entry kali ni about she, whom i have given my promise and i am trying to fulfill it...
doakan saya ek..
Dia cakap/update: "setiap pertemuan pasti ada perpisahan."
Saya baca.... Saya tak suka ayat tu...(ikut suka saya ja x suka ngan ayat tu, nasib dia tak tau yang saya tak suka)
Saya message dia, setiap perpisahan pasti diiringi dengan doa dan ingatan.
dan dia update status dia "-salam perpisahan- Diiringi doa & ingatan.."
She will be leaving soon... Going back home.. Tertanya-tanya bila saya akan berjumpa dengan dia lagi...
Dia mungkin takut untuk respon since janji saya tu penuh dengan uncertainty... Tak include family punya factor lagi...
Yup... She has finished dengan pelajaran dia... Dia seorang bakal pendidik... Jujurnya, saya memang sukakan dia...
Sama ada dia suka saya atau tak, belakang kira... But, i wont tell her since love does not promise eternal happiness... Biarlah cinta itu disulam dalam keadaan halal...Moga penuh berkat... Lets the love remain one sided dulu sekarang...:-)
If direstui Allah, dia tak akan ke mana... Kalau jodoh, InsyaAllah akan bersama....
Saya doakan kamu sentiasa dalam lindungan Yang Maha Esa..
Walaupun kamu jauh di mata, tetapi, saya sudah sediakan tempat untuk kamu di hati saya..
i did write something just untuk dia.. The Pain ....
*prepare a cup of coffee if you want to read...hehehe...though, i forgot to discuss bout the choices..huhuhu
Policy Approaches and Choices in
Alleviating Poverty.
INTRODUCTION
It
is difficult to define what it is policy since it seems to be view as the set
of principles, ideologies, values, philosophies and solutions. Occasionally,
policy has been viewed differently by different people based on their level of
knowledge and exposure of the situation occurred around the globe. Now and
then, people still confused with what constitutes a policy. Some people
confused in differentiating between policy and code of conduct. These two terms
in some extent resemble a similar understanding, yet differ in its usage and
implementation. Code of conduct is a set of ruling that governing or promoting
a proper practices of a person in an organization, whereas, policy carries a
broaden meaning where it is incorporates the set of principles, values,
solutions, ethics, morals, and so on. Still, those two set of guidelines share
something in common, that is, for a long term benefit and a good environment of
living.
Policy
is a set of general guidelines outlined in order to use as the basis in
decision making processes. It also can be understood as a standard guidelines
that being created to govern or a system that used to manage or to shape the
stakeholder involved within the system. Basically, policy is a precautionary
action or future planning in order to minimize the risk and for long term
benefits. However, being differ in understanding the fundamental value of what
constitute a policy and its approaches lead policymakers to fall into the grey
area. Having a good policy can help a country to achieve stable economic growth
and national stability. Despites of the presence of a good policy but the
policy enforcement actions is absent resulted the policy becomes meaningless.
Nowadays,
most of policies outlined by the authorities are concerned mostly with the
issue of poverty, development, environment, and human right. These issues has
been considered as a debatable issues where in the certain region, there still
exist people who are living with hunger and lack of basic needs while in the
other part of the globe, people are living with expensive foods, and full of
luxurious items. Thus, in this paper, the focused will be the discussion on
poverty alleviation through the dimension of policy approaches and choices by
comparing two countries that is, China and Somalia. In order to have an
understanding that can be useful in discussing the policy between these
countries, the country profile and understanding on poverty will be presented before
comparing the policy dimension.
POVERTY
Poverty is one of the
main focuses of a country in order to achieve high development in economy and
human capital. Every country in the world is aiming on eradicating poverty
through various plans, strategies and initiatives. As quoted by George Bernard
Shaw, “Lack of money is the root of all
evil”, this is one of many ways showing that poverty should be fought by
any means. Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon and makes it difficult to
have an exact definition. However, a generally acceptable definition for
poverty is a state where a person cannot fulfill his minimum requirements of
living either materially or spiritually. Thus, poverty has been divided into
two areas of observation that is absolute and relative poverty. The absolute
poverty is more focused on the tangible state or material well being, whilst
relative poverty concentrated on spiritual and moral aspects of a person.
