25 July 2011

I marched for a better Malaysia

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Social awareness.

On 9 July, 19-year old Elliot marched at the Bersih 2.0 rally together with us his parents, along with thousands of like-minded Malaysians. It was an eventful and dramatic experience that will stay with us for a long time. I asked Elliot to rush out a brief account for a publication, but since it wasn’t used, I’m posting it here instead.

I HAVE NEVER FELT PROUDER OF MY COUNTRY than I did on the 9th of July, 2011. It was together with my family, and thousands of people of different races, religions, ages, and languages that I realized how much Malaysia means to me. A democratic government is a representation of its people, placed there by the people’s choice. Voting is an important right for any person – it is how they influence the country they live in. It is how they choose leaders who want what is best for the people. Why shouldn’t there then be clean and fair elections?

A demonstration happens because people love their country – because there is no better way for them to express their feelings. If other avenues of expression have been curtailed, the easiest way to show solidarity with an ideal is out there on the streets, shoulder to shoulder with their fellow man.

There were tens of thousands of people, showing their displeasure against injustice, standing on common ground. The Bersih rally was epic. I shouted, I marched. I felt an almost profound love for my neighbours. I held my head high. People sang and smiled. When the water cannons sprayed and the tear gas fired, it didn’t matter so much, really, because we were together. The noise was tremendous, and the air was filled with a riotous joy. We were all in the same boat. When it rained, we laughed, and marched and walked.

I have been alive for less than half of this country’s existence – I’m not even twenty. I’m a Chinese who doesn’t speak Chinese, a Malaysian who knows little Malay. But this is my country, and I love it.

I love it because I have hope, because I have faith that this country can become a better place. Change does not come easily, but I think that Bersih has shown that there are people who want it, and I believe that change will happen. That is why I stood in the rain on the 9th of July, and I would gladly do so again.

Photo: Ex-homeschooler and college student Elliot in un-Bersih blue with a friend from our church (in cap and shades), in front of Menara Maybank

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23 December 2009

Throw Out Your Perfect Standards

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Guest Writer; Social awareness.

This is an excerpt from a speech given by Amy J. Delph at the 2008 EDISON Youth Achievement Awards Ceremony. Public service is a component of the award and here Amy is speaking about the need to do longer term public service projects and the benefits such projects have. Amy is the director of EDISON Enterprises, a company that specializes in programs that promote critical and creative thinking. Several homeschoolers have had stints with EDISON as well. You can find out more about these programs by calling her at 012-658-7587 or visiting the website.

A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO I READ a disturbing report about events in Haiti. The report began with this line, “It was lunchtime in one of Haiti’s worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. Charlene, 16 with a month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country’s central plateau. ”

I read further to discover that the price of food had gone up by 40%, not just in Haiti, but in many Caribbean island nations. People like Charlene make up 80% of the population of Haiti and they get by on less than $2 U.S. dollars a day. Two cups of rice (back then in January) cost .60 cents. When they cannot afford the food the poor turn to eating dirt cookies.

Food shortages and hunger are just one issue. We’ve all seen how high oil prices can reduce opportunities for education, health care and other needs for people. We also have natural disasters like cyclone Nargis and the earthquake in China. While we will always have natural disasters, poverty, environmental pollution, and other problems, the severity and frequency with which we are seeing these events take place sends a strong signal that we can no longer sit on the side lines and let others take care of the problems.

We don’t even have to go across the ocean to see the urgent calls for public service. We find them right here in our back yard. And by that I mean the extraordinary change in the political landscape of Malaysia. The results of the March 8th elections have shaken things up considerably and open opportunities for more voices to be heard and more avenues to take action. Furthermore, I believe the results have underscored an important principle of democracy and that is citizen involvement. That doesn’t mean only in political ways. Involvement in democracy includes concern for the sustainable well being of fellow human beings as well as of the environment in which we live. It includes awareness of and concern for human rights and a willingness to consider the views of others.

