Can We Have Mature Dialogues?

nst.com.my; June 27, 2005

Gerakan President Dr. Lim Keng Yaik calls for an open-minded, intellectual forum should be established to discuss national issues considered too "sensitive" for public debate. According to Dr Lim, a "national dialogue initiative centre" would be beneficial to address pressing sensitive issues such as economic, racial and religious affairs.

These dialogues could involve the participation of politicians, non-governmental organisations and academicians of various backgrounds and communities to provide a greater multi-cultural dimension.

"Because of their sensitive nature, these dialogues can be held behind closed doors.

"They can be carried out in a matured, intellectual manner, free of unnecessary emotion," Lim said after opening the State Gerakan conference here.

He also suggested inviting famous personalities such as Nobel Prize winners to present their views on relevant issues.

The views and conclusions of the dialogue, however, should be noted, recorded and publicised for reference or research purposes, he said.

"This would be a good intellectual exercise and it can promote inter-racial harmony."

Lim said the Gerakan could organise such dialogues and offered the party’s soon-to-be-ready headquarters as the venue.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Will the dialogue serve its purpose and bring about a better solution to our problem?

I may be paranoid, but I doubt. Fundamentally, a dialogue can only be effective if the system management is desirous of a solution to a problem. The juxtaposition in the various sensitive issues that had crop up the last couple of days were not because we had a problem that need to be solved. It can be seen that, in the first place, the problem was created to satisfy the emotions of some.

Taking the case of Crimea U as a case-study; first, there were students from the Art Stream, who had failed their SPM exam, and had applied to study medicine. This application was processed by the Education Ministry and upon vetting thru', the ministry granted approval and issued the 'Certificate of No-Objection that facilitated the aspiring students to study medicine in Crimea U, presumably, their qualification must have fulfilled the academic criterias set by the ministry.

Then, came the Medical Council (MMC), a division of the Health Ministry. The reason given by MMC for the de-recognition of Crimean Medical Degree is that Crimea was alleged to have accepted Art Stream students to read medicine, and include those who had failed their SPM. Paradoxically, the acceptance by Crimea was in accordance with the criteria set by our Education Ministry.

The question arose is the juxtaposition that Crimea should have set a higher standard of criterias when accepting potential students to read medicine.

But for another Malaysian ministry to tell Crimea U. that's this the way it should be, is in another way of saying, "Don't bother about our education ministry. They are NUTS and they approve anything they deem fit without following the rules and regulations. We in the health ministry strictly follow the highest criteria."

What we can observe clearly from this episode is that: the various ministries do things based on their own set of criterias and these criterias can be contrasting and divergent in its ideological objectives.

The system management is not manned by morons and we have to presume that they know what they are doing.

So, what's the problem?

Answer: there is no problem. What we see is what was done objectively; not subjectively.

Next Poser: What will happen?

Answer: We will be reaping what we sow.

In the words of Einstein: "The problem cannot be solved at the same intellectual level of thinking by the same people who made them."

So, coming back to Dr. Lim's proposal - "Will a dialogue which include inviting famous personalities such as Nobel Prize winners to present their views on relevant issues help resolve our problem?"

In my sincere opinion, I doubt absolutely. We cannot have an intellectual discourse without the presence of intellectual mentality from system management. Any proposals or suggestions can only be digested if the brains of the system is intellectualistic and there is an absence of calcified out-dated idiosyncratic ideology. The absurdities and idiosyncrasy that had persisted is not ignorance but carefully directed so as to mould a complex dysfunctional system of management. It is what was wanted and that's what we get. Anything lesser than this complexities is considered as failure in its own strictest sense.