Poverty is a multidimensional human problem with many causes and contributing factors
(World Poverty, 2009, pp 13), which is make it is a complex problem in
accordance the complexity human behavior. However, there are some causes that
have been believed to be the main determinant in contributing poverty such as,
unemployment, malnutrition, education and unhealthy environment (which assumes
that everyone is exposed to the equal treating, and so on.).
Unemployment is one of
the twin problems that occurred as the result of the business cycle which has
three types that is frictional, structural and cyclical unemployment
(Economics: Principles, Problems, and Policies, 2009, pp 129- 130).
Understanding unemployment in the layman term is much easier and practical
where most of the people believe that unemployment is the situation where they unable
to get a job or get hired by other person or companies or economically, supply
of labour is more than demand of labour in the market. There are many reasons
why a person is unemployed such as, does not possesses technological skills,
not competitive, illiterate, low level of education, and so forth. This
unemployed people will be facing a problem of not able to meet basic
necessities as a result of less possession on the medium of exchange that is
money. As a medium of exchange, money plays a vital role in one’s life as a
medium where the human abilities (physically and intellectually) is being
compensated and with the compensation (money), a person will able to get his
basic necessities or fulfilled his wants. Therefore, unemployment does
contribute to the poverty incidence as mentioned in (World Poverty, 2009, pp
13) many people throughout the world are in poverty because they are unemployed
or underemployed and lives in the areas where economic opportunities are
severely limited.
Encountering the difficulties
in possessing the medium of exchange will deprive them from accessing the next
factors that can reduce the incidence of poverty such as, access to healthy
food. According to (World Poverty, 2009, pp 18), hunger’s relation to poverty
is reciprocal: poverty usually results in hunger, but hunger is a factor that
keeps people in poverty. Deficiencies in nutrients such as iodine, vitamin A,
iron, and zinc contribute to weakened immune systems, anemia, learning
disabilities, complication in pregnancy and childbirth, and many childhood
diseases. These conditions result in poverty-causing problems such as
absenteeism and poor performance at school and work, unemployment, illiteracy,
and the continuing cycle of poverty.
Hence, there is a
correlation between unemployment and the malnutrition or hunger. This is due to
the common understanding that in order to have the medium of exchange (money),
man has to trade his abilities (physically and intellectually) which will
deteriorate his energy level and the energy only can be obtained through the
proper dietary or nutritional eating practices.
Furthermore, it is
believed that to eliminate poverty is through the well sound education system,
yet, the solution is also the factor that creating the poverty. In this globalized
era, knowledge is one of the important drivers that will able to make a nation
becomes more competitive and the gap between high income nation and other
nation narrowed. Illiteracy and low level education are among the causes that
preventing a person to be employed. Aforementioned that we are in the
globalized world and most of nations are liberalizing their economy and if the
society in a countries still have difficulties in accessing the education, they
will be at disadvantage. Illiterate and low level education created a society
that is not skillful, not knowledgeable, and unproductive. These perception
from the employers making poor people still trapped in the poverty situation
because employers have the choices of employed them and trained them to be a
better person.
Summing up all those
aforesaid factors, poverty also happens due to inaccessible into the healthy
environment. Embedded in this healthy environment is the transparency of an
organization or authority, equal treatment in many aspects such as the
opportunities disclosure, legal system and so on. However, this healthy
environment is still far away from the reality, and the underlines obstacle is
the corruption, lack of sense of accountability and mismanagement of
authorities, organization, and individuals. Therefore, as discussed above, the
poverty incidence is caused by many factors but most prominent aspects are
unemployment, malnutrition, education and unhealthy environment. In order to
design a policy that able to combat poverty, a policymaker shall take into
consideration these fundamental factors.
COUNTRY
PROFILE
CHINA
China is one of the 24
countries in the East Asia and Pacific regions located at Eastern Asia,
bordering the East China Sea, Korea Bay, Yellow Sea, and South China Sea,
between North Korea and Vietnam. The total area of China is 9, 596, 961 sq km
with 9,569,901 sq km resembles the land and 27,060 sq km of water. The
estimated population is 1,343,239,923 people with the estimation that 17.6% of
total populations are aged between 0- 14 years, 73.6% of total populations are
aged between 15- 64 years and 8.9% of total populations are between 65 years
and above.Based on the data on 2009, the
population by the major cities is Shanghai 16.575 million; BEIJING (capital)
12.214 million; Chongqing 9.401 million; Shenzhen 9.005 million; Guangzhou
8.884 million.
