Fourth Attempt - Time for Change

With the elections looming closer, there are a lot of discussions amongst the voters. As usual we are more prone to accuse others rather than discussing something constructive. After listening to so many complains and accusations, I started wondering about those who threw around these comments. Are they any better themselves? What gives them the right to accuse others when they themselves are doing the same thing?

This triggered my article below. I wrote to the editor of The Star outlining that we should start changing ourselves before we demand change from others. But once again I was unsuccessful in getting it published. Maybe the contents were not what the editor was looking for or maybe my writing skills were not good enough. But, failure in getting it published will not falter my spirits. I will keep on trying until I succeed.

Looks like this article would have to just enjoy the limited audience of my blog alone. The mentioned article is below for everyone’s reading.

Time for Change

For the past 2 weeks, the surroundings of coffee shops have been filled with the same topic, “Elections”. With the inevitable elections fast approaching, everyone has developed their own opinions. Whether the support is towards the ruling party or the opposing party, the main issue of concern has been “corruption”.

Both supporters are pointing at each other as corrupted and insist that their own administration would be corruption-free. I have sat and listened to many accusations by many people. “That Minister gives everything to cronies”, “That candidate use to take bribe”, “Where did you think he got so much money from” and many others. We are so fast to accuse others of corruption, mainly corruption at national level, that sometimes we forget that we are not that much better.

I think it is about time we start looking at ourselves before complaining about others. We believe that we are not corrupt and we always abide by the rules. Hence we expect our leaders to behave the same and when we think they do not, we demand justice. Let’s take a look at our everyday life. Travelling up and down the Malaysian road, we are bound to be stopped by traffic authority and to our “surprise” we would have committed a traffic offence. What happens next?

We straight away come up with the best excuses we can think of. Once our best efforts to prove our innocence fails and receiving a summons becomes imminent, we straight away reach for our wallets. Like a customer bargaining in a pasar malam, we would try to come to an agreement with the authority. The deal is closed and the payment is done. We speed away happily having escaped from paying few hundred ringgit worth of summon. Wasn’t that corruption just now?

“No, that’s not corruption. It happens every day”; “It’s the authority’s fault for asking bribe”. Aren’t we ever so quick to deny reality and assign blame? How many of us when stopped by the traffic authority, knowing that we have committed an offence has demanded for a summons. How many of us have refused to bribe the authority willingly and decide to pay the summons even though it would cost more, so that we can do what’s right and not what’s cheap.

Our wrong doings does not stop at only bribing authorities. How many times have we cut queue and went ahead of the line to get things done faster just because we know the guy at the counter? We are unable to sit and wait patiently for our turn; everything needs to be done then and there. We contact our friends that work in the hospital so that we can get our parents and relatives earlier appointments pushing other appointments which were ahead of us further behind. Remember, the appointments being pushed back might be the appointments that really need immediate attention.

Be it the private sector or the government, each time we need work done or documents pushed for processing, get into universities or colleges, obtain loans or scholarships, procure interviews or jobs,  buy cars or houses and get tenders, we willingly go and seek the “someone” that knows another “someone” who can get the job done. We ask for favours, try to be friendly, give “duit kopi” and do whatever necessary so that we get what we want. And when we are in debt, we return the favour by misusing the position that we are in to facilitate what others want. “Aren’t these actions merely helping others?”

Maybe to our own eyes, it seems like we are helping others. But let us not forget that our actions affect a lot of people. Each time we use extra means to get things done or secure something, it means we are taking something that rightfully belongs to someone else. Just because we don’t see the person we are stealing from doesn’t make it right. We might not be stealing money from them but we are stealing their opportunities. This is exactly what we accuse of our politicians. The only difference is politicians do it in a large scale affecting many people, while we do it in a smaller scale affecting smaller group of individuals. Never the less, it is still wrong and it is still corruption, doesn’t matter how small it is.

We are constantly busy looking at other’s wrongdoings that we often forget about ours. We are fast to accuse but we are not fast in realizing our mistakes. Remember each time we bribe the authority, each time we cut queue to get in front and each time we do anything “corrupted”, our children are watching. Is this the kind of lifestyle we would want to portray to them? Do we want our children growing up thinking that bribing is not that big a deal? Our children are the future leaders of this country. Please do not raise them with the false believe that sometimes “corruption” is acceptable.

Let’s change ourselves first before we go on accusing others. The next time we get stopped for a traffic offence, let’s do the right thing and pay the summons. The next time we get held up in a queue, let’s wait patiently for our turn. The next time anyone offers us a shortcut to obtain something, let’s say no and use the proper channels. Let us change ourselves first so that we can demand the same changes from our leaders.

Mouposu Van Pyke