WE CAN DISAGREE WITHOUT BEING DISAGREEABLE

I briefly watched both Obama and Clinton give their respective speeches immediately after the New Hampshire primary a short while back.

Obama was looking young and fresh, Clinton slightly less so; one made his speech to look off-the-cuff, the other referred off-and-on to a prepared text; one upbeat and rousing and filled with catch phrases, the other slightly more subdued and measured – but both said they wanted to bring change while assuring the American people a bigger role in running the country. Obama repeated his stand on the key issue of US troops in Iraq while I didn’t hear Clinton touch on it. Otherwise, and apart from personality and style, the message were not too different.

What I did find really interesting though was that both picked on a slogan that we Malaysians have made our unique rallying call for almost two decades – “Malaysia Boleh”. Both Obama and Clinton used the phrase “we can”. In the case of Obama, he repeated it over and over, seemingly making it another of his rallying catch phrases for the rest of the campaign. He also talked about making the moon the frontier, and conquering the highest mountains. We have been pushing our young people to conquer the poles and Everest, sail the high seas, and recently sent someone into space. I wonder if both, especially Obama, have been eavesdropping and watching what we have been doing!

To be fair, we must therefore also pick a few learning for our own from them. Both asked the people to be more involved with the affairs of the nation, as Obama said (perhaps somewhat clichéd) “what you, the people, can do to change America”. Perhaps we, all Malaysians, should also ask ourselves and honestly examine what we collectively can do to make this country a better Malaysia.

Obama also said “we can disagree without being disagreeable”. This is a great phrase underlying so much common sense wisdom yet so difficult to sincerely practice.

For us in Malaysia, given some of our peculiar and unique features, it can only become that much more difficult, but we need to start working towards making that our culture and the accepted norm. We need to learn to disagree and yet not be disagreeable. This is the only way for us to bring about a truly genuine and meaningful majority voice and gain from the potential richness of ideas and contributions – even within our existing framework and structures.

Hey, let’s not let Obama and Clinton copy from us without us getting something back!