My obsession with Marina
She is back with another diatribe. She is brunt and straight, and she would not live to be a hypocrite. What has she got to say,; about what? Let's read an abstract of her article in The Star today:
Let them speak
By MARINA MAHATHIR
... I was at an overseas conference where a Malaysian government official was presenting a paper on a subject that was controversial and has few supporters in the international community. I was surprised that he had accepted the invitation to speak in the first place but having done so, I thought he must have worked out a convincing argument. To the utter bemusement of everybody, he presented a paper more suited to a high school student than a senior government official. Not only was it devoid of any scientific justification, it bore no logic at all.
It made me realise that some officials must live in an insular world where they have no idea what the rest of the world thinks and therefore naively present arguments that they don’t even realise will not hold water among well-informed people. Then they are shocked at the strong reaction they get.
I thought this was just an aberration until I witnessed the same inability to read an audience and present an intelligent analysis of a situation from an even more senior official. Perhaps when we are used to an uninformed unquestioning audience, we tend to underestimate the intelligence of every one we face.
It wouldn’t have alarmed me, if I thought that there was a new generation of Malaysians who could be different. So I went to a seminar hoping to listen to more interesting viewpoints. In a panel where university lecturers spoke and students asked questions and ventured opinions, I was struck by how some supposedly highly-qualified academicians had the same inability to provide a rational analysis of real situations and instead resorted to vague generalisations and illogic. Unsurprisingly the students were no better, asking unoriginal questions and spouting well-worn phrases that elicited applause from their own crowd. Not a single student asked any questions which were at all provocative or revealed some real thinking.
I suppose we should not blame our students’ lack of thinking skills when people who don’t have them either are teaching them.
COMMENTS:
Profanity? Ya, to some of the gaudy Malaysian Academicians and senior officials; but to most commoners, Marina is not the only person who scorn these un-ingenious dim-wit. We have often seen it the way she saw it except the fact that she speaks out loud and unassuming.
But the system managers, didn't they know about their own megalomaniacs? oh, oh, oh, they may not for they are megalomaniacs too.....
more ...
... I was at an overseas conference where a Malaysian government official was presenting a paper on a subject that was controversial and has few supporters in the international community. I was surprised that he had accepted the invitation to speak in the first place but having done so, I thought he must have worked out a convincing argument. To the utter bemusement of everybody, he presented a paper more suited to a high school student than a senior government official. Not only was it devoid of any scientific justification, it bore no logic at all.
It made me realise that some officials must live in an insular world where they have no idea what the rest of the world thinks and therefore naively present arguments that they don’t even realise will not hold water among well-informed people. Then they are shocked at the strong reaction they get.
I thought this was just an aberration until I witnessed the same inability to read an audience and present an intelligent analysis of a situation from an even more senior official. Perhaps when we are used to an uninformed unquestioning audience, we tend to underestimate the intelligence of every one we face.
It wouldn’t have alarmed me, if I thought that there was a new generation of Malaysians who could be different. So I went to a seminar hoping to listen to more interesting viewpoints. In a panel where university lecturers spoke and students asked questions and ventured opinions, I was struck by how some supposedly highly-qualified academicians had the same inability to provide a rational analysis of real situations and instead resorted to vague generalisations and illogic. Unsurprisingly the students were no better, asking unoriginal questions and spouting well-worn phrases that elicited applause from their own crowd. Not a single student asked any questions which were at all provocative or revealed some real thinking.
I suppose we should not blame our students’ lack of thinking skills when people who don’t have them either are teaching them.
COMMENTS:
Profanity? Ya, to some of the gaudy Malaysian Academicians and senior officials; but to most commoners, Marina is not the only person who scorn these un-ingenious dim-wit. We have often seen it the way she saw it except the fact that she speaks out loud and unassuming.
But the system managers, didn't they know about their own megalomaniacs? oh, oh, oh, they may not for they are megalomaniacs too.....
more ...
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