Leaders to be Selfless

"The Universe is Impartial and Selfless, 

It Treats All Things Equally, Showing Neither Like Nor Dislike, And the Sage Ruler Acts in Accordance, Impartial and Selfless and All are Equal in His Eyes"

- Lao Tze -

Political Thoughts

Dr Mahathir yesterday in an interview with Bernama and as reported by the Star titled “Dr.M urges leaders to be selfless”.

He said “A leader should not do anything that will destroy the party” and added that the leaders should realize it was the party that had given them their status today.

Dr Mahathir also said they must understand it was the party that was more important, not individuals.

That is exactly what the ancient sage advice against and giving priority to the party shows a lack of political thought and wisdom. The wisdom of political thought is about serving the people and not any group or  a particular party. (Read King Fisher Part V HERE about political wisdom.)

This is what is unfortunate about the political party system; the politicians will pander to the more influential group in within their party and play their political game to ascend to top party positions. And this also applies to some of the Pakatan Rakyat party leaders and members as in their individual selfish quest to politicize their (made believe and selfish) propaganda, just because they aspire to climb the party hierarchy. In the process they forgot about the simple wishes of the majority of citizens which are mostly not political members of any political parties.

And they began to persistently continue in this train of thought in serving their party members which is full of politicking and deception and in the process loss the fundamentals of virtue and of being benevolence to the country and people and best describe by the writer, Ambrose Bierce as follows:

“Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. ”

- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) -

How can any party be more important than the nation and the people? So to these politicians, which comes first? They have shown us that their party and their political members or more correctly “their political clique” is more important than the people and the nation.

I recall the time when the former Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi announces his resignation and apologizes to the party members during their last UMNO general assembly and I was greatly disappointed as his apologies should be extended first and foremost to the people and nation for his failure to bring about the promised political reform in his election promises of 2004, when the people overwhelmingly responded by giving him one of the biggest mandate ever.

To these UMNO politicians, their members are of priority and the supreme race, you can be supreme only if you are an UMNO member and they go about in masquerade that they are fighting for some special rights of certain groups which in effect what they are fighting for is their own selfish special right as a political clique, and the right to do whatsoever they wish and if ever there are any criticism of their policies, they will be angered and goes out to silence the group or individuals who are not within their clique even if you or your group who are their party members, and as they gradually over the years degenerate towards clique politics of cronyism and nepotism.

Is this what you call selfless? The word “selfless” is correct but the interpretation from Dr M is inadequate as how can you be selfless if you are only working towards and for a certain group?

I think the word selfless in the political sense is best described herein from the “Tao Te Ching”:

“A good government will always help people to discard hypocrisy and cunning. It will deter those with a pretense of wisdom from acting arrogantly. And with such a selfless way of governing and acting in accordance to what is naturally right, a country will be well administered.”

-Tao Te Ching-

And last but not least I would like to specially mentioned that, I had just returned from “teh tarik” with my blog buddies, Bernard, Haris and Gus and was just suppose to be a Raya get together and in the course of our chit chat we stumbled upon this topic and that we are saddened by the status of politics today and the political party system, and how even Pakatan Rakyat had been imposing on us (the people) their whimsical belief of what is right and wrong and that some individuals and especially some PAS leaders trying to play cunning and dirty politics pandering to their distorted perception  or conception of their own ,which we do not succumb to, degrading our rights as citizens by trying to imposed ban and prohibiting the people and behaving  unwittingly like tyrants.

We want and hope that you Pakatan Rakyat, to listen to this if you can clean your clogged ears and open up your stuffy mind and bitter heart to us commoners, that we are supporting you today as we felt that you are the lesser of the two evil (in the words of Haris) and mostly also because you have endorsed the People’s Declaration brought forward by the Barisan Rakyat (The People’s Front) that promises to bring back true democracy and accountability to the people of this nation. And as todate we are still skeptical of your will to execute what you have so put to pen and paper. We hope that this can be a reminder of sort and wish to see greater assurance and integration of your party in accounting to the people.

I was also told that you PR fellows behave just like BN people and will not response to our call or writings and think of us as self seeking spoilt brats in the search for attention and in need to feel important. And if this are your views on us as a part of the common people than wither will our hope of a New Malaysia. Maybe, we need to look elsewhere for the right people to show us the way forward.

Read People's Declaration HERE