China consists of
multiethnic group such as Han Chinese 91.5%, Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, Miao, Uighur,
Tujia, Yi, Mongol, Tibetan, Buyi, Dong, Yao, Korean, and other nationalities
8.5% based on 2000 census. People in China communicate with each other in the
different languages such as Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua, based on
the Beijing dialect), Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghainese), Minbei (Fuzhou),
Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects. Most of its people are
Budhist, some of it is Christian and about 1-2% is Muslims.
Among the natural
resources that can be found in China are, coal, iron ore, petroleum, natural
gas, mercury, tin, tungsten, antimony, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium,
magnetite, aluminum, lead, zinc, rare earth elements, uranium, and hydropower
potential (world's largest). However, the country also affected by natural
hazards such as frequent typhoons (about five per year along southern and
eastern coasts); damaging floods; tsunamis; earthquakes; droughts; and land subsidence. Apart from that, China
contains some historically active volcanoes including Changbaishan (also known
as Baitoushan, Baegdu, or P'aektu-san), Hainan Dao, and Kunlun although most
have been relatively inactive in recent centuries.
Since the late 1970s
China has moved from a closed, centrally planned system to a more
market-oriented one that plays a major global role - in 2010 China became the
world's largest exporter. Reforms began with the phasing out of collectivized
agriculture, and expanded to include the gradual liberalization of prices,
fiscal decentralization, increased autonomy for state enterprises, creation of
a diversified banking system, development of stock markets, rapid growth of the
private sector, and opening to foreign trade and investment. China has
implemented reforms in a gradualist fashion. In recent years, China has renewed
its support for state-owned enterprises in sectors it considers important to
"economic security," explicitly looking to foster globally
competitive national champions.
After keeping its
currency tightly linked to the US dollar for years, in July 2005 China revalued
its currency by 2.1% against the US dollar and moved to an exchange rate system
that references a basket of currencies. From mid 2005 to late 2008 cumulative
appreciation of the renminbi against the US dollar was more than 20%, but the
exchange rate remained virtually pegged to the dollar from the onset of the
global financial crisis until June 2010, when Beijing allowed resumption of a
gradual appreciation. The restructuring of the economy and resulting efficiency
gains have contributed to a more than tenfold increase in GDP since 1978.
Measured on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis that adjusts for price
differences, China in 2010 stood as the second-largest economy in the world
after the US, having surpassed Japan in 2001.
The dollar values of
China's agricultural and industrial output each exceed those of the US; China
is second to the US in the value of services it produces. Still, per capita
income is below the world average. The Chinese government faces numerous
economic challenges, including: (a) reducing its high domestic savings rate and
correspondingly low domestic demand; (b) sustaining adequate job growth for
tens of millions of migrants and new entrants to the work force; (c) reducing
corruption and other economic crimes; and (d) containing environmental damage
and social strife related to the economy's rapid transformation. Economic
development has progressed further in coastal provinces than in the interior,
and by 2011 more than 250 million migrant workers and their dependents had
relocated to urban areas to find work.
One consequence of
population control policy is that China is now one of the most rapidly aging
countries in the world. Deterioration in the environment - notably air
pollution, soil erosion, and the steady fall of the water table, especially in
the North - is another long-term problem. China continues to lose arable land
because of erosion and economic development. The Chinese government is seeking
to add energy production capacity from sources other than coal and oil,
focusing on nuclear and alternative energy development. In 2010-11, China faced
high inflation resulting largely from its credit-fueled stimulus program. Some
tightening measures appear to have controlled inflation, but GDP growth
consequently slowed to near 9% for 2011. An economic slowdown in Europe is
expected to further drag Chinese growth in 2012. Debt overhang from the
stimulus program, particularly among local governments, and a property price
bubble challenge policy makers currently. The government's 12th Five-Year Plan,
adopted in March 2011, emphasizes continued economic reforms and the need to
increase domestic consumption in order to make the economy less dependent on
exports in the future. However, China has made only marginal progress toward
these rebalancing goals.
