COMMENT | Where is the respect for young people?
COMMENT | Last Monday, the Dewan Rakyat sat in full for the very first time this year. One of the first order of business for the House was the motion to have former Court of Appeal judge Mohamad Ariff Md Yusoff vacate his speaker post.
The deputy speaker from Perikatan Nasional (PN), who was spared the axe, allowed the members of Parliament to debate on the motion. Representatives from both sides of the political divide stood up to give their views on the motion, either for or against.
When Muar MP Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman stood up to speak, he was immediately jeered and heckled by backbenchers from Umno. He was called "cucu atok" (grandfather's grandson), a reference to his allegiance to former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohammad and he was told to "balik (go back to) Muar". Umno's Jelebu MP Jalaluddin Alias rudely kept telling Syed Saddiq to sit down and shut up.
Jalaluddin is 59 years old. He is a first-time MP, but he was previously a state assemblyperson in Negeri Sembilan. He has also had experience serving as an exco under the BN administration in the state. All in all, Jalaluddin is a senior politician with years of experience behind him.
So it is unbecoming of someone like him to...
COMMENT | Last Monday, the Dewan Rakyat sat in full for the very first time this year. One of the first order of business for the House was the motion to have former Court of Appeal judge Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof vacate his speaker post.
The deputy speaker from Perikatan Nasional (PN), who was spared the axe, allowed the members of Parliament to debate on the motion. Representatives from both sides of the political divide stood up to give their views on the motion, either for or against.
When Muar MP Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman stood up to speak, he was immediately jeered and heckled by backbenchers from Umno. He was called "cucu atok" (grandfather's grandson), a reference to his allegiance to former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohammad and was told to "balik (go back to) Muar".
Umno's Jelebu MP Jalaluddin Alias rudely kept telling Syed Saddiq to sit down and shut up. Jalaluddin is 59 years old, and although a first-time MP, he was previously a state assemblyperson in Negeri Sembilan. He has also had experience serving as an exco member under the BN administration in the state. All in all, Jalaluddin is a senior politician with years of experience behind him.
So, it is unbecoming of someone like him to act in such a manner against a fellow MP, simply because Syed Saddiq (below) is decades younger than him. The former youth and sports minister, to his credit, did not lash back at his uncouth detractors and simply ignored them.
The behaviour of many MPs in the Dewan Rakyat on that Monday contrasted starkly with the debates by the young members of Parlimen Digital. For the uninitiated, Parlimen Digital was a youth-led and run initiative in which 222 young Malaysians held a mock parliamentary session online.
The organisers were prompted to hold the online mock Parliament after the Dewan Rakyat sat for just half a day on May 18 for the King to deliver his royal address.
The digital Parliament session earlier this month was free from boisterous conduct which had disrupted the actual Parliament earlier this week. Certainly, none of the digital Parliament representatives jeered or shouted down their opponents like what happened to Syed Saddiq.
The behaviour of these MPs is symptomatic of the prevalent attitude that some have against young people. PN does not have a good track record when it comes to giving opportunities to young people; the current youth and sports minister is neither young nor sporty.
Indeed, parties such as Umno and PAS which now make up the PN government do not give opportunities to young people to run for public office, let alone accord them much respect.
Political parties that continue to dismiss and belittle the youth do so at their peril. Young Malaysians are increasingly more aware of what is happening around them and they are keenly watching how older people behave. Many of them voted in the last general election, and they are very angry that their vote was robbed by a bunch of old faces in posh hotels.
These young people are the future of this country, and once the new voting age comes into effect, political parties that have ignored the aspirations and values of the youth will be swept away into oblivion.
SYAHREDZAN JOHAN is a civil liberties lawyer and political secretary to Iskandar Puteri MP Lim Kit Siang.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
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