blind loyalty

Loyalty is a virtue. Most of us, as global citizens are taught to be loyal to king and country when we were young. Any acts of betrayal towards king and country will be condemned and frown upon by generations to come. However, to what extent is this loyalty applied to? Must we stand firm and be loyal no matter what?

Governments and monarchs around the world today often preach to their people that they should be loyal and to obey them. Any criticizing and mocking of these leaders are construed as disloyal and the perpetrators are dealt with as enemy of the state. Is this right? Across the centuries we have seen monarchs being overthrown, government leaders being brought down from power. Are all these actions construed as being disloyal? To answer the question we need to understand further the reasons behind these actions. Most of these actions stemmed from the people being prosecuted by the government unfairly e.g. apartheid in South Africa. If going by the rules of the government leaders and monarchs, should a citizen remain loyal even though he is mistreated and his welfares are not taken care of? Should he just suck it in for the sake of being loyal?

What we are taught is to be loyal to king and country. What we didn’t realize is king and country are institutions. These institutions are only represented by the leaders appointed. Being loyal to king and country does not mean we must be loyal to the leaders appointed to hold those positions. If the leaders are not capable and corrupt, we as the people can always criticize them. This will not render the people as being disloyal. If we are forced to be loyal, then it is only blind loyalty.

God bless Malaysia.

the end of MCA

MCA, the once mighty party that represents Malaysian Chinese is facing its demise soon. Ong Tee Keat, an influential and well-liked by the grassroots politician is not selected as a candidate by the current scandal-tainted president, Chua Soi Lek; for the sake of holding on to the party leadership structure with no regards to the overall party's interest. The phrase of winning the battle but losing the war clearly applies here.

 

God bless MCA.

new generation voters

In a democracy, voting is a common keyword. This is whereby politicians are voted into office by the general population to become leaders of the country. This process has not changed since the beginning. However, the voters are evolving in terms of perception and mindset as the decades and centuries begin to pile in. There have been many definition of a generation ranging from X to Y. As a result of this, the landscape of a democracy has changed radically.

During the early times, the general population is basically more respectful to their leaders to the point of worshipping them as divine beings without any questions asked. The leaders are generally able to control the masses by enforcing laws and regulations whereby will be followed by the people without many questions asked. Leaders are in a better position in terms of subjugation to a certain extent by controlling the information available to the public and limiting knowledge transfer.

In the new century, this is not applicable anymore. Information is being shared via information corridors with exceptional speed and the barrier for freedom of knowledge has crumbled dramatically. Suddenly the comfort level of the old-school leaders vanishes in the blink of an eye. From used to be worshipped to being berated and ridiculed in public certainly takes a toll on those leaders. Leaders are castigating the younger generation of being immature and lacking common decency and respect to the elders. What truly happens here? Has the younger generation turn into hooligans?

Let’s do a simple analysis on the difference between the voters today compared to yesteryears. The new generation of voters today have unlimited information on the happenings surrounding them. A politician with some wrongdoings exposed is immediately made known to them via the online media. Whereas during the olden days, this information would not have travelled that fast and might even be filtered by the ruling government to protect the politician. If you know that this particular person have been stealing from you, will you still embrace him with open arms and kisses? Generally speaking, no matter from what generation you’re from, you will definitely whack the person sky high. This is common human behavior. Therefore, if a person or a leader commits any wrongdoings, he should reflect on himself rather than castigating the people for berating him.

A group of new generation voters has emerged and the leaders should just accept the inevitable and make the best of it. One should understand that respect is given and never taken. God bless our country.