China’s growth domestic
product are driven by the industry sector and services sector which constitute 46.8%
and 43.1% respectively, while agricultural contributed around 10.1% based on
2011 estimation. The percentage of labour force of 1.0024 billion (2011 est)
where 36.7% are occupied in agricultural sectors, 34.6% in services and 28.7%
in industry sector. In 2011, 128 million Chinese are considered as living below
the poverty line compared in 2009 when China authority set a new poverty line
at RMB 2300(approx. US $363).[1]
SOMALIA
Located among the Arab
states, Somalia with the total area of 637,657 sq km which 627,337 sq km is
covered by land and 10,320 sq km are the area with water. The total population
estimation is around 10,085,638 people due to some difficulties where most of the
Somalian still living in nomadic ways and some of them are refuges. The
estimation on the distribution of people in the age brackets are as follow,
where in bracket 0- 14 years constitutes 44.7% of total population, in the
bracket 25-64 years comprise of 52.9% of total population and 2.4% of total
population age from 64 years and above. People in Somalia mostly are Somali by 85%,
Bantu and other non-Somali 15% (including 30,000 Arabs) and they are Sunni
Muslims.
Somalia is filled with
unexploited natural resources such as uranium and largely unexploited reserves
of iron ore, tin, gypsum, bauxite, copper, salt, natural gas, and likely oil
reserves. Despites of that, Somalia also encountered natural hazards for
example, recurring droughts; frequent dust storms over eastern plains in
summer; and floods during rainy season.
Despite the lack of
effective national governance, Somalia has maintained a healthy informal
economy, largely based on livestock, remittance/money transfer companies, and
telecommunications. Agriculture is the most important sector with livestock
normally accounting for about 40% of GDP and more than 50% of export earnings.
Nomads and semi-pastoralists, who are dependent upon livestock for their
livelihood, make up a large portion of the population. Livestock, hides, fish,
charcoal, and bananas are Somalia's principal exports, while sugar, sorghum,
corn, qat, and machined goods are the principal imports. Somalia's small
industrial sector, based on the processing of agricultural products, has
largely been looted and the machinery sold as scrap metal. Somalia's service
sector has grown. Telecommunication firms provide wireless services in most
major cities and offer the lowest international call rates on the continent. In
the absence of a formal banking sector, money transfer/remittance services have
sprouted throughout the country, handling up to $1.6 billion in remittances
annually. Mogadishu's main market offers a variety of goods from food to the
newest electronic gadgets. Hotels continue to operate and are supported with
private-security militias. Somalia's arrears to the IMF have continued to grow.[2]
DISCUSSION
ON POLICY
Ravallion (2008) stated
that China’s policy mostly designed to promote economic advancement and
indirectly affected the trend rate of poverty reduction about 1.9% per year
over 1981- 2004. Furthermore by relaxing previous policy that was known as hukou systems which make an urbanization
process become costly proven that it was a wise decision in reducing poverty.
Furthermore, realizing trade is one of the vehicles that can be used in
alleviating poverty, trade was liberalized by introducing “Open Door Policy” in
the early 1980s, yet it is believed that trade expansion per se does not reduce
poverty incidence. The strategy of labor-absorbing manufacturing sector proven
to be successful given that during the trade reform, the literacy rate of
Chinese is high and has provided a labour at the cheaper cost. Moreover, China
has change the approach of their policy from ideology-based approach to policy
making into evidence-based policy making can be seen as a sign of authority’s
commitment in combating poverty. Additionally, inflation will make the poverty
incidence become worsen, thus, by managing the shock of inflation through its
macroeconomic stabilization policy. Another notable decision by China is, when
other developing countries are aiming in becoming industrialized nation, China
divert its policy by reforming the agriculture sector.
The officials and the
public in poor regions, with the support of the Government, are encouraged to
alleviate poverty through self-reliance, hard work, scientific and
technological progress, market-oriented production, developing and utilising
local resources, increasing commodity production, and solving the supply
problems of food and clothing is among the approaches taken by China (Country
Profile, 2002, pp 3). Fundamentally, the value of helping one another can be an
excellent way in reducing poverty as done by China, In 1996, the State Council
drew up a poverty-alleviation programme which required that six provinces and
three municipalities directly under central administration, and four cities of
independent economic planning along the coast help ten provinces and autonomous
regions in the west. This programme has proceeded smoothly (Country Profile,
2002, pp 3).
