The "I Have a Dream" Speech and Tun Mahathir's "Perjuangan Yang Belum Selesai"

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character - MLK Jr.

I was on an in-and-out trip this morning to Washington DC, without realizing that today is the 50th anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech. At the airport, I saw a black leader talked about the reality of today where the journey to the top of the ladder is getting higher and higher. I cannot help but to think about the same reality faced by my own race in Malaysia - the Malays.

The "I Have a Dream" speech somehow reminded me of Tun Mahathir's "Perjuangan Yang Belum Selesai" poem. Perhaps in 50 years or so, after Tun was long gone, his poem will be remembered by the Malays as the greatest speech of hope for the race. It's still vivid in my mind when I recited this on the eve of Hari Merdeka in 1996 at MRSM Perlis.

PERJUANGAN YANG BELUM SELESAI

Sesungguhnya tidak ada yang lebih menyayatkan
dari melihat bangsaku dijajah.

Tidak ada yang lebih menyedihkan
dari membiarkan bangsaku dihina.

Air mata tiada ertinya
sejarah silam tiada maknanya
sekiranya bangsa tercinta terpinggir
dipersenda dan dilupakan.

Bukan kecil langkah wira bangsa
para pejuang kemerdekaan
bagi menegakkan kemuliaan
dan darjat bangsa
selangkah beerti mara
mengharung sejuta dugaan.

Biarkan bertatih
asalkan langkah itu yakin dan cermat
bagi memastikan negara
merdeka dan bangsa terpelihara
air mata sengsara
mengiringi setiap langkah bapa-bapa kita.

Tugas kita bukan kecil
kerana mengisi kemerdekaan
rupanya lebih sukar dari bermandi
keringat dan darah menuntutnya.

Lagi pula apalah ertinya kemerdekaan
kalau bangsaku asyik mengia dan menidakkan,
mengangguk dan membenarkan,
kerana sekalipun bangganya negara
kerana makmur dan mewahnya,
bangsaku masih melata
dan meminta-minta di negaranya sendiri.

Bukan kecil tugas kita
meneruskan perjuangan kemerdekaan kita
kerana rupanya selain memerdekakan,
mengisi kemerdekaan itu jauh lebih sengsara.

Bangsaku bukan kecil hati dan jiwanya
bukankah sejak zaman berzaman
mereka menjadi pelaut, pengembara
malah penakluk terkemuka?

Bukankah mereka sudah mengembangkan
sayap, menjadi pedagang dan peniaga
selain menjadi ulama dan ilmuan terbilang?

Bukankah bangsaku pernah mengharung
samudera menjajah dunia yang tak dikenal?

Bukankah mereka pernah menjadi
wira serantau yang tidak mengenal erti takut
dan kematian?

Di manakah silapnya hingga bangsaku
berasa begitu kecil dan rendah diri?

Apakah angkara penjajah?

Lalu bangsaku mulai melupakan kegemilangan
silam dan sejarah gemilang membina empayar…

Tugas kita belum selesai rupanya
bagi memartabat dan memuliakan bangsa
kerana hanya bangsa yang berjaya
akan sentiasa dihormati.

Rupanya masih jauh dan berliku jalan kita
bukan sekadar memerdeka dan mengisinya
tetapi mengangkat darjat dan kemuliaan
buat selama-lamanya.

Hari ini, jalan ini pasti semakin berliku
kerana masa depan belum tentu
menjanjikan syurga
bagi mereka yang lemah dan mudah kecewa.

Perjuangan kita belum selesai
kerana hanya yang cekal dan tabah
dapat membina mercu tanda
bangsanya yang berjaya.

Tun. Dr. Mahathir Mohamad
Mei 1996

With regards to racial dynamics in Malaysia I do have a similar dream as MLK Jr's that one day every Malaysian will look at each other beyond race. This is nothing new to the haves - the educated middle and upper class. For the have-nots, sadly the majority of the Malays in rural areas, the concept of 1Malaysia or anything along that line is still a far fetched. Without individual paradigm shift from being dependent to independent as I discussed here, the dream will remain a dream.

Selamat Menyambut Hari Kemerdekaan ke 56!

Using Reddit and Smartphones to Reduce Crime in Malaysia?

It's pretty rare for news in Malaysia to get into global newspapers, but there is one short article in the Economist this week that talks about the rise in gun and gang violence in Malaysia. Recently, PEMANDU reported that the crime index is down for Jan-June 2013 compared with the first half of 2012, but the number of murders and robberies with firearms has risen.

I wonder if we can use basic technologies to prevent crimes in Malaysia? The use of smartphones is on the rise - more and more people can take pictures and record short videos if they happen to see on-going crimes such as snatch thefts or road rages. What if there is a specific Reddit Malaysia's subpage where redditors can submit a link to those pictures or videos? Other redditors can then vote them up or down with respect to the seriousness of the crimes or bad behaviors and the likelihood to capture the culprits. Ideally, the authority should also be part of this campaign.

