Is it as easy as ABC for Malaysians? Do Malaysians know their ABC for doing this? Or, is it an integral a, b, c in our culture for most Malaysians? Or, is it so embedded in our culture and system that when it was called BCA (or Bersih, Cekap, Amanah) for Malaysians, even the salesman forgot its meaning?
Recently I read a fascinating truth about Japanese people. It really made me wonder how many other countries in the world would/could have such attitudes. What am I talking about? I read that 95 percent of cash or monies found in Japan by anyone are finally returned to the owners of the monies. Yes, it is true and a fact of life in Japan.
When will that value of simple, clean, honesty reach within our Malaysian culture? We have looked east but do not seem to have learned their value of hard work and such honesty. We looked west before that and only seemed to have learned from their values of selfishness and pursuing self-interest without limits. Should we now therefore starting looking north or south, instead, or really within ourselves?
The honesty of the Japanese is a culture obviously ingrained in their values since the time of the shoguns or before. What is that equal and enduring value or cultural trait that we also value in Malaysia, and which is now carried on by our kids and our grandkids?
I pray that those can be ABC for Malaysians. What do I mean? ABC for Malaysians is an attitude we need to develop, but which is a lot harder than we realise. It is an attitude which says, as for me and my house-hold we are against bribery and corruption. Yes, that is the ABC for Malaysians agenda which I am proposing. It will take us a lifetime, but we need to start now before it is too late.
How do we make such honesty and an open transparent culture of taking and giving value in return, using any medium of exchange, an integral value of our culture of governance? Is that not the best of the East and West? Is that not also what will be the best of North and South? Is not such honesty always our true north? If the Japanese can do it, why cannot we as Malaysian people do it?
Our culture of embedded corruption
My father, who was not really a very successful businessman, always advised me to stay out of both politics and business; the two fields of his adventure! Nevertheless, he was a very faithful Christian businessman; and, he never cheated anyone, to the best of my knowledge.
Therefore also, we do not even own the only pharmacy that he started more than 50 years ago.
He sold it to another businessman and now we are left to own only the shell of the building without the business.
Even in politics he was too honest and straightforward to survive the intrigues and games people played in politics. In fact, it was then-minister Rafidah Aziz ( left ) who taught me the real meaning of “what it means to ‘main-main politik’.”
She gave clear orders to all of us public servants: please do not “merely play a role in the International Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti); instead, always assume full responsibility for your actions”. In Malay it is “jangan main-main politik; sila memikul tanggungjawab anda.”
In short, my simple translation would be: you must assume full responsibility for any functional assignment at your workplace. Please undertake the assignment diligently and honestly with as much professionalism as possible without blaming others for your bad choices and mistakes.
Nevertheless, in most organisational and cultural life in Malaysia, truth-seeking and truth-telling is not an honest value, like in Japan. For example, is it not common for the dad of any home to receive a phone call, but then he advises his son or daughter to say he is not in, simply because he is too lazy to take the call or some other lame reason. Do we not call such ‘a white lie,’ or a simple lie that is not too harmful to society? Really, is it not?
What does the son or daughter learn? Do they not learn that lying is okay, under certain circumstances? If dad can do it, so can we.
Our insurance industry
Recently, my car’s windscreen took a 20-sen sized shatter because of some broken and loose concrete of an overhead bridge which fell on the car. My only problem is that even though I had windscreen insurance, two accredited insurance agents and workshops disagreed to repair and make good the ‘full damage’.
My ‘full damage’ included two small dents on the hood or bonnet. Two of these insurance agents and authorised workshops said they could not do it even though I had a RM3,000.00 insurance value on the windscreen. I rejected their offer and sought a different solution to my problem of insurance industry and their full responsibility for ‘making good the real and full damage’.
I then chose to ‘disinter-mediate’ the embedded bribery and corruption within their industry, or lack of an open transparent honesty within our insurance industry and system. I found a separate and independent contractor who sourced an original replacement part, and then agreed to fix it for at total billing of RM1,600.00 which included a RM200.00 payment for the knocking and repainting of the two dents.
I paid for the entire repairs and then submitted a claim from the insurance company. Apparently they had no problems with my claims, but could not explain to me why their agents could not do the same for within the RM3,000.00 limit? Embedded corruption?
When afterwards I talked with my friends and relatives; everyone gave me a full and complete lecture about how ‘corrupt’ the insurance industry in Malaysia is; and they started telling me all kinds of stories to prove their point. Is it that we do not know the problem or is it our ‘close-one-eye culture?’
My question to every Malaysian therefore is – are not you and I the true and real source and cause of our problems with poor governance in Malaysia? Do we not accept all such embedded bribery and corruption and simply close one eye or ‘tolerate the matter to avoid any inconvenience on our part?’
Are we then not the true source and cause of the real problem? Why is it that the Japanese have a simple value that says, ‘I am now a steward and I need to return it to the original owner?’ Why do we not share the same value? Do we not really know that when no one else is watching, ‘our God is still watching?’ What is the real problem, Malaysia?
