by khoo khay peng
I can safely conclude that the majority of us who are active web users and blog readers wanted change. We are dissatisfied with our politicians, the way this country is being governed, our education system, our public institutions and the list goes on.However, when comes to impacting real changes not many of us are willing to get our hands dirty. In fact, not many of us are willing agents of change. As a society, we are way too individualistic and selfish.
Look at the messages on my blog, most of them were posted by anonymous readers. Many of us are convenient armchair critics who are happy at making some noises and hurling some abuses or disgusting names. Granted, some of the replies were courteous, balanced and well argued.
By making this statement, it does not mean that I am insulting my readers. I just wanted to make a point that if we do not get serious with our contributions to the society then do not expect things are going to be very different.
We kept blaming it on the lack of political will. Politicians may never have the will to change or to empower the people. Politicians are energized by the amount of power they have in their hands. It is us who need the will to pick the right politicians.
We wanted change but we expected too much from the politicians to do it for us. Hence, this has been our attitude and mentality over the last 5 decades. We need to end our fixation with personality centric politics. We need to end our romance with big and charismatic personalities in politics.
We should start to demand for real results, performance, accountability, transparency, respect for individual rights and the rule of law.
We have tried royal activism (ironically the movement was led by commoners), internet activism, opposition politics and others. The results have been mixed and disappointing.
We should try going back to self-activism. The society can only change for the better if everyone of us is committed to the effort of making this country better than what it was yesterday. We should decide if we wanted a better future for ourselves and our children.
You can make a difference. Do something for Malaysia. Stop looking for the next politician or royalty to save us. Make all of them accountable for their words and action.
