A Christmas gift of kind words

FOR my annual Christmas article, I once again draw on the concept of gift-giving from my brethren Christians in Malaysia.

While I wrote about the spiritual lessons of gifting last year (“The ‘gift’ of Christmas”, The Star, Dec 21; online at bit.ly/star_gifts), this year the gifting I want to discuss is not in the form of things gaily wrapped in colourful paper but simply kind words of understanding, empathy and tolerance.

After Malaysia’s 15th General Election concluded on Nov 19, I noticed two groups of people quickly taking form and beginning to tear Malaysia apart.

One group identifies itself with the majority race and religion and spews slanderous, unkind, untrue statements that paint Malaysians not of its race and religion as enemies, corrupt people and having connections with conniving Jews and the American CIA. These Malaysians use such beliefs to justify “protecting” their race and religion against unproven allegations of corruption, immoral acts and fraud by people of different races and religions.

I pity these people. They do not understand enough of their own religion to know that God will take into account everything they say and think and ask them to prove it all in the hereafter, and when they fail miserably, judgement will be duly pronounced.

These people cannot ask for the help of the religious teachers from whom they learn their twisted form of religion nor from TikTok influencers with equally twisted perspectives, as they too will be judged accordingly. May they all receive the judgement that they deserve.

My column today seeks not to change the hearts of these racists and bigots, for their mindset is long entrenched.

No, I will not deal with that group. My concern is the other group which is filled with citizens who have long wanted to see Malaysia’s narrative changed to one that is more compassionate, respectful, and accepting of differences and the rule of law for all.

While I share that desire, I find that these Malaysians have been saying the most unkind words, displaying ignorance and arrogance as they use freedom of expression against the new government, against the new Prime Minister and against the new Cabinet.

I have never heard such unkind words coming from this group of Malaysians before, like, for example, “It is clear that we have a subpar minister who does not know what she is doing.” The minister in question was barely three days into her job and already had to grapple with this statement made anonymously on social media.

Just think, is it fair to pronounce judgement on the competence of someone who has barely begun a job? How would this complainant like it if we said that to him or her three days into his or her job? You ni tak boleh pakai punya pekerja, tak tahu apa pun nak buat! Take that for good measure.

Then there are the complaints that the new PM is back-tracking or making U-turns now that he is in office. What are these people talking about? What U-turns? Simple intelligence says that this is a unity government, not a Pakatan Harapan government, so all manifestos need to be reargued and debated with the partner parties in this fragile new coalition. Itu pun tak boleh faham kah?Such intolerant attitudes make me wonder whether Malaysia deserves a good government at all when we have such citizens.

Then another unkind statement I read was “Aiya, why appoint her as a minister, no degree in education so how to govern, ah?”

First of all, ministers do not need to be subject matter experts of their portfolio. Once, a seasoned politician came to the public university at which I was working and gave a lecture on leadership and explained this.

“Who do you think would make an excellent Health Minister? Dr Mahathir or someone with no medical background?” he asked us PhD academicians, referring to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Being naive academicians, we all answered, “Of course lah Dr M.”

He smiled and shook his head. Wrong, he said, Dr M would make the worst Health Minister. When we asked why incredulously, the politician replied that it is better that ministers know little about their portfolio so that they will listen to the actual subject matter and experts, and also have a helicopter view of the area.

If Dr M were the minister he would probably listen only to his own opinion, wouldn’t trust the experts, and would micro manage every decision to the detriment of a professional working relationship, he explained.

A leader must be able to manage resources and decide on a course of action after listening to deliberations, not make unilateral decisions all the time.

When I heard that the new Education Minister is a young professional in her early 40s, I immediately googled her family history and found out that she has six children. That was good enough for me.

Most ministers tend to be old fogeys whose children are adults, and they have forgotten all the trials and tribulations of putting kids through school.

I call myself an expert in education because I put five kids through public schools, private schools, public universities and private universities. So give the new Education Minister a chance lah. Don’t think you know everything.

This Christmas season, I would like to ask my fellow brethren citizens to give the gift of kind thoughts and kind words of encouragement.

Pretend for a moment that we do not know everything. Pretend that we are also not experts on anything. Pretend that the young ministers are our sons and daughters trying their level best to do what is good for us. Can we give them all a chance?

If we do have concerns, can we put a lid on them for a few months?

And when we do voice out those concerns eventually, show that we have kind hearts and use words that offer constructive criticism and not complaints phrased like orang kaki botol, full of slurs and spite. Jangan lah.It does not cost us any money to have kind thoughts, nor does it cost anything at all to utter words of magnanimity. Our words reflect our hearts. Kind words reflect a kind heart.

Think of our Cabinet ministers as our kin, even put yourself in their place. Would we be that unkind to ourselves or our kin? Think about it.

Merry Christmas, Malaysia!

Prof Dr Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi is Professor of Architecture at the Tan Sri Omar Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Studies at UCSI University. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.