Recently, law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said has come out with a statement to say that the government’s reform agenda is ongoing, moving at an unprecedented pace and is setting a benchmark not seen under previous governments.
If the excellent rating for reforms that Azalina is giving the unity government is reflective of the unity government's assessment of its performance, then I have no doubt that the reform movement by the unity government will falter and have no significant impact on the fabric of reality.
If it is doing anything, whatever it does will be condemned to be superficial and cosmetic. It will lack meaning and purpose, which in turn will cause it to be impermeant and easily reversible, just as how a most people’s new year's resolution is usually impermanent and easily reversible, and leaves no impact in the fabric of existence.
When we say we need to reform, what exactly does it mean?
To put it simply, when we say we need reform, we are admitting that the way we are is not only making us unhappy today, we fear that in the future, we will become even more unhappy.
It is because we are unhappy as we are today and fearful of what will happen to us tomorrow, that the desire to reform ourselves will enter our heart, to not only relieve us from the difficulties we are facing today, but so that we might hope for a better tomorrow.
Say you are leading an unhealthy lifestyle – say you are an alcoholic or drug addict for example – you are ready for reform, only when you are able to see the drawbacks of your lifestyle and wish to change to a healthier lifestyle.
When you want to reform yourself, there are many things that you will have to do.
You will have to change your belief system, habits, practices, routine, schedule, value system and even your friends, in order to reform yourself.
You probably might also have to fix the damages that you had inflicted on yourself through your unhealthy lifestyle and learn about how to do things in a new way or look at things from a different point of view to fully reform yourself.
When you have so many things to do to reform yourself, the question that you might ask yourself is where do you start.
The obvious answer is that it should always start with your heart and mind.
Before you can reform yourself in reality, you have to change your views and beliefs, and start seeing what you used to see as right as wrong.
You must remember that just because you led an unhealthy lifestyle before, it doesn’t mean that your unhealthy lifestyle has nothing good about it.
Alcoholics also have friends that they appreciate and value. They also likely had a lot of fun and good memories of their alcoholic days. However, if you wish to reform yourself, you will have to accept that as fun, memorable and pleasurable as your alcoholic lifestyle, overall, the lifestyle as an alcoholic is one that makes you miserable and leads you to ruin.
It is only after you accept this, that your heart and mind will be open to reform, which will in turn incline it towards finding and experimenting with new ways for you to find pleasure, purpose and meaning, without needing to get high.
For as long you cannot accept that – for as long as see worth and value in your alcoholic lifestyle – for as long as you keep telling yourself that you are actually not addicted, you are just having fun – that after a hard days work, you have earned the right to have a drink as your reward - you will never reform yourself and remain an alcoholic. Even if you can see that your life is falling apart, you will still not blame your alcoholism for it, and continue to go to ruin while blaming everything else but your addiction to alcohol.
In the same way, the first step that we have to exercise, in order to reform ourselves, is accept that we have a problem of racism, exploitation and corruption.
Remember, we must accept that we are the ones that have the problem, not somebody else. As long as we keep blaming everybody else – as long as we keep blaming the corrupt politicians and the religious extremists and others – we will never be ready to institute reform.
Everything will fall apart all around us, but instead of blaming our own corruption, racism and exploitation for it, we will continue to go to ruin by blaming everything else but the problem itself.
The first thing we have to do to accept before we can admit that we have a problem with racism, exploitation and corruption, is accept that there is a pleasures and joy in being racist, exploitative and corrupt. It is because there are pleasures and joys in being racist, exploitative and corrupt, that we indulge in it in the first place.
We, for example, like the convenience of being able to "settle" a problem by slipping 50 ringgit under the table.
We like being racist too – it allows us to not treat others as we would ourselves, which then provides us with the justification of exploiting others. It is not just the corrupt politicians and religious extremists that are causing us to exploit millions of foreign workers in the country on a racist basis - it is us.
After we admit it, then only we can accept that as pleasurable and joyful it is to be racist, exploitative and corrupt, the drawbacks of being racist, exploitative and corrupt outweighs the pleasures and convenience it offers, and thus, as a net, in the long run, we are going to suffer and go to ruin because of it, even if in the short run, being racist, exploitative and corrupt, is able to give us pleasure, purpose, meaning and happiness.
I personally am doubtful as to whether Malaysia is truly ready for reform, when most of us likely don’t see ourselves as racist, exploitative or corrupt.
I just met a guy who thinks that it is the politicians that keep dividing us with race and religion, when he himself is boycotting certain types of restaurants that are run by a certain race, because he doesn’t think that they are supporting his race.
When I pointed that out to him, he would justify his boycott, by saying that he doesn’t go to the restaurants of the race he boycotts, not because he is racist, but because he is vegetarian, although he had repeatedly told me that he boycotts these restaurants on the basis of race previously.
I know a guy who thinks that a rich personality from a different race ( who I am not going to name here) is a corrupt crony but another rich personality from his own race to not be a corrupt crony, but a exemplary, talented, capable successful businessman, although both these rich personalities became rich in the same way, simply because one of them was of his own race while the other was not.
When I pointed his bias, rather than accept that the reason he has such a jaundiced view is because it is not only the politicians that he complains about, but also himself, that is the source of racial tension in the country, he would take a tortuous route of splitting cronyism into "good cronyism" and "bad cronyism", to justify why the rich crony from his own race, should not be lumped together with the rich crony of another race, when the rich crony from his own race belonged in the "good crony" category, as opposed to the "bad crony" category that the other rich crony of the other race belonged to.
These guys are not even an anomaly in Malaysia. There are many Malaysians like them, who don’t see the problem of racism , exploitation and corruption as something that originates from them, despite holding or practising racism, exploitation and corruption quite blatantly.
I know Malaysians who make their foreign workers work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day for a very low pay, but rather than see themselves as the source of injustice and exploitation in the country, they tend to see themselves as the victims.
I cannot for the life of me fathom how you can treat foreign workers unfairly and exploitatively simply on account of their race, but then complain that others are being racist towards you, because they are treating you differently because of your race, but this happens quite regularly in Malaysia.
If the government truly wishes to institute reforms to curb the issue of racism, exploitation and corruption in the country, the first thing that they probably have to do, is make themselves, as well as all of us, accept that racism, exploitation and corruption, is a part of our culture and life.
After we accept it, then only we can reform it.
If we try to change the world, without changing our heart and mind, the only changes that we will be able to institute are going to be superficial and cosmetic.
We can change the laws and the systems, without changing our hearts and minds, but all that will ensue is that we will just find novel ways to bypass the system and laws, to continue being corrupt, racist and exploitative.
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