The Lack of Dignity and Honor Among Present Leaders

Great leaders are important to the development of nations and its people. Therefore it is essential that Malaysians are wary of the lack of quality leadership here in this country especially among the Malays.

One can wonder what happened to the golden age of Malaysia where Malaysia is filled with great leaders like Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Tan Cheng lock, Tun V. Sambathan and other giant personalities of Malaysian where their places are waiting to be filed be other capable leaders. Unfortunately, presently, the same can’t be said.

One possible reason for the lack of good leaders presently is the lack of good virtues among the present leaders that used to be the hallmark of leaders in Pre-Independent leaders. One of the virtues that I would like to touch is showing dignity and honor in ones conduct. Present leaders trade dignity for power and positions where as the older generation leaders tend to be more mindful of dignity and honor as it reflect their self-worth.

One example would be the corruption case of former Selangor Menteri Besar Dato Harun Idris corruption case where despite being offered to be sent to UN to escape from the charge, Dato Harun insisted on facing the trial as it is the honorable thing to do that resulted him being jailed. He made a mistake and accepted responsibility for it as that what leaders with dignity and honor will do.

Presently however, despite some leaders being caught for corruption red handed, they refused to take responsibility for it and serve the punishment. Just look at the corruption cases involving the last UMNO elections where certain personalities caught for money politics remained in their positions without doing the right thing like what Dato Harun did. They are more concerned about power and positions instead of honor and dignity.

Another example is the unfair sacking of Tun Salleh Abbas, where some of his colleagues like Supreme Court judge, the late Tan Sri Azmi Kamaruddin, show great honor and dignity and defended their boss despite the circumstances they face as they where later suspended. They are willing to risk their positions for the sake of upholding justice in which they are entrusted to do as judges. Upholding their oath and duty as judges are more important than their positions.

The same can’t be said with the current judiciary with the Linggam Tape scandal, not to mention the public perception of the judiciary being corrupt. Some of the personalities involved in the Linggam Tape scandal including judges that even serve as Chief Justice didn’t even apologize or show remorse publicly for their actions. They should at least preserve whatever dignity and honor they have left and apologize for the injustice that occurred due to their action.

In developed countries like US and Japan, public official who don’t perform or they were involved in an unethical act will step down for the sake of preserving their honor and dignity. For example, even the President of USA, Richard Nixon step down as President after the Watergate scandal involving a break in of his political party rival office by Republicans.

In Japan, a lot of ministers even Prime Ministers have step down to preserve their honor and dignity. Japan former finance minister even step down just because he appeared drunk in one press conference eventhough he actually was affected by medicine he took.

Here in Malaysia however, many underperforming ministers are still unashamed with their incompetence and unethical act, even worst, they will get upset if they are dropped from the cabinet. They don’t care about other things except their power and positions despite them being there are detrimental to the people well being.

Finally, the current leaders want positions but not the responsibility that comes with it. Older generation leaders are the ones who what we call ‘’Leaders Without Title” as they don’t care about position but instead focus on enhancing the well-being of the people by serving them.

Ghaffar Baba, the former Deputy Prime Minister is great example where he served the people despite not been given an important ministerial position before becoming Deputy Prime Minister( even then his portfolio is still not that important compared to other Deputy Prime Miniters) despite being elected as Vice-President of UMNO with the highest votes at one time.

That never deterred him from serving the people as his duty id to serve other not his self-interests as it an honor to serve the ‘’rakyat” compared to serving one-self. This important leadership trait is absent in the current leadership and most probably future leadership if nothing is done to instill in them such a trait.

In conclusion, we as Malaysian must instill in others and ourselves especially our leaders to take care of our dignity and honor above anything else. We must make it part of Malaysian culture just like the Japanese where the person dignity and honor is worth that person life, not power of positions.

The Malaysian public must be willing to think and act likewise in their everyday dealings especially in their voting exercise as by doing so can Malaysia be clean of politicians who are unhonorable that have no dignity despite their race, political affiliation and others. When we can carry that out only we will good leaders that we deserve. Remember, ‘’People Get The Leaders They Deserve”.