Besides of the
transformation in trade, policymakers in China also have devised the pension
scheme through the introduction of a national rural pension pilot in the second
half of 2009 that covered 23 percent of counties by the end of 2010 and is
expected to achieve full geographic coverage by the end of 2012. A scheme for
urban residents with a similar design became national policy in June 2011,
adding to the significance of considering the rural pension scheme design (Cai,
Giles, O’Keefe and Wang, pp 86).
Compared to Somalia,
since the Diaspora issue has become a debatable issue, some of the approaches
taken by the authority is to expanding the education at all level with
participation of the combined efforts of existing private sector providers plus
public initiatives to address everything from training of teachers, provision of
materials, rebuilding education infrastructure, reviewing curricula and finding
ways to ensure much greater gender balance by increasing the number of girls
attending school and reaching the children of nomads. Another action is through
improving health indicators such as infant and maternal mortality and fighting
common diseases (Somalia Reconstruction and Development Programme, pp xiii).
In addition, Somalia
seems to be focusing in responsiveness
to existing realities while maintaining equity, transparency and accountability, keep the public sector small and
focused, decentralization, build on successes, and recognize specific challenges in the transition period (Somalia
Reconstruction and Development Programme, pp 30).
In making a policy, there
are several steps that might be considered in having a clear view on the policy
itself. The steps are as follow (Torjman, 2005, pp 7):
·selecting the
desired objective
·identifying the
target of the objective
·determining the
pathway to reach that objective
·designing the
specific program or measure in respect of that goal
·Implementing the
measure and assessing its impact.
Policy is about the
guidelines that will be affected public, thus, in analyze a policy certain
criteria should be considered such as who benefits (the more the better), who
might be negatively affected (the fewer the better), time required to implement the solution, associated
cost and financing, lastly political complexities of a federated government
structure (Torjman, 2005, pp 18).
SUGGESTION
There are several
suggestions that can be recommended for the betterment of policy making. It is
preferable for the policy makers to involving themselves with the real
situation of poverty. Briefly, policy makers should embedded themselves with
poor people in order to understand what are among the problems encountered by
them and come up with possible solutions that can be used in eradicating
poverty.
Furthermore,
understanding the competitive advantages of a country will helps policy makers
in making a good policy that will benefit the public. By understanding
country’s competitive advantage, in the event of external shock happens, policy
maker will be able to adapt and revise some modification of existing policy.
Moreover, there is a
need for the transforming the policies as time move forward because the old
policy might not be compatible with the current situations. Apart from that,
cooperation between policy makers with non-governmental organizations, public
institutions and academic bodies should be strengthen since the access to
information is vital for policy makers. By having interaction with aforesaid
bodies, there will be a market of exchanging information.
Importantly, in
designing a policy, the objective of the policy is to promote justice and
equity where corruption shall be ceased to exist. Learning from the Somalia
case, where Somalia scored the last position in Corruption Perception Index
2011, we can deduce that corruption and mismanagement are the major obstacles
of eradicating poverty. Furthermore, policy makers should not compromise with
certain individuals that searching for their personal interest because it is
harming the society. The good policy is the policy that created based on public
interest and with enforcement in order to avoid the corruption.
CONCLUSION
Policy making is a
difficult field where it needs an analytical mind, a knowledgeable people, and
people with principles that will not trade their principle in pursuance of
personal interest of others. Additionally, this field requires a lot of
commitment and discussion in building a good policy for the betterment of the
future generation.
In the case of China,
its policy makers seem to be following their own principle and take less travel
path compared what the other nation did, that is, they reform the agricultural
rather than industrialized.
Whereas in Somalia, the
Diaspora issue needs an immediate action since it will put the country at
disadvantage. Thus, in the case of Somalia, the enforcement of policy is absent
compared to China.
Thus, it is vital for
policy and enforcement to move in the same direction in order to achieve the
objectives that have been set.