I believe we are in a unique time period. If we fail to promote a culture of civic involvement among both adults and our youth, then the new democratic space will close. Either the old powers will reassert themselves or new powers will gain control. We must remember that democracy requires us to be active stakeholders. We must not lose sight of the original roots of the Greek notion of government and democracy, which is citizens working together to determine the character and direction of their society. Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher wrote, “All persons alike should share in the government to the upmost.

And so I have identified 3 important reasons why we should focus on voluntary public service:

The first deals with effectiveness of longer community service projects. The other two touch on the urgent signs that tell us that we dare not neglect community involvement.

But that is probably not enough to motivate you. Many of us are already aware of these issues, but we still resist active involvement. I think American writer and political activist Paul Loeb summed this resistance perfectly when called it the “perfect standard.” The perfect standard includes: The perfect time, the perfect cause and the perfect activist.

The Perfect Time
With the “perfect time” people believe they shouldn’t begin working for social change until the time is ideal. When the children are grown, when it’s not an exam year, after I finish my studies, etc. But we must realize that there probably is never going to be a time in our lives when we are not facing some kind demand or pressure. Paul Loeb says, “Instead each of us faces a lifelong series of imperfect moments in which we must decide what to stand for.” While we wait for the ideal time to arrive, weeks, months and years pass by. Our whole lives can go by before we fine the “perfect” time to get involved.

The Perfect Cause
With this one we want something that is easy to do and we will see results quickly and there is a perfect plan of action. In other words there is no uncertainty and the cause is already a winner. It has to be in the right location and must fit our schedules perfectly. As we wait for the perfect cause we squander repeated opportunities to involve ourselves in the larger community for causes whose reasons may be imperfect and whose outcome is far from certain – in other words, causes that are real.

The Perfect Activist
For this barrier, people of all ages feel they have to have all the knowledge and all the abilities required before they can get involved. They feel they have to have absolute understanding of the situation before wading in. That may be true of the fireman who walks into the burning building, but it is not the case for lending a helping hand in your community.

We don’t need absolute knowledge to get involved; we only need to have a sincere desire to make a difference. That desire is the starting point that puts us on the road to learn. We learn as we go, we learn from mistakes, we learn from our experiences and we learn from trial and error.

Take Tara Suri. When she was 12, she accompanied her parents on a visit to their homeland of India. While she was there, she was touched by the extreme poverty she witnessed all around her. When she returned back to the States, she decided to do something about it. Tara decided to raise money for orphanages in India and the Sudan. Did she know a lot about these orphanages or special techniques for raising funds? Did she have a lot of contacts that she could mobilize to raise millions of dollars? No. Tara started with what skills and knowledge she had. Her first effort was a bake sales and recycling used soda cans. Then she got her friends involved and started a club called HOPE. Step by step she and her friends worked on this problem. She has since joined forces with another NGO to form a website called Turn your World Around were she offers encouragement and practical help to young people who want to get active in making a change in their world.

The problem with our notion of the perfect activist is that we don’t think of people like Tara Suri. We look at people like Martin Luther King Jr. at the height of his influence and we think we need to be like that. But we have to remember that even Martin Luther King didn’t know everything about civil rights leadership before he started and he made mistakes and had failures too.

We do not make things worse by getting involved; getting involved helps things get better. In fact “knowing nothing” makes us easier to be around and easier to work with. We have no ego to get in the way! We should be like Tara Suri and take action despite our fears and less-than-perfect preparation.

How do we characterize a socially active person? Another wonderful quote from Paul Loeb says, “We are people of imperfect character, acting on the basis of imperfect knowledge, for causes that may be imperfect as well.” It seems to me that Mr. Loeb’s standard is one we can all live up to.

So we come back again to the question of, “What’s next?” Although as the leader of Edison Youth Achievement Award, I have answered that question, it reminds me of a saying about leadership. “If you think you’re a leading and you look back and no one is following, then you’re just taking a walk.”