There is definitely some privacy concern that needs to be addressed. Submit your comments or vote this idea up or down at http://redd.it/1km451

Disclaimer: I'm not a police or an expert in criminology. I'm an engineer by training - we always strive to use off-the-shelved tools and technologies to solve new problems.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

It's still Syawal, so I'd like to wish Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all. The raya season seems to skip me this year. By the time my wife, my child and I recovered from jet lag after returning from Malaysia, we didn't have time to make a 3-hour road trip to replenish our meat supply. I then had to leave to a conference in Louisville in Kentucky (where KFC was originated). As such, no open house this year.

My first raya in the States was 14 years ago during a winter break in January 2000. Fasting was easy then as Maghrib was around 4:30pm. I remember my buddy and I made a point to make sure that we were not going to be sad during our first raya away from our families - we made a big travel plan to Florida. To cover our expenses, we both worked from 9am to 5pm during the first two weeks of the break at an animal lab to feed and clean the areas where the university kept guinea pigs, rats, frogs etc. for medical experiments. With the money we saved, we bought air tickets to Orlando, DisneyWorld tickets and rent a car there. We stayed at a cheap hotel every 3 days or so and slept in the car at a rest area for the rest of the nights. We brought some serunding (dried beef) I cooked for the trip. After two weeks of travel and eating the same thing except 2-3 fish meals at McDonald's, I started to hate serunding, and until today I've not eaten it anymore.

I was able to celebrate raya in Malaysia again last year. This year, my summer schedule didn't permit me to stay longer in Malaysia, so I had a simple raya celebration in the States. My wife cooked rendang ayam and I cooked kuah kacang and nasi impit from scratch using ziploc (I forgot to buy the instant one). We went to the mosque for solat raya, and my child had some games with other kids and received some gifts there. That was it.

The night before raya, I happened to catch a rerun of a documentary Eat, Fast and Live Longer. It talks about the scientific benefits of fasting and introduced the FastDiet concept where ones fast for two nonconsecutive days every week and eat whatever they want for the rest of the week. Its fasting concept is not necessarily the same as what Muslims do in Ramadan. In FastDiet, ones limit their calorie intake to 500cal for women and 600cal for men - about 1/3 of daily calorie intake. The main benefit is to maintain a healthy and longer life with low risk of diseases caused by over or unhealthy eating. I was so amazed that I bought a book about the diet in Amazon, finished it in a day, and plan to start practicing the FastDiet.

In fact today was my first day doing the FastDiet. I had some unsweetened green tea and water during the day, and had a 600cal dinner - griiled cod, stir-fried broccoli and carrot, some sliced tomatoes and one cup of rice.

I plan to test this concept on me for the next three months. I also hope to fully fast like in Ramadan every once a while, especially since it's still Syawal.

In theory, Muslims should get all the fasting benefits in Ramadan. However, especially in Malaysia, Ramadan has turned to be pesta makan or food festival. Pasar Ramadan and hotel buffet epitomize the phenomena. It's not unusual to actually gain weight when fasting in Malaysia. It is what it is, and I still wish I had longer Ramadan in Malaysia.

Drucker's Lite - Summary Notes Based on Management: Task, Responsibilities and Practices

Management Tasks

1.     Performing the specific purpose and mission of an organization by achieving its objectives

2.     Making work productive and the worker achieving

3.     Managing social impacts and social responsibilities

Note: Management has to consider time dimension in performing tasks - both present and future, short and long run demand, performance, factors of production (human, financial, physical resources), existence and relevance in society

Management by Objectives (MBO)

·         Process of defining objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand how their activities relate to the achievement of the organization

·         Important features and advantages of MBO includes

o    Motivation – involving employees in the whole process of objective setting and
increasing employee empowerment

o    Clarity of objectives – can be translated into specific target and assignments

o    Better communication and coordination – frequent reviews and interactions
between superiors and subordinates helps to maintain harmonious relationships and also to solve many problems

MBO Strategies

·         Every organization needs to think through the question “What is our business and what should it be?” to define the purpose of an organization

·         From the definition of its mission and vision an organization must derive objectives in a number of key areas

·         It must balance these objectives against each other and against the competing demand of today and tomorrow

·         It needs to convert objectives into concrete strategies and to concentrate resources on them

·         It also needs to think through its strategic planning i.e., the decisions of today that will make the business of tomorrow

Purpose of Organization

·         Prerequisite to derive mission, vision and thus objectives

·         First identify who are the customers

·         Deciding “What is our business?” is a genuine decision that must consider divergent views to have a chance to be a right and effective decision. It is a choice between alternatives, each based on different assumptions on the reality of the field (e.g., rail transportation) and its environment. It’s a high-risk decision that could lead to changes in objectives, strategies, organization and behavior.