REFERENCES
Torjman, S.(2005). What is Policy.Ontario, Canada: The
Caledon Institute of Social Policy
Cai, F., Giles, J., O’Keefe,
P., Wang, W.(2012). The Elderly and Old
Age Support in Rural China: Challenges
and Prospects.
Somali Reconstruction and Development Programme: Deepening Peace and
Reducing Poverty, Volume I (2008)
Johannesburg Summit 2002: China Country Profile
GALE, CENGAGE Learning. (2009). World
Poverty (The Information Series on Current Topic)
DEMORALIZATION
AND ITS IMPLICATION ON PROFESSIONALISM OF A POLITICIAN: A PERCEPTION STUDY OF
IIUM COMMUNITY
MohdHafizullah Bin Abu Bakar
1-INTRODUCTION
Politician can be
understood as a leader whom leads others and being motivated of changing
something that may benefit public. Every politician has something to achieve,
however, there are a lot of alternatives available to choose and due to that,
some of politicians have fallen into the trap of dilemma. The state of not able
to make a decision as too much confusion has surrounded the environment might
cause a person unable to use the reason faculty properly in making decision.
Furthermore, this situation has force rationality of a person being puzzled and
unstable between emotions and reasoning, which could lead a person to make the
right decision in the wrong situation, morally right but rationally wrong.
Thus, the person may encounter the problems of demoralization where eventually
will have impacts on his daily life.
In this challenging era
of advancement of technology where information is easily accessed by the people
of a particular society, the news is widely disseminating and might cause harm
to other people. Due to that, the person affected might be demoralized; his
mental faculty might not sound well accordingly affected his decision making
processes. Furthermore, demoralization has been viewed differently by different
people; some may say it is the decreasing of spirit, being discouraged,
corruption, fallen into the state of confusion and waning value of morality.
Moreover, demoralization and professionalism in some extent related to each
other, where professionalism is the high standard that expected from a person
who is well trained, in this case, the politician while demoralization is a
force that will able to reshape the standard into the higher state or lower
state. Therefore, this research is carried out to reveal the demoralization on
the politician perspective and how it affects professionalism of a politician.
In order to analyze the impact of demoralization on professionalism of a
politician, the research questions that guiding this study are as follows:
-What are the factors that contributed to demoralization?
-Can demoralization affect the professionalism?
-What are the possible solutions?
The purpose of this study is to closely understand the relationship
between demoralization and individual’s behavior. Specifically, this study is
carried out to achieve the specific research objectives as outlined below:
To analyze whether demoralization affects the
politician’s professionalism.
To analytically examines the causes of
demoralization.
To find possible solutions to overcome the
problem of demoralization
2-LITERATURE
REVIEWS
Although there are many
studies conducted regarding the demoralization, yet, there are few studies that
focused on the field of politics. The literature on the demoralization has been
discussed actively in the field of psychiatric. The term demoralization was
first used by Jerome Frank (1970), which he believed demoralization left one
feeling impotent, isolated and in despair. However, Lynch, Gordon (2007) argue
that demoralization can occur when people lack an adequate moral framework for
living their lives and the causes of demoralization are vary, namely by liberalism,
secularization, ideologies and lifestyles of contemporary capitalism and the
growing influence of rationality in modern societies.
Besides, a politician
is a public figure and his life is much covered by media and always vulnerable
for the speculation from media. Politicians also widely engaged with the
public, where their conducts and speeches are being monitored by society and
exposed to criticism and defamation. Apart
from that, the distress source will be varying and increasing once the information
leaked to the people and the opposition parties which can be used as a tool to
demoralize the affected person.
According to, Ritsner, Rabinowitz and Slyuzberg. (1995), they claimed
that the greatest risk factors of demoralization are a greater number of
distress sources, difficulty in dealing with conflict, greater discrepancy
between actual and those expected. In addition, Berkvens (2009) said that
political leaders are constantly under immense pressure, maintaining a good
relationship with society, leaving a good impression in the media and watching
over the oppositions’ strategies. It is clearly shown that politician always
encounter with the sources of demoralization from various dimensions.
A person who was demoralized is unable to access true information. The
fact tells nothing to him and exposure to true information does not matter
anymore as pointed out by a trained subversive KGB agent, Yuri
AlexandrovichBezmenoy during the interview conducted back in 1985. The above
opinion somehow might affect the professionalism of a politician when the voter
simply lost confidence in his leadership.
