, should they respond.

If an alarming number of women are being duped into criminal activity, then we should be educating women about it with suggestions on how to avoid this folly. Sensational stories in the newspapers alone won’t do it.

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Glass ceilings of reinforced concrete

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL
The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.
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Wednesday April 23, 2008
Glass ceilings of reinforced concrete
COMMENT
By MARINA MAHATHIR


Separation by gender and age are these days outdated to say the least. It leads to ghettoizing of concerns, rather than mainstreaming them.

GIVEN the grumbling and rumbling among many women in the last general election about the number of female candidates, perhaps it is now time to think in ways more in keeping with the times.

The fact remains that while there are separated groups of people representing different interests in the main political parties in government, there can never be a truly fair way of selecting candidates.

In many countries in the world these days, political parties are not, like they are in some of ours, divided into Main, Wanita and Youth divisions. Nor are these divisions even further divided into Puteri and Putera divisions.

These separations by gender and age are these days outdated to say the least. It leads to ghettoizing of concerns, rather than mainstreaming them.

For instance, as long as women’s concerns are debated only within Wanita circles, they will remain forever isolated and marginalised. Rarely will they become mainstreamed in debates in the main body of the party.

That special slots have to be given to these concerns in this day and age smacks of condescension, as if women’s issues are unimportant and not also national concerns.

The way it currently works is that women are given seats on supreme councils only by virtue of holding a post within their own wings. Generally, that means they have to be heads of their wings. This means that the representation of women on supreme councils will never exceed two or three at best.

What this ensures is that these women will never feel able to voice out the issues that are important to their women constituents, even though women make up a substantial proportion of overall membership numbers.

When one is a minority on important decision-making bodies, one tends to be meek on gender issues because there is rarely much space allowed to discuss them.

The feeling is that one is entering a boys’ club and therefore must play by boys’ rules. And talking about the plight of women who are discriminated against in the courts by male judges, for instance, doesn’t play well in that club.

The solution would be to do away with these reserved spots for women heads and allow for any woman member to stand for elections for any post directly. Not only will this allow more talent into the pool but will also reflect a party more in sync with the world.

What’s more, because there are more women members, the chances of women winning these seats are higher. Even better, the men will also have to woo the women’s votes and therefore have to display some concern for women’s issues.

We should no longer tolerate the type of gender and age apartheid that occurs in our main political parties. The separation of members by age is even more laughable than the gender one, especially since definitions of youth are elastic to say the least.

While young people may need more experience to lead, that’s not to say that the young have no leadership qualities. And why not have a woman leading all the youth members? Or indeed, the entire party?

When our politicians interact with other politicians from elsewhere, they often find themselves facing very different set-ups. The male president of the party may find himself meeting with his counterpart from another country; but who may be female and young.

Does that make discussions any less important or different? If other people are putting their best people up front, why can’t we do the same? And who’s to say that our best leaders are necessarily men?

At the moment, the way our political parties are set up, they are not only unattractive to the young but also to the most dynamic types of women. We already have glass ceilings in the workplace, but in political parties the ceilings are made of reinforced concrete if you are female.

Just look at the recent discussions as to who might stand for presidential and vice-presidential posts. Not a single female name among them. Does it really say anywhere that women are excluded from these posts?

If our largest political parties truly want to reinvent themselves and attract the young, they have to re-look at their own structures.

They have to erase the lines that separate their members by gender and age and focus on talent. Only then will they bear some resemblance to real life, where every day women are breaking new ground in many different occupations.

We have women nowadays who are heading central banks, securities commissions and supervising the building of large buildings, leading men and women.

Yet, if they were members of these political parties, they can only lead their own sex and no more. How ironic!

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Living in denial

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IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR ALL
The articles are captured from the original writer, MsMarina (with her permission). SambalBelacan is just compiling articles to make easier to find. Any comments received will remain un-respond because it's not mine.Reach her at her very own blog at http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/ Please.
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Wednesday April 9, 2008
Living in denial
COMMENT
By MARINA MAHATHIR


Denial is a dangerous trait to have because it blinds us to problems we need to confront in order to solve them

ALL the years I spent working on the AIDS issue, one of the biggest problems we faced in many countries including our own was denial. When countries deny that they even had a problem, or when, if they had a problem, it was not big enough to warrant serious attention, then national responses have nowhere to begin.

Indeed many of the countries that have some of the worst epidemics today started off being in denial, and then had to face facts once they became literally “in their faces”.

Denial is a dangerous trait to have because it blinds us to problems we need to confront in order to solve them. We act as if everything is fine and dandy and there is no need to find creative solutions to anything.

As a result, the problems continue to fester until one day they burst out into the open. Just like the AIDS epidemic, by the time that happens, the problem is hard to contain anymore and people who need not have suffered, do.

Denial is often also the first response of people who have been told they have a grave, maybe fatal, illness. They can’t believe it is happening to them so they try and put it out of their minds and refuse to get treatment.

The subsequent delay thus results in their illness becoming more advanced and treatment becoming more difficult, even ineffective. Then there is no use for regrets and “if onlys”.

I read some of the statements made by some of our current leaders these days and it reminds me of those struggles to get governments to understand the AIDS problems.

People at the top presume to understand what people at the lowest strata of society experience even when they live vastly disparate lives. They believe that everyone’s experience is the same as theirs.

Thus when some people are happy they have gotten some high-salaried job, they believe that everyone else is happy too, quite forgetting that others did not get that same job.

They also think that when they ask people if they are happy, they are going to get a response that is wholly truthful. Why should anyone tell the truth to someone who so obviously has no empathy with him or her?

I cannot help but see symptoms of denial in some of the so-called analyses of the last elections’ results. There is no better indication of this than when blame is placed on individuals who do not agree with them, rather than on self-reflection.

The most courageous admission to make is “we screwed up” but deniers rarely ever do this. That’s also because denial is a form of cowardice.

To face problems squarely and to admit that you yourself may be at fault is courageous. To then deal with the problems realistically and intelligently takes even more courage.

And courage is exactly what we need right now, not the fear factor. Our people have shown what courage they have, by leaping into the unknown and voting in people whose abilities they only suspect but do not know for sure. They deserve in return to be treated with respect, to be led courageously.

I used to bemoan the constant sacrifice of realistic and correct policies on HIV on the altar of political expediency. Nobody had the courage to do the right thing because they thought it would cost them their popularity, especially at the polls. As if saving lives could ever be an unpopular thing to do.

I see the same thing happening with almost everything these days but most especially in the political field.

The difference is that the politically expedient thing to do is to take those steps out of denial. Instead we find denial after denial, blindness after wilful blindness, deafness after deepening deafness.

How nice to live in a world where we see nothing and hear nothing, where we live in splendid isolation. How comforting to see obvious losses as wins, to see obsequiousness as respect. If only all of us could live such cocooned lives.

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