I got lots of messages with this theme; “bila pilihanraya kampus 2008?”. Ah. Good question. You don’t know the answer? I don’t know either. Unless you are listening or creating rumours you would say you know. If your sources are unrealiable (oh I heard from that guy, saya dengar dari SU politik, saya dengar kawan saya cakap) whatsoever “saya dengar”, not from reliable sources from the Minister himself or the TNC / DVC council themselves please don’t advice me on the dates. Never trust rumours.
Whatever it is, I am blogging on this topic today is because it is my duty as your UPM President (soon to be an ordinary student after how many years of utter hectic-ness in student activities). Whateva the date may be for those that will be contesting, please do bear in mind that with power comes responsibility. Please do not betray the trust in the form of votes that have been vested upon you by the people in discarding them and not fulfilling your duties. As a leader of the council I have given everyone their free share of votes in decision making in our council. Everyone has the right to voice out, debate, vote and decide in the form of togetherness in our council no matter you recognize yourself from whatsoever “political camp”.
Nonetheless although freedom of decision making is being given, I do question the reason for not attending meetings, not even reading meeting minutes before meeting, prepare to complete the tasks as agreed in the meeting, voicing out concerns in meeting or whatsoever. If Dewan Rakyat before this pun susah penuh, what more Student Council. But ingat, we swore an oath and accepted to fulfill this duty to the students (I am not answerable to anyone except my main shareholders; students / yang lain around me are my stakeholders) and we were given trust by the people. Whatever it is, we die alone and we would be answerable to Allah s.w.t., between you and me as a leader, I memang maafkan sbb sayang tapi between you and the students and Allah, you jawab sendiri it’s not my problem.
So my advice before you even think of entering the elections; please be truthful to the students. Jangan sebab nak melancong luar negara, nak dapat nama MPP, dapat name tag MPP (cantik sangat kan dari kad matrik), dapat glamour muka terpampang kat poster setiap kolej/fakulti, please, for God sakes please do remember that you are entering the zone of responsibility. It is never easy to be a leader, you have to be just to everyone. And it is never easy. You have duty to your anak buah, your other anak buah, your shareholders (students), your stakeholders. Ha? Mana tangan nak tercapai? Kalo sibuk nak nama or sebab influenced by political group outside campus or sebab nak kenal menteri, ADUN, etc., please forget it. Students first, they elected you, other things always comes second.
It is never easy to be a leader. Especially a leader without any “decision-making power”. Here I refer decision making power is apparent like what the Vice Chancellor have, the ability to enact and approve laws in the university senate. Can you imagine, the work tardiness in pursuing and fighting for something simple like; “cuti belajar sebelum peperiksaan akhir”. Do you know that even with 2 long paperworks and I mean paperwork with research study, it takes a long time to get it approved? Perlu perbincangan dengan dekan, perlu approval from the senate, kene kaji balik from the lecturers. Some people advice me; demonstrate! You have the power of mobilization do it. Like Anwar Ibrahim in the old days he had that power and he used it. It was appropriate as he had the capability. Kalau tak ada, please don’t dream. Like Sun Tzu said; “don’t fight a war you can’t win”. Don’t expect Malaysia to launch ASTROS artillery missiles when the enemy has nuke, you have nuke then we consider it. Don’t make me look like an idiot. My point here is you have the power, then you have more variety of options to reach your objective. The last thing you wanna achieve is to get the objective done, not stuck with the option (diplomacy, discussions, demonstrations, etc.)
And moving on to the national level, I have heard that there are some questionable aspects of kad diskaun pelajar. Sampai sekarang tak nampak progress kan? I admit it must be because MPPK dosen’t have their own webpage. Kalo ade leh update. My advice to future student leaders is to structure MPPK in the form of NUS United Kingdom. Let the students manage, don’t let anyone else manage. Anyway moving back to kad diskaun, bukan xbersungguh, again paperwork semua dah wat, dah dihantar, meetings have been done with companies, lobbying was down with Timbalan and Menteri KPT themselves, but is it easy to implement government projects? Let me ask you this; go ask Sunway CEO, Maxis CEO or maybe anyone else, how hard it is to get tender and approval for government projects? You want us to get kad diskaun done fast? Boleh. No problem, we go offer MBF card company and they give you discounts at Mid Valley and maybe you can try out TGI Fridays. Nak? Pegi la dapat diskaun kat TGI makan at least RM 100++ or maybe you nak diskaun kat Star Hill Gallery, Shook Restaurant at least RM 150++ or maybe you nak diskaun kat Hagen Dazs choc fundue at least RM80++? Bagi la diskaun 10% or maybe 20%. Boleh la kan. Please la wei.
Remember : The goal of the card is to ensure that pelajar dapat mendapatkan makanan dan bekalan pembelajaran lain pada harga yang rendah, do you know that getting merchants to give discounts is already a challenge. The goal : rendahkan kos sara diri pelajar bukan untuk dapatkan shopping card. Please give constructive critism before drawing up your own assumptions. Always assume! Nevermind, nanti masuk elections baru ni bertanding and I challenge you who think you are willing to get the kad diskaun pelajar projek done. Maybe you can do a better job, kalo boleh, bagus la. Kalo x boleh, let me prepare my word-bullets in one year time.
In the end, my advice to future leaders,
Seek the truth, nothing but the truth. Do not let anyone make you their pawn. Life has always thought me, should you want to tear the brick wall down, do not petition the wall builder but the man who ordered the wall to be built. No one is invulnerable, they always have their bosses. Get their boss, you’re halfway equal on political power. Good luck!
hehe…
sabrie, rileks,rileks…cool down beb…
nway, aku setuju dgn apa ko ckp tentang with power comes responsibility…
sepatutnya, untuk jadi pemimpin ni, kena bersedia dari semua segi, kalau rasa tak layak, jgn jadi, sebab tak semua orang layak jadi pemimpin…
nway, aku tau ko dah cuba yang terbaik…