·         Discussion of alternative views enable management group to be cognizant of fundamental differences in the group to understand what motivate each manager and his/her behavior

·         A sole method to define an organization is to answer the question from customers’ point of view

·         Note on economic performance (profit requirement): in business enterprise economic performance is the rationale and purpose, but for non-business/service organization it’s a constraint to perform its activities and achieving its objectives

Vision & Mission (from Wikipedia)

·         Vision statement defines the desired or intended future state of an organization in terms of its fundamental purpose

o    a long term view, sometimes describing how the organization would like the field in which it operates to be

·         Mission statement defines the fundamental purpose of an organization, succinctly describing why it exists and what it does to achieve its Vision

Objectives

·         Objectives are strategies

·         Objectives with only lofty, good intentions are worthless

·         Objectives must be able to be translated to work activities, measurable performance targets and specific assignments of accountability

·         Objectives determine the structure of an organization, the key activities which must be discharged, and allocation of people to tasks

·         However, objectives are not fate; they are direction, not commands, but commitments

o    Objectives are based on expectations and informed guesses associated with factors beyond an organization’s control

·         Objectives must be correlated with specific activities with commitment of key people to work on each activity

o    This implies not only that somebody is supposed to do the job, but also accountability, a dateline, and finally the measurement of results

MBO Trap

·         Critics say that MBO is difficult to implement, and that organizations often wind up overemphasizing control, as opposed to fostering creativity, to meet their objectives

·         Drucker’s advice:

o    objectives are not fate; they are direction, not commands, but commitments

You know you're not in KL when...

You know you're not in KL when you're driving to enter a busy street at peak hours and a car on the busy street stop 50 meters away to yield and give way for you to get in. Lame joke aside, I've now returned to the States, with a heavy heart, always.

On Quality of Life in Malaysia
I was away for about a month, but only spent about 10 days in KL - way too short to do much and to meet people and relatives. On a short notice though, I was able to have a chit-chat meeting with a few high-ups from an agency responsible for transportation planning in Malaysia. It was mainly to introduce myself, discuss their ongoing activities, and identify potential ways for me to get involved in the future.

What's the most encouraging is to realize that Malaysia, especially KL, is in the middle of a public transportation renaissance. Nobody is a big fan of the road congestion caused by the MRT constructions. However, when the project is completed, people can easily commute to KL from and between all the satellite cities and towns including Kajang, Sungai Buloh, Subang Jaya, Puchong, Serdang, etc. Moreover, when everything is set and done, all these areas will simply be the suburbs of KL. This will bring KL on the same level as New York, Chicago, London, Paris, etc.

It has becoming a trend among youngsters in late 20s to 30s in metropolitan cities in the world to totally depend on public transportation. In the past, the youngsters like to boast about their cars. Now, it's more hip to boast about how long ago have been since they drove a car. Combined with transit-oriented urban developments, cars have become things of the past in some major cities. This is still a far-fetched in Malaysia, but the MRT will make not owning a car a possibility in the future in KL. At a minimum, MRT is expected to reduce congestion - that will reduce gas money and save time for non-users.

Another emerging public transportation project is high-speed rail (HSR). Once the KL-Singapore HSR line is completed, places as far away as Muar will also be the suburbs of KL (a HSR with an average 300km/h speed can cover the distance between KL and Muar in about 60 minutes non-stop). Time-wise, Seremban will probably be the new Bangsar, and Melaka will probably be a new PJ. Imagine a young graduate could afford a detached 3-bedroom house for under RM200,000 in these new suburbs, and commute everyday to downtown KL in less than an hour.

I'm not buying into the idea that high income will simply give higher quality of life. The reason can be summarized in one word - inflation. I'm not buying into the opposition's socialist ideas to improve the quality of life either. However, with new economic competitive areas, combined with better infrastructure planning, the vision will one day become a reality. Meanwhile, the non-sexy and under-appreciated field and people in transportation are slowly and quietly playing their crucial roles - eliminating or reducing the cost of owning cars and houses in the future.

On Food
You know you're not in KL when you're hungry late at night, the only options you have to eat out are for some "glorified dog foods" - deep-fried, grilled, baked or steamed. My two cents for my fellow Malaysians, stop political and racial bickering, and smell (and eat, of course) the nasi lemak, teh tarik, yong tau foo, roti canai, capati and other endless list of food treasures and heritage we share. Until my next visit in the not-too-distant future, I hope, I'll miss all of them.

p/s: My best food this time around, excluding my mom's, are rojak sotong and cendol Bangsar near the Petronas gas station