Politics - not so easy

Sometimes we forget how easy it is to criticize politicians without giving them the benefit of doubt.

No I am not saying all politicians are benevolent and honest, i just think that some of them maybe be wrongfully criticized.

And I'm sure this occurs at all levels, not just at the government level.

Last year I was vice-president of the Austin Medical Students Society. Our society catered for 150-250 students across 3 year levels, and was represented by a commitee of 11 members. Committee members were usually self-nominated, and if there were contestants than places, the student members would vote as to who got the committee places.

The committee I was in, was a sad scene. Turned out that at least 1/3-2/3 of the committee members were not committed to their responsibilities as student representatives. To me, they were in the committee just so they could add titles and positions to their CV. Sure, they talked a lot and gave a lot of opinions during committee meetings, but when it came to putting words into actions, most of them went missing. Some had to be constantly chased up by myself and the president as to the progress of their tasks, and a few even had the cheek to say they were too busy (studying? bloody typical medical student) to be able to handle the tasks given. Fact is, the only reason tasks are given to them, is because they were the ones that voiced out suggestions about those tasks.

So what happened then?

The president and I recieved a lot of stick from the students we represented, because they felt that we weren't doing enough for them. What they failed to realize, was that it was not within our capacity to man-handle committee members that did not perform their designated tasks. We weren't paying them, we weren't their seniors, we had no authority to do so. We could only plead them to do the tasks, and if they still refused or conveniently forgot about their designated tasks, we would end up having to do it for them. And there was only SO MUCH 2 pairs of hands can accomplish.

We still managed to get quite a few things done, including furnishing our common room, providing social events, organizing sports events, musical events etc. But these were mostly done by the president and I. We were thankful when our student members gave good feedback, and quite disheartened when we got critical ones, because we felt that we were wrongly judged. WE WERE THE 2 THAT ORGANIZED MOST EVENTS, WITHOUT MUCH HELP FROM OUR OTHER COMMITTEE MEMBERS! We felt that if anything, the other bloody lazy committee members should've been criticized instead of us!

I suppose, with position comes responsibility, and part of our responsibility was to organize our committee well to perform well as a unit. We failed miserably, but not without trying our best. If we had any authority to chuck out the inept committee members, we would've done so immediately and replaced them with more willing and capable ones.

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Relating it to our Malaysian government, I feel sometimes it may not be those at the top that are to be blamed. They may be trying their best within their capacity, and it may be their subordinates that are obstacles for progress. And many times these leaders may be unaware of who those inept subordinates are. So to blame the top leaders for every single problem happening in Malaysia is perhaps unfair to them. What we as Malaysians COULD do though, is to strive to reveal the inept ministers/officials to our top leaders, through exposes like what Jeff Ooi from screenshots is doing (eg the Wisma Putra blues) is doing, so that one by one the weeds can be pulled out.

Stay positive! The internet realm will change the face of Malaysia for the better =).