3-METHODOLOGY
The targeted sample for
this study consisted of International Islamic University Malaysia community
regardless of their gender, position and age. As mentioned before, there are
little studies that looking demoralization into the field of politics as a
result making the quantitative approach is not appropriate. Thus, the approach
that was chosen was a qualitative approach where the data collected is more
reliable and meets the purpose of understanding the behavior of a subjective
being that is human.
Qualitative approaches
is easy to conduct and serve the purpose of capturing people perception
compared to quantitative approach which in some degree limit the perception of
the respondent due to restricted answer given in the survey. A lecturer from
Department of General Studies has been selected as the respondent for the
interview. Apart from that, some informal discussion with the students also
becomes one way of data collection. Basically, the respondent was being
introduced about the background of the study and what are the questions that
will be asked which able to make the respondent grab the idea of the study.
The research questions
have been paraphrase in order to make it more specific and make it easy to
analyze the answer given by the respondent. This approach is time consuming and
need good communication skills between both parties. Among the questions that
have been asked were:
·How it is like
to be a politician?
·Does a
politician understand the job scope when involving in political arena?
·What are the
influences that contributed to demoralization of a politician?
·Does demoralization
affects the behavior of a person? In this discussion, simply put that can we
detect whether the politician demoralized or not? And what are the signs shown
by demoralized politician in term of their appearance and conducts?
·How can we curb
this problem?
4-Findings
The respondent has
given his opinion on what it is like to be a politician, and his opinion is
particularly on the Malaysian politician.
Politician in Malaysia has been
given with much immunity and sometimes if they are making any mistake like in
case of traffic offences, they easily get it discharged.
If you want to get easy money, get
yourself involved in political arena and it is not you searching for the money,
but money will come and search you.
There are no permanent friends and
enemy when you involved in politics. Someday, your enemy might be your friend
and your friend might be your enemy.
It is not easy to be a politician
because when you have held the power, you can do anything and if you cannot
control the temptation of politic you can be corrupted.
If we want to see a good
politician, we should know how he is when he is at home. He should be a good
person in home in order to fix the society.
When asked whether
politician does really know what it is meant to be politician, the respondent
responded that most of politicians do not really understand and have a lack of
understanding of becoming a politician.
Very
few of them that realize the job and in Malaysia case, two figures that I think
have a clear view on what is politician are TunDr Mahathir and Tuan Guru Nik
Aziz. Most of other politicians treated politics as a business not as amanah
given to them. When you become a politician, you need to give away your privacy
since politician is a public property.
There are various factors
that can contribute to demoralization of a politician and part of it has been
pointed out by the respondent during the interview. Generally, the respondent
said that among the factor are the attitude of the politician himself,
background and so forth.
We
do not clearly know about their family background, type of association they
have joined and the environment they have been brought up. How they behave in
during the childhood, adolescent and the environment they have been living also
can contribute to their attitude. Some of them staying in boarding school have
been brought up in the environment of peer influences and far from parents’
observation. Their experiences are shaping them to grow up.
…..and,
they also demoralize if they cannot meet what they set to achieve which in turn
leads them to the frustration of not achieving the objectives.
…support
and trust play important role in building their confidence level, but if that
things are absent they are easily demoralized.
..principles-ness.
Lack of principles is not an option when becoming a politician. The attitude of
evasiveness and arrogance make most of politicians not taking the job
seriously.
..politician
normally tells lies. That is the art of politics. They have been taught how to
talk and convince people, but what we can see in Malaysia, they are good at
giving promises and bad at fulfilling it……if the PTPTN is abolished you will do
injustice to previous borrowers, they have paid and what will happen if they
asked back the money that have been paid? When I was a student, I have to work
and earn my own money…….
There is several ways
to detect whether the politician is demoralized or not. In the view of the
respondent, he said that:
We
can notice if the politician is not adapting an open door policy by imposing to
much formality and bureaucracy in meeting them, clearly show that they are
avoiding themselves from engaging with public.
…
some responsibilities done due to money objectives, not for the interest of the
public. We can look this by the way they perform the job.
In the respondent’s perspective to curb with this
problem some vital suggestion has been given:
Politicians
should take politics as amanah rather than treat it as business. Because
business cycle is volatile sometimes it is profitable and sometimes it is total
loss.
