Have you seen the tukang urut adverts in Malaysia? How do they try to convince potential customers? They wear a jubah, a serban, and a little goatee. Lady tukang uruts don a tudung even when advertising ‘urut batin untuk lelaki’. To give a slightly more modern outlook, they put a picture of themselves holding a mobile phone. The more mobile phones they have, the more modern they seem to be. The more telephone numbers they have, the more ‘accessible’ they are! Some people may say “Of course he is not lying….. he looks like a serious Muslim”.
Try looking at how some leaders in our society behave. To hide their (or perhaps, our?) incompetence, they would say “if you have criticisms, please send it directly to me or my committee members. It is in the interest of our society (maslahah jamaah) that we deal with it through the official mechanism”. The hidden message is, if you know of their incompetence, do not let others know about it. Instead, use the mechanism that they and their friends devised so that only they and their friends know about it. Don’t tell anybody else because that may cause a revolt. Just tell them so that they can sweep it under their carpets. And…. wait for it…. they would say that this is , of course, in the interest of our society (maslahah jamaah).
I was talking to a friend the yesterday. He tried to convince me that if a Muslim leader makes a decision which I am not comfortable with, I should keep quiet because it is a matter of ijtihad. The other person may be right, and I may be right too. Or we could both be wrong. But because one person is in a position of leadership, we should not say anything that could damage him ‘for the sake of the society’.
My answer was “I am sorry, mate. That is the very double-standard that keeps corrupt hypocritical people in power!” I said to him, if the coming-from-different-angles argument were to be applied to Malaysia, then he should not criticise any politicians who are not in PAS (he is a PAS supporter). The BN politicians come from a different angle, and he comes from a different angle. Using my friend’s own logic, he should not say anything against Barisan Nasional because they are merely using different perspectives. Speaking up could damage our country’s leadership and our society.
Of course, my friend disagrees. He said that I should not apply the same moral standards to Barisan Nasional and PAS members. He said, PAS and UMNO are different. My answer was, “I am sorry, mate. That is the very double-standard that keeps incompetent, corrupt, and hypocritical people in power.” It is easy to be obsessed with the munkar that we see outside, while turning a blind eye to the munkar pervasive amongst us. We advertise everybody else’s wrong-doings, but when it happens to us, let us keep it hush hush.
In short, the term ‘in the interest of our society’ or in Arabic ‘maslahah jamaah’ can be abused simply because many of us are either gullible or scared stiff to speak up. Many have been indoctrinated with the belief that we have to look after the interest of the society even if that means tolerating incompetent, untrustworthy, corrupt leaders.
The world is full with such people. If we look just over the last few months, there have been cases where the people in charge of running elections were pressurized by higher powers, their decision was changed by the powers above, candidates were pressurized to withdraw by the powers that be. And what do we do? We keep the power-abusers in place.
And how many times have you heard the powers that be saying “we are open to criticism and suggestion, but all criticisms and ideas seharusnya disampaikan terus kepada kami sama ada melalui email, melalui telefon atau apa-apa medium komunikasi lain yang sesuai, bukan kepada umum kerana kita perlu menjaga keharmonian”?
What they did not openly say was, please do not tell others about their incompetence and corruption because that would tarnish their reputation! If these people were to become politicians, they would perhaps be the first people to destroy freedom of press for fear of being exposed. Rest assured a few Arabic phrases and Quran verses will be sprinkled into the justification. Abusing Islam is the best way to gain trust from us Muslims. Even the tukang urut knew that!
Keeping these incompetent, corrupt and untrustworthy people in place is only a reflection of our own weaknesses. No wonder we are in such a mess. We have no one to blame but ourselves.
Of course there are honest people out there. Unfortunately the abuse by some damages many. Kerana nila setitik, rosak susu sebelanga.
I look forward to seeing a change, and to seeing how serious new faces want to bring change.
Next issue, if I feel like it: How some people attempted to sweep mistakes under the carpet (to protect their reputations), and how weak leaders took hours to ‘consider’ the blatantly corrupt proposition.
ish ish ish…
anyway, it is our misfortune culture and ‘tradition’ create leaders who lead by position. while the true leaders are those who lead by influence. that is why, many are hunting for position without ever think about their ability to influence. Of coure, if you want to influence others, then you need to focus on self improvement and not self promotion…
when those who are in position lost their influence, while the influential side is out of position… then the Tamar Jalis kind of theater will appear…
If only a wan ada sama! Your presence is greatly missed by many.
