Sunday, June 23, 2013

Hope or Fear


I iz back! After five days of fun (read:torture) in the middle of the jungle without internet and phone connection, I'm back into my concrete jungle with 20mbps unifi.

So, what's up? Well there is nothing much to talk about the camp....heh, I lied. Actually there is ALOT of things that can be discussed regarding the BTN camp. A LOT. But worry not my readers. I won't pull off a controversial political post with Revolusi and Bersih and PR and BN and Perkara 153 bla bla bla. I won't risk the ISA or something barging into my home and capturing me. *shivers*

Today, I will be talking about Hope and Fear. Before that, here is a disclaimer

The following post did not represent any parties, groups or factions and it is wholly based on the author's own point of view. It is just an opinion meaning it is may or may not be true. Healthy debate is encourage but baseless slight is not welcome.

What does hope and fear has to do with BTN camp? It's related to the fundamental element used by BTN to 'brainwash' and indoctrinate their participant to serve the country. In their module, they have various topics covered like Equality, Malaysia's law and the Constitution but to deliver those topics they resorted into one very fundamental element: fear

How do they instill fear? Simple. They compare with another 'worse' country like Palestine, Syria dan Turki. They elucidate very clearly the worst case scenario that could happen if you don't serve the country and be thankful to the government. The module operates from the top down, meaning they deconstruct the fall of a nation from the top.

A good example is one of the question stated in the module : Which is more important for a country? Education, Social, Politics or Economics?

Personally, I think the answer is education. Reason being is that education forms the basis of progress and it is also the glue to sustain a nation. Without a proper education, one could not change his fate. Without education, a nation would just stay stagnant and without any progress.

But what is the answer given by the module? Politics. Reason: Without politics, a nation would go into chaos. It is quiet logical for a nation to crumble when the government fails. If they is no one to control and supervise the people, people can just do anything we want...and people are not as rational as we thought. Examples given was Palestine, Syria and Egypt.

Notice the difference? With education, you are looking forward and finding a way to become better. That is hope. With politics, you are looking down and trying to find a way so you won't fall down. That is fear. As stated earlier, the BTN module operates on the basis of instilling fear into the hearts of the young. They showed the bottom of the barrel in the worst possible way and expect you to keep on climbing if you don't know to fall down.

Is it bad?

Heck no. Inspiration via fear has been done a lot of time and it is not a bad way to inspire a nation. Thinking back, we as humans progress in the name of fear during prehistoric ages. To survive, we need to keep on moving forward. Kill, eat and thrive in the wilderness. For a moment if you give up, you die. Don't want to die, keep on living. Simple.

But see, fear essentially forces us to dwell in the scars of past mistakes. As long as we didn't fall into the void, we are okay...even if we are merely inches away from falling down. Hey, that is better than falling down, right? As long as the worst case scenario doesn't happen, it is good enough. The notion of 'Kita patut bersyukur kerana ia boleh menjadi lebih teruk' is a possible notion but relying on this alone will force the whole nation to be complacent and to NEVER PROGRESS FORWARD


If we use hope as a method of inspiration, what will happen instead? We will look up and forward. We can see our end point as a nation clearly. There is a saying that if you want to inspire our workers to build a ship, show them the beautiful vastness of the ocean. When we can see our end point, we can strategised and plan our next step towards progress. Effectively when we progress forward, we escape the void of worst case scenarios.

Now isn't that a better way to inspire a group of hopeful young individuals?

0 comments:

Post a Comment