Pakatan Rakyat needs to know that we are not stupid or naïve and we know what is going on. This does not mean we will not support them and will instead support Barisan Nasional. But Pakatan Rakyat will have to earn our support and not take us for granted or assume that we are fools. This is the message we have to send to Pakatan Rakyat.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Three days ago I completed my Oxford course, Philosophy of Religion. I will know in two weeks or so whether I passed or not. On 1 February 2012, my new course, Age of Revolution, will commence. This course is about the transformation and reformation (meaning: revolutions) in Europe from the period of the French Revolution to the First World War.

I have two textbooks to read, which I am already halfway through, and even before I start the course I can already see many parallels with what happened more than 200 years ago with what is happening today.

The article below, Talk to us, not talk at us, by Thomas L Friedman, which was published in the New Straits Times, makes interesting reading. This article also summarises some of what I have read thus far.

Basically, (pre-empting what my course is going to reveal), many of these revolutions are bottom-up rather than top-down events. Another 1,000-page book I read a couple of months ago about the French and Russian Revolutions appear to reveal the same thing.

Furthermore, it revealed that revolutions are started by the masses and not by political leaders (and succeeds only when critical mass is reached) but are eventually hijacked by politicians. For example, Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, etc., did not mastermind the revolution. They grabbed power once the revolution started. In fact, some of the so-called leaders were actually in exile outside Russia and came home to take over once the revolution succeeded in ousting the government (remember Khomeini as well?).

Another point would be about the transformation or reformation itself. What the people seek is change. And the route they chose is to change the government. But in the end they did not actually see change. Hence the title of my article today: Change in government, not change of government.

And that is what we should seek. We should learn from more than 200 years of history. And the lesson is: we may see a change of government but that does not mean we are going to see a change in government. This is what I normally call old wine in a new bottle.

Can we be assured that by changing the government we will see change? Can a change of government guarantee us a change in government? Can more than 200 years of history be wrong?

Well, just look at the so-called changes of recent times such as in Iran in 1979. Did the US see change with Obama at the helm? Did Britain see a change when they kicked out Labour last year?

Look at Egypt. The people took to the Tahrir Square to force a change of government. But they did not see a change in government. So now they are taking to the Tahrir Square again and the killings are continuing, barely a few months since the last revolution.

And this is the history of the French Revolution as well. We always talk about the French Revolution of 1789. But how many of you know that that is actually the First French Revolution. And that revolution was a disaster. There was more anarchy and chaos after the revolution. They needed a second revolution to address the errors that the first revolution brought. But no one talks about the Second French Revolution of 60 years later (in fact, many are not even aware of this second revolution).

I am not gungho about Pakatan Rakyat. That does not mean I am gungho about Barisan Nasional either. It is just that I am not gungho about all politicians who use the people to change governments and then grab power and perpetuate what the old government did.

Over the next few months I am going to demonstrate why we need to focus on a change in government and not a change of government. I am going to reveal the excesses and transgressions of those who are offering themselves as the saviour of the nation.

My purpose in doing this is not to frustrate a change of government. Certainly, ABU must happen. So we need a change of government for that to happen. But we must not only remove Umno (and its cohorts in Barisan Nasional). We must also ensure that the spirit of Umno is removed as well.

Why would we want a new government that perpetuates the spirit of Umno? Is this not what Britain is currently facing? And why do you think the British voters are going back to voting for Labour in the by-elections barely a year into a new government? My own area in Manchester fell back to Labour in the recent by-election.

I have evidence of some very troubling shenanigans in the states currently under Pakatan Rakyat control. And what I see is basically a continuation of the spirit of Umno. But are you, like me, also concerned about this? Or would you rather we close our eyes (and our minds) to all this and pretend that nothing is wrong?

As I said, more than 200 years of history has taught us how changing the government without focusing on a change in government can bring about disastrous results. We have more than 200 years of history (plus what is currently going on in Egypt) to learn from.

Pakatan Rakyat needs to know that we are not stupid or naïve and we know what is going on. This does not mean we will not support them and will instead support Barisan Nasional. But Pakatan Rakyat will have to earn our support and not take us for granted or assume that we are fools. This is the message we have to send to Pakatan Rakyat.

And if Pakatan Rakyat continues to be just like Barisan Nasional in the states they are running, how can we trust them as the new federal government? Will we need to do a Tahrir Square Version 2.0 later after voting them into Putrajaya?

That is what we wish to avoid. So Pakatan Rakyat has to accept the whacking. It is better we whack them now than the voters whack them at the ballot box.

