Spectator vs Participant

Spectator vs Participant


Spectator vs Participant

Posted: 18 Jan 2010 01:28 AM PST

In this new era of media-savvy youths, it has become a trend that many young citizens whom are interested in politics or think they are interested in politics resort to only talking and criticising by the way-side without spending much time or resources attending to genuine gatherings, dialogues or discussion groups.

This scenario is made worst, as internet technology improves and broadband becomes more and more accessible that many young-at-heart will join the fray (across the political divide) by criticising and complaining about each other and how hopeless the other side is. But are any of these Youths doing anything constructive to help the worsening situation?

One of the major trends that is brewing in the dark and I think is a sign of the young giving up hope or just plain lazy is the fact that whenever you have political gatherings or annual conventions, the turnout is always bad!

I have written elsewhere on this website that in the AGM for our National Gerakan Youth on 31 October 2009, the percentage of eligible delegates who made it a point to turn up for the National Delegates Conference was 38.4%

Anthony Loke, the National Chairman for DAP Socialist Youth Movement (DAPSY) also had the same sentiments when he said this on 27 June 2009. At their annual DAPSY Convention 2009 last year, the turnout at DAPSY Convention 2009 was a mere 40% of eligible delegates. Anthony blasted the tardy delegates for its poor turnout (http://dapsy.dappg.org/?p=4)

This year in its 2010 Annual Convention in Ipoh, the DAPSY Annual Convention saw a further drop in their delegates turnout. On 16 Jan 2010, the DAP Youth National Conference in Ipoh had 130 attendees only when the qualified delegates were 600. The attendance record was 21%, the worst in the party's history or for that matter any political party.

At the end of the meeting, 90 members were present and it was ended half an hour before the sceduled closing. There was no obvious serious debate.

This clearly exposes that the Youths of today clearly do not have much organisation or political thought. They live and propsper on issues and emotion. But never had any independent thought on how to regenerate or lead the country forward, for all races and for all Malaysians.

The more we see this kind of trend continuing (ie Blaming, Complaining, Denial, Excuses, Criticism) the more we need to understand why this is happening, lest we all fall into the trap of only inciting hatred but never being able to come up with tangible solutions or antidotes for the country's ills and problems.