It’s all a matter of trust in politics

I FEEL sad whenever people come up to me at the talks I give or at public gatherings – or even while I’m enjoying my teh at the mamak shop – to complain about how they’ve lost trust with the government or the PM or a particular politician. And the only available alternatives are unthinkable to them.

I usually tell them that I generally trust the PM and the government of the day, and then I also tell them they need to relook at what trust actually means in their lives.

Trust in someone is believing that he or she will come through for us all the time. This is the common definition, right?

However, I believe this is a very selfish definition that serves only ourselves, and it is false many times over.

What if the person is a spouse with whom we have a lifelong contract called marriage? Do we stop trusting them because they didn’t deliver on a promise? Do we leave them when they fail?

My tolerance level in this case is several thousand non-delivered promises.

I have been married to the same woman for 42 years now and still the number of non-deliverables in trust has not reached a limit.

In fact, there is no limit to non-delivered trust that I would allow my spouse.

The same goes for all five of my children. How many times have there been non-delivered promises or trust fails? I do not know because I don’t keep tabs.

With work colleagues, of course there have to be some limits. For me, I would trust my colleagues and help them with trust that has to be delivered. So far I have never had to end a professional relationship.

Then there is our trust in strangers. In my life I have met, and continue to meet, hundreds of people, whether face to face at my talks or when I am forum panelist, or in virtual meetings; I also engage with many people through comments on my YouTube videos.

In all these moments, I trust that my audience wants to hear what I have to say (since they are, after all, present) – and also that they want to offer contrary views to my stand.

I welcome all such comments and thoughts delivered in a professional way. Of course, there have been and are some extremely unkind and hateful critics, but I trust that God will deal with them and I do not have to think about them all the time.

But what of politicians and government leaders? Do we trust them? Are they deserving of our trust? How much tolerance of non-delivered promises are we to accept? When should we lose all our trust in them?

These are not political questions, they are not social questions. For me these are spiritual questions because the answers lie in our own life practices.

The first problem in placing our trust in politicians is that we do not place them as part of our lives but “outside” of our lives.

Let me explain: The common belief is that in a democracy, we the people are the kings and lords over our “servants”, ie our representatives. Well, yes if we want to have that attitude.

So imagine we are all rich and wealthy and we have a troop of servants at our beck and call.

How do we relate to them doing the work? Should we put CCTVs in all the rooms and keep watch every minute of every day so the servants do not steal anything?

We can’t live like that, so there must be some level of trust – at least until such time that there is an egregious breaking of trust and we have to terminate someone.

For me, trust in a politician begins with their history.

As a person deeply involved in 25 years of reformasi, I trust many of the Pakatan Harapan people. For me they are doing their best given the difficult circumstances of having to work with those once vehemently opposed to them.

With the other politicians, my trust level is lower but I do believe they understand that they need to work with Pakatan. With one Malay party my trust level is particularly low, but I know they too understand that without this working partnership their party will struggle greatly.

So I trust that things are moving at a pace set by the circumstances, and that I need to allow that pace to happen.

From time to time I write or make a video blog to suggest how some things can be made better, like the school bullying issue, and sometimes I speak out (politely) against politicians who treat people not of their race or faith in a most disrespectful manner.

We cannot live in this world without trusting to some degree our spouses, children, colleagues, and doctors who treat our ailments.

We also cannot survive as a nation listening to self-appointed know-it-alls criticising everything as if they can do any better in these circumstances.

Trust means that we are allowing our politicians to do what they can, at a pace that is practical, that will eventually achieve the desired ends.

When we do not trust our leaders, it may just mean that we do not trust our own selves as we trust others in our life.

This dichotomy of exclusiveness within our trust bubble does a disservice to us and keeps us off balance and vulnerable to the forces that strive to destroy our nation by breaking our trust with false narratives.

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.