I know there will be allegations of selling out, turncoat, Trojan horse and whatnot. But that is how they normally respond when we whack the opposition leaders. They regard criticising the opposition leaders as if we are insulting Prophet Muhammad. But then the opposition leaders are not Prophet Muhammad and above criticism. This, they need to learn and we shall teach them this lesson how much it may hurt.

Talk to us, not talk at us
By Thomas L Friedman, New Straits Times

THE historian Walter Russell Mead recently noted that after the 1990s revolution that collapsed the Soviet Union, Russians had a saying that seems particularly apt today: “It’s easier to turn an aquarium into fish soup than to turn fish soup into an aquarium”.

Indeed, from Europe to the Middle East, and maybe soon even to Russia and Asia, a lot of aquariums are being turned into fish soup all at once. But turning them back into stable societies and communities will be one of the great challenges of our time.

We are present again at one of those great unravellings — just like after World War 1, World War 2 and the Cold War. But this time, there was no war. All of these states have been pulled down from within — without warning. Why?

The main driver, I believe, is the merger of globalisation and the information technology revolution. Both achieved a critical mass in the first decade of the 21st century that has resulted in the democratisation — all at once — of so many things that neither weak states nor weak companies can stand up against.

We’ve seen the democratisation of information, where everyone is now a publisher; the democratisation of war-fighting, where individuals became super-empowered (enough so, in the case of al-Qaeda, to take on a superpower); the democratisation of innovation, wherein start-ups using free open-source software and “the cloud” can challenge global companies.

And, finally, we’ve seen what Mark Mykleby, a retired Marine colonel and former adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, calls “the democratisation of expectations” — the expectation that all individuals should be able to participate in shaping their own career, citizenship and future, and not be constricted.

I’ve been struck by how similar the remarks by Russians about Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who just basically reappointed himself president, are to those I heard from Egyptians about Hosni Mubarak, who kept reappointing himself president.

The Egyptian writer Alaa al-Aswany said to me that Egyptians resented the idea that Mubarak would just hand power to his son Gamal as if the Egyptian people “were chickens”, who could be passed by a leader to his son.

Last Sunday, a New York Times article from Moscow quoted the popular, imprisoned Russian blogger Aleksei Navalny as saying: “We are not cattle or slaves. We have voices and votes and the power to uphold them.”

“The days of leading countries or companies via a one-way conversation are over,” says Dov Seidman, the chief executive officer of LRN and the author of the book How.

“The old system of ‘command and control’ — using carrots and sticks — to exert power over people is fast being replaced by ‘connect and collaborate’ — to generate power through people.”

Leaders and managers cannot just impose their will, adds Seidman. “Now you have to have a two-way conversation that connects deeply with your citizens or customers or employees.”

Netflix had a one-way conversation about raising prices with its customers, who instantly self-organised; some 800,000 bolted, and the stock plunged.

Bank of America had a one-way conversation about charging a US$5 (RM16) fee on debit cards, and its customers forced the  bank to reverse itself and apologise.

Putin thought he had power over his people and could impose whatever he wanted and is now being forced into a conversation to justify staying in power. Coca-Cola repackaged its flagship soft drink in white cans for the holidays. But an outcry of “blasphemy” from consumers forced Coke to switch back from white cans to red cans in a week. Last year, Gap ditched its new logo after a week of online backlash by customers.

A lot of CEOs will tell you that this shift has taken them by surprise, and they are finding it hard to adjust to the new power relationships with customers and employees.

“As power shifts to individuals,” argues Seidman, “leadership itself must shift with it — from coercive or motivational leadership that uses sticks or carrots to extract performance and allegiance out of people to inspirational leadership that inspires commitment and innovation and hope in people”.

The role of the leader now is to get the best of what is coming up from below and then meld it with a vision from above. Are you listening, Mr Putin?

This kind of leadership is especially critical today, adds Seidman, “when people are creating a lot of ‘freedom from’ things — freedom from oppression or whatever system is in their way — but have not yet scaled the values and built the institutional frameworks that enable ‘freedom to’ — freedom to build a career, a business or a meaningful life.”

One can see this vividly in Egypt, where the bottom-up democracy movement was strong enough to oust Mubarak but now faces the long, arduous process of building new institutions and writing a new social contract from a democracy coalition that encompass Muslim Brothers, Christian liberals, Muslim liberals, the army and ultraconservative Muslim Salafis.

Getting all those fish back and swimming together in one aquarium will be no small task — one that will take a courageous and special leader. Help wanted.
 

Updated with Chinese Translation at: http://ccliew.blogspot.com/2011/12/blog-post_21.html