Monday 6 May 2013

"true, fair and transparent"?

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.