COMMENT | Malaysia has a strange and dangerous definition of who constitutes a "youth".
According to Majlis Belia Negara (Youth National Council), a "youth" is one between the ages of 15-40.
Not surprisingly, even Umno Youth allows their office-bearers to serve up to the age of 40.
Now, the United Nations believes that the age cohort of "youth" should be from 15 to 24.
Since the current government of Umno and BN is already leaning on the wrong definition of "youth", due to its large age capture, will Umno and MCA's youth wings always be clueless about what or who is a youth?
Not surprisingly, the most important members of youth who they want to enlist and recruit are those that can cast a vote for them.
After all, there are potentially four million youths who can vote for the first time in the coming 14th general election (GE14), but up to 3.6 million have not registered to vote.
But guess what? BN and Umno are happy to let then languish and lapse in the exercise of their patriotic duties, precisely because BN cannot engage them.
BN and Umno do not want them, period.
Indeed, BN and Umno don't want to encounter them at the polls, as they know the "tsunami" of the youth alone is enough to flip the boat of Umno and BN many times over, both at the federal and state government.
Bersatu is different, as is the opposition front of Pakatan Harapan. We consider "youth" as someone with bold ideas, with the ability to listen and think outside the box.
Rallying youths
In this sense, none of the parties in Harapan, from day one, has had any problem with coalition chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad's age of 93.
What we all wanted to know and achieve together was the degree to which Mahathir (photo) can be the locomotive of rejuvenation.
As things are, he has done it. Even Bersatu Youth, within a year, has recruited more than tens of thousands of youth members.
Why? There is no magic in Bersatu’s approach. Bersatu tells them about the old, insidious practice of corruption that has pervaded throughout the country and cabinet, and that Bersatu and Harapan want the help of the youth to set things right - for the benefit of their own future.
ZF Zamir, writing in The Malaysian Insider, has all the right to wonder why political activist Hishamuddin Rais once called Mahathir a “mahafiraun” (great pharaoh) during the early days of Reformasi, only to now find him a potential saviour of Harapan and Malaysia.
Simple. Mahathir is there to rally young and old across the country, to step up against kleptocracy.
And, going against a government that is corrupt to the core is not a pleasant experience, which is why even Bersatu president Muhyiddin Yassin affirmed that he is not envious of what Mahathir is tasked with, as the latter has a lot to do to cleanse the country again from the ground up.
As for age, why is the ripe old age of Mahathir constantly stressed?
No one seems to pay attention to the fact that he wakes up at 5.30am in the morning, prays his obligatory morning prayer, takes a long brisk power walk, and starts reading his documents, and work, almost from 7.30am till 10pm, occasionally beyond.
Isn't such power and stamina “youth in motion” in Mahathir? And, over the next 14 weeks, Mahathir has signed up to rally the people across the country that includes political luminaries like Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail of PKR, Mohamad Sabu of Amanah and Lim Guan Eng of DAP.
Now, in turn, the young politicians who went into Umno promising hope, such as Khairy Jamaluddin, who as a political rising star was once touted the “most powerful 28-year-old”, have come out from the Umno process all mangled.
What does Khairy (photo) stand for when it comes to helping the youth? Nothing.
He just wants to get the athletes to win as many medals as they can in SEA Games, to give him the gloss of legitimacy.
Otherwise, Khairy, as a president of Umno Youth, has done nothing of substance at all.
In fact, he has mimicked the practice of Umno by picking his deputy as his future successor.
What has happened to democracy and the belief in intellectual competition and ideas in Umno? Khairy, who is now 42, has shown that despite his youth, he cannot change Umno from within.
Indeed, there was once when Shahrir Samad, a prodigy of former deputy prime minister Musa Hitam, was also considered prime ministerial material in the early 1980s. He was barely in his 30s then.
He rebelled once in Umno, and joined the now-defunct Parti Melayu Semangat 46.
But when he rejoined Umno, his whole political career went sideways, and he was merely the chairperson of the BN Backbenchers Club in Parliament, and recently appointed as chairperson of Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd to clean up the alleged corruption and malfeasance of Isa Abdul Samad.
The battle for good governance
The youth are indeed a fountain of hope of any nation. If the youth refrain from being part of the process of change, then it is indeed a great waste.
The youth are not leaders of tomorrow. They are leaders of today who need to be actively involved in the process of change to ensure credible reforms take place.
The youth must take charge and shape their future. Not getting involved in the process is not the prudent way to achieve the desired objectives.
On the contrary, the youth must take serious interest, and participate actively in the process of change for a better nation.
So, getting more youths involved in Malaysian politics, and in time for GE 14, is tremendously important, especially when the battle is between good governance and bad governance, that will help shape the type of democracy Malaysia will have.
Remember, mountains have been moved by the passion and vigour of the youth.
Change can only happen through meaningful participation of the youth.
Withdrawing from the mainstream constructive engagement by not voting or deliberately spoiling votes is not going to help the cause.
In fact by not voting or spoiling the votes casted, one is actually voting for another five years of corruption, plunder, malfeasance and abuse of power by the current regime of Umno and BN that will only further harm the people and the nation profusely.
No youth can afford to do this, especially when it will be their own future that will be harmed. The power is in the hands of the youth. It must be exercised to shape the future.
We can peruse history, and through it, we can understand the context of the events that occurred in the past, and assume positions. This is perfectly all right as one must learn from history so as not to repeat past mistakes.
Hence, one must not just complain about history, as no one has yet invented the time machine to travel back in time to correct mistakes or influence the future. At best, time-travelling machines only exist in Hollywood blockbusters like “Back to the Future”. What is a more credible thing to do is learn from history and shape the future accordingly.
Alternatively, saying that Mahathir has been reborn as a reformist purely because he is now with Harapan is not only invalid but untrue.
Since he joined Umno in 1946, Mahathir has always been in favour of a new and modern Malaysia.
If he has made any policy faux pas, he has apologised sincerely for them in the Bersatu annual general meeting and repeated himself at the recent Pakatan Harapan convention, interestingly at the same very hall in Shah Alam.
And, now, he wants to help the true youths of Malaysia, not the ones captured in the large categories of Majlis Belia Negara or Umno.
Neither are they the ones who say they are youths, when in fact they define themselves as youths to stay on in Umno Youth, MCA Youth, or MIC Youth.
One must also not forget that the prime minister position under Umno and BN is so very different from that under Harapan. While the prime minister position under Umno and BN is so very domineering and powerful, as Umno is so very domineering in the BN, the same cannot be said of Harapan, in which no single party dominates the coalition.
Over and above that, the yet-to-be-unveiled 88 pages of Harapan’s manifesto with its five main thrusts, 10 promises within the first 100 days of Harapan’s administration and 50 promises within the first five years of its tenure, contain very robust inbuilt checks and balances that were gleaned from all the best practices of many advanced democracies of the world.
This surely demonstrates that the “bad” history of Umno and BN will never repeat itself in this beloved nation of ours.
This also further demonstrates Harapan’s serious intention to reinvent Malaysia and truly become a government by the people and for the people through its reforms that emphasise justice, inclusiveness, progressiveness and moderation.
God Save Malaysia.
RAIS HUSSIN is a Supreme Council Member of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu). He also heads the Policy and Strategy Bureau of Bersatu.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
