|  And, the right to vote needs everybody's support.
When the days get longer in Australia, you know the 'silly season' has come. It's summer months when Parliament stops sitting. The reruns and B-team appear on TV. Newspapers get thinner.
The neighbourhood smells of barbecued steak, and the liquour stores offer big discounts. At the workplace, colleagues seem warmer. On the streets and shopping malls, optimism lingers as the Christmas hangover segues into the New Year cheer.
December's when I sit to catch up on readings I started last summer but never seemed to finish. Currently, I'm browsing through several books to optimise my time over the summer lull.
Beside my bed lies The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, which I snapped up for a few dollars at a second-hand bookstore. I'm a third-way through Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray until its homoerotic narrative turned me off. Thus, to Wikipedia I went for a synopsis of the story and its ending.
In my car side pocket, there's Geoffrey Robertson's Hypotheticals - Dramatisation of the Moral Dilemmas of the 80s. It's a most entertaining read when waiting at the mall while the family shops for New Year bargains.
An enlightening book if you're into Socratic reasoning and Aristotelian rhetoric, which Robertson, a Queen's Counsel, uses to moderate a debate on ethical dilemmas among experts who play their unscripted roles in front of a television audience.
In my study, between thumbing through the daily papers and writing my column, I'm flicking through A Memoir of Gore Vidal. The cover review says, "No American writer in the 20th century has lived a life richer in incident, achievement and glittering association than Gore Vidal... a figure whose vibrant verbal presence has itself been an essential part of American cultural life for the past fifty-odd years." Indeed, as Vidal exemplifies in his diary, the company one keeps defines the man.
On my kitchen table are two books - Speeches that Changed the World (DVD included), a belated Christmas gift, ordered from Book Depository in the UK. And, Mandela's Way - Lessons on Life.
Opening your mind to Mandela's philosophy
This is one of the few books I can read to the end in a day. In 243 pages the book opens your mind to Mandela's pragmatic philosophy, practical wisdom and resilience during his incarceration.
The author, Richard Stengel, travelled with Mandela for three years - journaling the thoughts of the 'grandfather of South Africa' who spent 27 years in prison fighting for what was right.
I remember vividly Feb 11, 1990 - the day Mandela was released from the low-security Victor-Verster Prison. I stayed up until the early hours in Bathurst (country town three hours drive west of Sydney) to watch the live telecast of Mandela walking as a free man, with Winnie Mandela at his side, to a waiting car.
The biography is filled with inspiring anecdotes of Mandela's childhood, how his worldviews were shaped from an early age staying with a tribal king, how he became a freedom fighter and the turning point in his life in 1964 when he was jailed for life, his release from prison, his divorce from Winnie Mandela in 1992, and his rejuvenating marriage at the age of 80 to Graca Machel.
Mandela relates how, during his incarceration, he was tested, survived and renewed with a wisdom, which Stengel poses in the book: why we should keep our rivals close by, why courage is more than the absence of fear, and why the answer to complex questions is not always 'either-or' but often 'both'.
As we enter the New Year, I thought it'd be fitting to reflect on Mandela's philosophy, his humility and his take on leadership, which on our home front leaves much to be desired.
First lesson, lead by example. Lead from the front. Leaders must not only lead but must be seen to lead. At times it means doing things that don't necessarily attract attention. Other times, it means taking a defiant stand for the greater good - even if it means a death sentence.
The book alludes to Mandela's trial in 1963-64 when he pleaded not guilty to armed struggle and treason. In his final testimony at the trial, he said, "During my life I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination.
Prepared to die for democracy
"I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realised. But my Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
Second lesson: lead from the back. As a young boy, Mandela used to herd the village cattle with his friends in the afternoon.
He says: "You know, when you want to get the cattle to move in a certain direction, you stand at the back with a stick, and then you get a few of the cleverer cattle to go to the front and move in the direction that you want them to go.
"The rest of the cattle follow the few more energetic cattle in the front, but you are really guiding them from the back. That is how a leader should do his work."
Leadership at its most fundamental is about moving people in a certain direction - usually through changing their thinking and their actions. It's empowering the people to move forward.
In Africa, it's known as ubuntu - "the profound sense that we are human only through the humanity of others; that if we are to accomplish anything in this world, it will in equal measure be due to the work and achievements of others," says Mandela.
Which brings me to what Malaysians can accomplish with the ubuntu spirit when we work together to oil the squeaky wheels of change and keep it turning.
The Malaysians Overseas Right to Vote (MOV) campaign is such an initiative now, garnering online support from Malaysian expatriates.
Andrew Yong, a law graduate, launched the campaign in London in November to raise funds to challenge the Election Commission's discriminatory provisions in the Election Regulations.
Apparently, the regulations prohibit Malaysian students and residents overseas from registering as 'absent voters' if they are not government-sponsored or employed in the public service.
The Elections (Registration of Electors) Regulations 2002 defines an "absent voter" as "a citizen who has attained the age of 21 years on the qualifying date and is... engaged in full-time studies at any university, training college or any higher educational institution outside the boundaries of Peninsular Malaysia or Sabah or Sarawak".
The MOV site estimates there are one million eligible Malaysian voters studying, residing permanently or working in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
Supporters in Australia have set up MOV chapters - Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia Australia (SABMOZ) - in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide.
Malaysians who wanted to register as absent voters in 2008 with the embassies were apparently turned away because they were not government-sponsored students or public servants.
If MOV succeeds in its legal proceedings against the Electoral Commission, it'd be a no-brainer how the one million absent votes would affect the next election.
But, with our history of divisive communitarian politics entrenched in religious and ethnic differentiation, and the courts' inclination to favour the state, the MOV's quest needs as much support as all concerned Malaysians can give.
In Mandela's words: "... if we are to accomplish anything in this world, it will in equal measure be due to the work and achievements of others."
DR ERIC LOO left Malaysia for Australia in 1986 to work with the print media. He currently lectures at University of Wollongong, Australia, and also mentors international journalism students via UPIU, run by United Press International. He is founding editor of Asia Pacific Media Educator. His recent books are 'Best Practices of Journalism in Asia' (2009); and 'Journalism in Good Faith: Issues and Practices in Religion Reporting' (co-authored with Mustafa K Anuar, 2009). Email: eloo@uow.edu.au |
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