When my elder daughter was in Standard One, she scored full marks for both Bahasa Malaysia and English in the end-of-the-year exam.
She was certainly very happy and proud of her achievements. When she
brought home the exam papers, I went thru them and noticed that in both, she
had actually made a few mistakes. I pointed them out to my daughter and
told her to show them to her teachers the next day. She initially
thought I wasn't serious but when I insisted, she became very sad and
began to cry. Understandably so since I was indeed asking her to
voluntarily get her exam marks cut. Not an easy thing to do but she did
eventually and that probably caused her a top-three ranking in her
class.
And just a few months back during the school's sports day,
my son was in an event in which you need to pass water balloons to your
teammates by throwing it to the person behind you.
In the middle of the event, I noticed my son had unintentionally
moved a few steps back from his initial standing spot, closing the
distance between him and his teammate, thus, gaining a certain advantage
over other competing teams. I
told my son to move forward a few steps to erase that advantage. That
disrupted his team's momentum, and they finished last in the race.
As
a father, I am far from perfect, but I have always tried to instill
certain values to my children, values that I believe are essential for
their development as Muslims and as members of the human race. I want
them to compete. I want them to win and achieve things, but I want them to
win them the right way. Not through cheating and not even by having any
undue advantage.
This isn't something new. This is the same principle observed by Malay warriors in the past. In any duel, if you are holding a keris and your opponent does not, you get him a keris,
only then you may fight. Killing an opponent who is unarmed is a cowardice act
and you'll be labelled a coward for the rest of your life.
Sometimes
we win, sometimes we lose. That's life. As a Liverpool fan, I'm quite
used to losing. It's bad enough the club has not won the league since
1990, it's worse when you see your greatest rival continue to win it
year in year out. But I can accept that because the Devil we know has been
winning them fair and square with eleven players starting every
single match, with one referee, two linesmen, one ball, and a level
playing field; the same facts I keep reminding my son every time either of his favourite teams; Harimau Malaya, Selangor or Arsenal, loses a game.
Early this morning, soon after the
Elections Commission officially declared Barisan Nasional the winner of
Malaysia's 13th General Election, the BN leader and incumbent Prime
Minister wrote this on twitter: "This election was true, fair and
transparent. I hope the opposition accepts the result with an open
heart."
First-of-all, congratulations Sir for your
victory. But please help me understand what do you mean by "true, fair and
transparent"? Because, I'm beginning to think, all this while, I've
been teaching my kids the wrong things.
