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.
Yuri AlexandrovichBezmenoy
during the interview conducted back in 1985.(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpSPqaD6iOo). Retrieved on 4 March 2012
Prepared by :
MohdHafizullah Bin Abu Bakar
LE 4000
0 comments:
Post a Comment