Social Conscience

Tun Dr. Mahathir,

During your 22 years' reign as the Prime Minister of Malaysia, you had been given the golden opportunities to cultivate a virtue called "Social Conscience" amongst the Malaysians, disregard of races and creeds. If you had ever bothered to put in effort in order to encourage and foster the spirit of Cooperation ("Gotong-Royong") amongst all Malaysians disregard of races and creeds, then we would be able to see a strongly binded national coalesce and social cohesiveness that would be reflected in the sharing of common goal congruence among all citizens by now. Then we would be better able to unload the national burden of affirmative actions which had to work along the racist line of Bumiputeraism and which had created so much long-lingering and divisive controversy for such a long period of time since 1970. Then we would have better chances to succeed in achieving the ultimate goals of social justice and economic justice irrespective of races and creeds.

However, besides ferocious power struggle, juicy sex scandals, bloody murder, greedy corruption and vile bad-mouthing, are we still able to find from our pool of politicians a single clue of good virtue like honesty and trustworthiness which revolve around the human nature of social conscience? Where had all the social conscience of the politicians gone now?

Isn't it time now for us to do a soul-searching and begin to promote the good virtue of social conscience so that all Malaysians can unite and work together towards the common goals of social justice and economic justice. We must be brave enough to dream of a state in which "all under-privileged and needy people will be subsidised in accordance with what they need" and in which "all who work hard will be rewarded in accordance with what they truly deserve". We must also be brave enough to sacrifice and strive hard for the dream to come true at our own expense, simply for the sake of our next generations. If we are able to build such an Utopia, then we will eventually be able to rule out the need for affirmative actions which come along with required discrimination since all grievances from each and every corner of the society will be redressed with the inner working of our social conscience without racial prejudices. This dream of Utopia is not impossible for us to realize since the working model will be more or less resembling those we find in an orphan house (Rumah Anak Yatim)!

Does Tun want to show the willingness and the determination to fight a good cause along the line of social justice and economic justice by resorting to the inner working of social conscience from the bottom of the conscientious people's heart?

Onlooker


Attached is the poem for the promotion of the virtue of "Social Conscience":

MY DEBT.

[BY EMMA PLAYTEB BEABUHY.]

How can I pay the debt I owe

For warmth, and light, and daily bread?
To all the toilers who, I know,

Have dwarfed their souls, that I be fed?
How can I pay the debts that stand

To farm, or mill, that grind or spin?
The mines that deck my jeweled hand,

The weary ones that gathered in?

How can I pay the debt again

To him who delves and toils for me?
How can I call them brother men

Unless I break their chains and free?
I place upon their neck my heel,

I rule them with my golden rod,
While I can think, and dream and feel,

And talk of justice and of God!

How can I pay mine honest debt?

By sharing poverty and blight?
Or giving where our ways have met

The glimmer of love's beacon light?
Oh! breaking hearts who dumbly plead,

Oh! burdened lives who only see
The rocky, onward paths that lead

Your crosses to your Calvary !

I stumble, but! see God's plan;

I suffer, but his voice I hear ;
I hope hope is for those who can

Look up, and see life's vision clear;
But if they cannot see the skies

Because toil pinions tighter yet
And tears and sorrow blind their eyes,

How can I pay this fearful debt?

How can I pay, how can I work,

How can I recompense them all?
I who am idle, I who shirk

To raise the burden they let fall.
Not by my gold-tliey scorn the gift;

Not by my pity, cast away,
But love and I must stoop and lift

Their cross, and carry it some day.

And resting, they may catch a gleam

Of drifting clouds, of stars that shine,
Of billowy bloom, and flashing stream,

And hear a strain of love divine.
And earth-bound hearts may sing a song

Like that my soul hears every day,
And in their strength I shall grow strong

If I but strive this debt to pay.

Miss Jane Addams, defines the "Social
Conscience" as "that feeling which would prevent
a man from enjoying a good supper if a starving
wretch were watching every mouthful he ate."