Pemuka-pemuka yang ada sekarang tak segan silu berckap yang bukan bukan. Berani di belakang. Penakut berdepan. Tidak berani berhujah. Tapi suka memerintah.
kita tak ada cara untuk remove orang yang tak dipilih melalui pilihanraya. malahan, kalu dilantik melalui p’raya pun, kena tunggu setahun baru boleh undi semula.
kena check balik siapa design perlembagaan…dia design supaya sesuai dengan situasi bila orang semua amanah dengan kuasa. skrg bila dah tak amanah, baru lah nampak susah senang nya.
dah lah tu, introduce pula sistem pengundian yang orang lain tak faham. tiba tiba je orang yang paling tidak popular boleh menang. ada corruption, atau ada kesilapan yang tak diumumkan?
orang paling tak popular menang? atau boleh jadi he lost but someone “made” him win? unless ada orang make a fuss, akan di sapu under carpet lagi sekali, IMHO. kalau ada orang threaten nak expose, diorang blame SPR dan dakwa bahawa itu kesilapan teknikal. hilang tsiqah altogether.
MA5, did you notice what a mess it was? I told you, just one year of their reign, WHAT A MESS!!! Truly incompetent, and tak malu langsung try to blame someone else.
Ait, kawan ikram. Bukan anta ada exam ke? Ada masa baca blog?
Its better in my opinion that our discussion here should be in between of general and specific. We must appreciate that different people are coming across this page and they might not be able to understand what was the discussion is all about… its better not to understand rather misunderstood. let’s work on something within our circle of influence…
Please be careful when commenting.
hmm tak paham. tak pe lah. yang penting kita jangan dok seronok complain tapi tak wat paper. tahniah abang wan. semoga mesej ini dapat sampai kepada semua untuk difikirkan.
Is this tantamount to a rejection of the doctrine of collective responsibility?
Ada avatar nampaknya. Mungkinkah gambar itu yg patutnya kluar instead of Musa Hitam dulu?
waaa, ni ape citer nie?
A’kum all, just heard that my former president opened a weblog. Tu yang intai-intai masuk ni.
A lot of things happening in the UK ke since I left end of 2004?
Anyway good luck to Wan Saiful for your venture, as we have a lot of things to do here in Malaysia as well. I met Dr. Akop, he talked about you last week. I’m looking forward to visiting UK later this year. Hopefully by then, I can visit your concillor’s office.
Kat Malaysia ni ada aim baru. “We want substance not rhetoric”. But we have very limited manpower and especially ‘brains’ to realise this. Yang ada ‘brain’ pulak tak sabar (darah muda) dan bila kecewa menyepikan diri. TGNA and TGAH tak pernah putus asa disepanjang tribulasi di bawah kepimpinan Datuk Asri malah menghormati dan seboleh-bolehnya ‘mendiamkan diri’. kerana ‘your time will come’, insya Allah. Then you have to prove and have the freedom to exercise what you have preached before.
just my 2 cents (sampai sekarang tak faham apa maksud ni?)
Wah….. Bos. Lama tak dengar cerita. Nottingham? Since when and what for?
I don’t quite agree with the notion of ‘mendiamkan diri’. Our example is the Prophet and he definitely did not stay quiet.
And we should not have a double standard. There are people in PAS who says, lawan tetap lawan when facing people from the “other side”. But when it comes to internal incompetence, they say jangan lawan. The result is what you have now.
Change can be achieved by educating the audience. The only challenge is how to convey the prerequisite topic which is”how to become teachable”.
I’m currenly lecturing.
My dear brother, for me this thing is ijtihadi…Al Qardhawi said there are times that we better keep quiet (for time being) rather than make an open statement (that could be detrimental). A ‘redha’ silence is different from a ’strategized’ silence. Anyway, you could judge better since you’re closer.
Al Qardhawi gave two examples (that I can remember) from his book. One is when the sahabas asked our beloved Prophet s.a.w. why he kept quiet regarding the hypocrites, while he knew each of them. He said that I’m afraid that people will say that Muhammad s.a.w. kills his own people; thus the society will be in chaos (in other words harm is more than good).
And another prove is in the Quran where prophet Harun a.s. who stayed with the Bani Israel who got lost in the desert, he saw them praying to the golden cow, but yet he kept quiet (for that moment) and waited until Moses came back.
Abu Saif please correct me if I’m wrong.
Anyway, we make our own calls and should be ‘berjiwa besar’ to get any reaction be it welcomed or unwelcomed in nature.
I am starting to blog, although I have a bit of difficulty in expressing myself. Still and will always learn from veteran bloggers like Ustaz Hasrizal and Abang Wan.
I have one rule for myself so far, no mixing of languages. Hope I won’t break my own rule when I start blogging.
Can’t wait for Abang Wan next issue. Press on!
makin kuat pula mereka menyeru supaya kita “mengikut saluran yang betul” !!!
panik beb.
I first thought this post is just another one of your general eye-opening session of the day, but after reading all the comments, somehow there is a subtle message that I think I managed to grab. Keep on writing abg wan and may Allah guide all of us to be on the right path.