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Several have been asking me what I meant by “incompetent, corrupt and untrustworthy” in my last post. The main question was on the term “corrupt”. It turns out that the other two terms are easily attributable. To explain what I was referring to, let me tell a story of a make-believe organisation. As I write this entry, I am very aware that I am only addressing a very specific set of readers.

This is a story of an imaginary organisation. Let us call it organisation X. It calls itself an “Islamic” organisation and those leading it enjoy some level of respect. Just like the tukang urut, some of them know exactly how to make people trust them.

At the national level, organisation X has a two-layer management structure – the highest level is the unelected Board, and the next one down is the elected executive committee. The Board is headed by a Chair, while the executives by a President. Being unelected, the Board enjoys some level of immunity from questioning.

Upon seeing their authority and influence seeping away, the Board one day realised that they needed to do something. They decided that anyone who might challenge their authority or challenge their trustworthiness must be removed. The Chair of the Board decided to act. He had to act quickly because an election is looming and ‘his people’ are at risk of being voted out.

What did he do? He decided to put pressure on other candidates to pull out from the elections. First, he phoned up the candidate challenging the incumbent President. He asked the candidate to pull put because ‘there are invisible hands working behind the scene’. He said that it is not possible for this candidate to rise up so fast unless ‘someone is doing something behind the scene’. Of course, the talk is peppered with words like ‘maslahah jamaah’ every now and then. Not only is this an insult to the candidate’s ability, it also shows the level of paranoia of the Board.  The candidate refused to pull out.

Not satisfied, the Board continued to put pressure on candidates up to the very last minute. On the very night before elections, the Board called up the candidates for the two top posts – President and Deputy President. Again, they were urged to pull out so that the Board’s preferred candidate – the incumbent – would win unopposed. Various arguments were put forward. As expected, words like ‘maslahah jamaah’, ‘untuk kebaikan semua’ etc etc were splashed all over the session. Still, the candidates decided to remain.

Having failed to make the candidate withdraw, the Board – or, should I say, the Chair? -tried a different game. Perhaps feeling desperate, they tried to mislead the election committee into believing that the two candidates have agreed to withdraw. Of course, the candidates actually did not. Luckily once more, the plot was uncovered and the elections went ahead with the election.

Now, that was what I was referring to when I wrote about ‘corruption’. There are people who openly and unashamedly abuse their positions to pursue their own political agenda. When people abuse their positions for personal agenda, THAT IS CORRUPTION, even though they might say “Ana tidak ada kepentingan peribadi dan hanya buat semua ini untuk kebaikan jamaah”.

What worries me is the fact that many people know about situations like this. They still tolerate it. If it were me, I would firstly expose their dirty scams, and at the same time openly urge these corrupt people to step down immediately. They do not deserve to be protected, and they have lost all dignity to be in leading posts.

I see three possibilities. Either many people are happy to be ruled by corrupt leaders and therefore whatever these people say about wanting to get rid of corruption are sheer hypocrisy, or they simply do not have the guts to speak up, or they just can’t be bothered.

But then again, of course, this is a make-believe organisation. Otherwise, surely someone would have stood up and said something! We are all principled, aren’t we? Sebesar-besar jihad ialah……?

On that note, I think David Cameron made an excellent point in the last PMQ. When questioning Tony Blair about what he thinks cabinet government would be like under Gordon Brown, Cameron said:

I asked the Prime Minister a question about Cabinet government, but he will not answer, so let us ask the Cabinet. Who thinks that they will have more of a say round the Cabinet table when the Chancellor takes over? Come on—hands up! Is not that the problem—they all know it is going to be dreadful, but none of them has the guts to do anything about it?

Filed under: Misc, Personal