We Have Made A Promise

To Participants of Action Proposal #003 and Fellow Malaysians,

Under the Malaysia Civil Right Actions Group's Action Proposal #003, we have collectively decided to pursue the Option 2 which is to work our way up to remove Syed Hamid from the Cabinet. We have 43% of participants choose the Option 2, compared to 25% for that of the second highest score option; Therefore, the mandate to execute the Option 2 is clear.

When you cast a vote in the Action Proposal #003, you have made a promise to your fellow Malaysians that you will play your part to carry out the selected option. You might be just one of the 131 participants, but there are 130 participants who are counting on your promise.

From the Action Proposal #003' s poll, we know we have 57 fellow Malaysians choose the Option 2. We have 33, 25, and 12 fellow Malaysians selected Options 3, 1, 4, respectively. Assuming half of those who select Options 3, 1, and 4 decide to go along with the Option 2 as the majority decision, we shall have 57 + 1/2*(70) = 92 participants for the Option 2. With each participant required to do two actions to work toward Syed Hamid removal from Cabinet and persuade 2 friends to do the same (as what is stated in the Option 2), we shall have 92 * 2 * 3 = 552 actions working toward removing Syed Hamid. That is 552 "darts" in the MCRAG's lingo. We have collectively make 552 promises.

While each of us is of adult age or even multiple times of young adult age, our civil society is at its infantile stage. An human infant, in her process of learning how to walk, needs incrementally building up her confidence and trust toward her potential capability to walk; For instance, the first time standing on two wobbling legs is a big boost of the confidence, even though there will be numerous setbacks along the way. Similarly, our infantile civil society needs to incrementally build up its confidence and the trust between her constituent members. Every promise that we keep will enhance the confidence. Keeping 552 promises will be a confidence boost to the civil society just like standing on the wobbling two legs for the first time is to the human infant.

Keeping the 552 promises is more than enhancing the trust among us. Imagine what would happen if we could enhance the say-do effective rate (i.e. the ratio of what you do and what you say you want to do) from previous 31% to 85%. Imagine what would happen if we could enhance the focus rate (i.e. a measure how much we heed the majority decision) from previous 15% to 70%. If we keep the 552 promise, we will attract more capable fellow Malaysians from this vast land and beyond to write better action proposals with more creative ideas because there is confidence that the action proposals will be executed with high say-do and focus effective rates. The better action proposals in turn will attract more participants to the civil right movement. Then we will have a virtue cycle. That is longer term vision, but it is doable.

The strength of the civil society does not so much depend on the youthful burst of righteousness, but on the steady hands of those, who duly execute actions that can contribute to the collective change of the society, who also know his actions will be aggregated with those of others. Civil society is built less on altruism, but more on the down-to-earth concerns of the common men and women. That down-to-earth concerns include, among other things, the individual rice-bowl; Each rice-bowl is affected not only by an individual, but also by the nation macro environment which has keep us having average per capital income in the league of those in Botswana, Libya, and Mexico. Without changing the nation macro environment, each of us needs to work three times as hard and as smart as the average Malaysians in order to enjoy purchasing power of average Hong Kong people or Singaporeans. In other words, instead of working three time as hard, you might get a better rice-bowl by allocating a small portion of your energy on the nation macro environment.

Each of us have made a promise, not to the author of the action proposal (nor any future action proposals' authors, for that matter), but to your fellow Malaysians especially the participants. Now is the time to see if each of us keeps the respective promise, and thus works toward building the trust among us, and thus toward stronger civil society.

Let's throw 552 "darts" to hasten the demise of Syed Hamid's political career as Home Minister. His behavior is a disgrace of the nation.