The question has to be answered by each of you. If we are able to lay down our perfect standard, we can become an advisor for EYAA, opening an opportunity for five more youths to have the chance to grow in ways they never expect, just like you heard in today’s speeches. If we lay down our perfect standards, people like Charlene Duma don’t have to go hungry. And if we lay down our perfect standards we can shape this nation’s future rather than leaving it to rot in cynicism and indifference. How will you answer this question today?

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30 March 2004

Politics and the homeschooler

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Social awareness.

Malaysia’s 11th general elections may be over, but that hasn’t stopped people from talking about the resounding mandate voters gave to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and the ruling Barisan coalition. In a conversation with 15-year old Derrick (not his real name), our son Ethan was told that politics was taboo at his home. “His parents won’t talk about elections – they say he’s too young to understand politics.” His parents vote so we learned, but they just didn’t feel comfortable talking about it, especially to children.

It was lunch, and our two boys (now 14 and 12) were talking about the upcoming elections and their preferred parties. It wasn’t our children’s first encounter with the country’s democratic tradition, but this time they were old enough to ask what if PAS won. The frenzied appearance of thousands of banners and flaglines displaying moon, rocket and ‘dacing’ all over our streets had taken on an air of desperation, and we discussed the pros and cons of Barisan and Opposition politics. Almost overnight, every bare wall and free standing structure had been claimed by posters of candidates we did not recognise, and whose benign stares we did not invite. The calls for and promise of a ‘clean’ government seemed ironic as we commented on the unsightly mess that was sure to be ignored once the carnival was over.

In Malaysia where conversations about politics invariably gravitate towards what’s wrong, what’s not allowed, and ISA, cynicism is the voice of free speech. But at least, Derrick’s parents vote, I thought, unlike some other friends I know (Christian and non-Christian) who chafe at the political process – and I am not referring to political activism. If you can’t beat the system, why bother beating around the bush?

I don’t know how far left, right, centre, or outfield Malaysian Christians are generally, but it gave me pause when I read the report on a recent survey commissioned by the U.S Home School Legal Defence Association.Dr Brian Ray (President of the National Home Education Research Institute – NHERI) who conducted the study reported that U.S homeschoolers were more civic minded than their non-homeschooling counterparts. In terms of involvement in community organisations, over 71% said they were active participants as compared with 37% of U.S adults.

The 2003 study also revealed that 74% of 18-24-year-old homeschool graduates exercised their citizenship responsibility and vote. That’s twice the percentage for the same age range in the general U.S. population. Dr Ray noted that the high rate of civic consciousness could be due to the fact that only 4.2% of homeschoolers found government and politics too difficult to understand as opposed to 35% of the general population. (Read the report)

These findings may rebuff the ‘socialisation’ myth, but it does make me wonder: How involved are Malaysian homeschoolers in their community anyway, and how many are conscientiously exercising their citizenship rights? Not many people are aware that in most democracies, there is a discernible downward trend in voter turnout and a 60% turnout is not uncommon. Voter apathy is just as prevalent here and the local National Elections Commission lamented to the Press that out of 2 million eligible new voters, only 45,000 bothered to be registered. (Voter turnout in the last 2 General Elections in Malaysia: 1995 – 71.8%, 1999 – 68.7%) However, preliminary reports do indicate a better response this year, and not just in Terengganu!

Here, at home where politics has its own cadence, there is no less a need to teach our children the importance of civic obligation. Jesus’ words to “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s,” suggest a responsibility to abide by the legitimate laws of the land, so far as they do not oppose the word of God.

Among other passages of Scripture regarding the authority of government (Rom 13, Titus 3, etc), one passage in the Old Testament bears closer scrutiny. In Jeremiah 29:4~7, we read:

‘This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”’

No government is perfect and no system is faultless, which explains the need to be salt and light where we are placed. As Christian homeschoolers, that translates into a call to responsible citizenship and civic duty. For peace and prosperity in the land, add prayer and participation.

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