..they
should reoriented their mind by thinking that they are servant instead of a
leader….
They
must also keeps away from the unnecessary expenditures because the public is
watching them and they have misuse the trust from the people and money paid by
the citizens.
In
order to have a good political environment, politician should keep away from
using politics as showmanship……….
5-Discussion
The result of the
research questions that have been addressed to the respondent will be dealt in
detail in this chapter. After carried out an analysis of the answers given by
the respondent, the factor that contributed to the demoralization can be
divided into two categories, which are internal factor and external factor. The
internal factors emerged from the personality of a person himself where amongst
the reasons are lack of principle in guiding the life and frustration of not
able to achieve the target that has been set earlier. These factors discouraged
a person from the inside and create an unstable condition in the mental
faculty. On the other hand, lack of support and trust from the surrounding
agents and the inability to live to expectation also play roles in demoralizing
person which may refer as the external factor. Living in the political arena,
where the political demand is high leads the surrounding to lose confidence in
politicians and resulted in less support to the idea opined by the politicians.
Additionally, due to criticisms and rumors slightly represent that the
expectation of a public towards politicians is deteriorated. Thus, this
situation indirectly motivated politicians to keep silent and being evasive
toward certain issues which imply that politicians have lost its spirit to
serve the people.
Most of the findings
seem to be in accordance with findings from others studies such as Ritsner,
Rabinowitz and Slyuzberg. (1995), they claimed that the greatest risk factors
of demoralization are a greater number of distress sources, difficulty in
dealing with conflict, greater discrepancy between actual and those expected.
Professionalism can be seen from the conducts
of the politicians in term of their behavior. In some scale, demoralization does
affect the professionalism when politician using the closed or restricted
policies in meeting them, in other term, an appointment should be made before
meeting them and making then inaccessible. Politicians are considered as the
public property where in certain cases, they have to forgo their privacy.
Moreover, politicians tend to take politic as a business agreement instead of
taking it as the responsibility of serving the citizen. Hence, demoralization
can affect professionalism if politicians do not have a clear objectives and
understanding what will be encountered in politics.
Every problem arises
can be solved after having a clear view on the concerned matter such as the
reason lies behind it, the symptoms and the implication of it. Thus, in order
to combat the demoralization that able to drive politicians to involve in the
so called dirty politics or money politics, certain suggestion has been point
out during the interview.
6-Conclusion
Clearly, demoralization
has many faces and become more complicated in the modern day where
globalization is inevitable. There
are many factors that contributed to demoralization of a person such as
background of a person, the environment he was living in, how his mind is
seeing things and others factors. However, the mentioned factors seem to be
significantly related to demoralization. In order to overcome this problem from
happening again, there is a need for immediate transformation of educational
systems in every aspect regardless the management system of institutions and
its curriculum. There is also a need to create awareness campaign to the parent
on how to bringing up their children given the social ill in this era is
uncontrollable.
REFERENCES
Frank, Jerome
D,Psychotherapy: The restoration of morale.The
American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 131(3), Mar 1974, 271-274
Lynch, Gordon (2007). The
Collapse of Civilization? Progressive Spirituality and The Demoralization Debate.New Spirituality: An Introduction to Belief
Beyond Religion (pp 132-135). I. B Tauris. London, GBR
MichealRitsner, Jonathan
Rabinowitz and MichealSlyuzberg. (1995): The Demographic Psychological
Inventory : A New Instrument to Measure Risk Factors for Adjustment Problems
Among Immigrants. Refuge, Vol. 14,
No. 9.,
Berkvens, A.&Boomen,
B.J. (2009). Becoming A Better Politician, Political Skills Manual. Amsterdam:
Alfred MozerStichting.
Mohd Hafizullah Bin Abu Bakar
Tengah bulan Julai 1989
Sek. Keb Kuala Nerang
Sek. Men. Keb Dato' Syed Ahmad
Centre For Foundation Study, IIUM
Kuliyyah of Economics and Management Sciences.
Bachelor of Economics (International)
Masters> praying that i will continue it in Finances
PhD> Maybe in International Economics
Next 20 years> ??????
Wife> ??????
