Najib still ‘old school’ in new politics

While cerebally aware of the trends of future leadership, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak seems yet to catch on to its nuances.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has just returned from Sarawak. While there he met with his cyberspace friends – those whom he engages through his Twitter and Facebook.
What did he ask from these people? Najib asked his Facebook friends, especially those who were young, to give him their full support and trust as the nation’s prime minister to deliver a better future for Sarawak.
Saying he was delighted to meet 250 online friends from all over Sarawak for the first time, Najib added that young people should have idealism and expect fair and transparent governance.
Give me your trust and I will do the rest is what, in essence, Najib is saying. What is wrong with this statement?
I suspect Najib is aware of the trends of future leadership. The sources of change and the impetus calling for change are no longer monopolised by old school leadership.
The main characteristic of that kind of leadership is that all changes and innovation come from the top to bottom.
Scholars termed this kind of leadership, the “push-factor” leadership.
In the future it’s no longer that way. One draws parallel, for example, from the dilution of American influence in world geo-politics.
The centre of influence no longer resides solely in Washington. It’s now shared in places like Tokyo, New Delhi and Beijing in addition to its old adversary, Moscow. It’s now a multipolar world.
Similarly, matters that affect the lives of citizens are no longer solely decided by the government of the day.
It is now decided by the people acting in independent groupings or in affiliation with alternative political and social movements.
It’s also a multipolar little world of decision-making centres. The leader now listens to what those governed articulate and talk about.
And after listening to what they talk, Najib asks the people to trust him.
Wrong approach
Now, clearly in a “pull-factor” setting – where the leader listens and in turn configures his actions and behaviour according to what he hears – Najib’s invitation to people to trust him is a wrong approach to take.
The right statement the PM should be making is: “People I trust you and your judgment.”
The way Najib goes about framing his statement reminds me of what Milton Friedman wrote on Kennedy’s inaugural speech.
In the 1962 book on “Capitalism and Freedom”, Friedman wrote: “In his ianugural speech President Kennedy said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.’
“Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society.
“The paternalistic ‘what your country can do for you’ implies that government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man’s belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny.
“The organismic, ‘what you can do for your country’ implies the government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary.
“To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions.
“But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favours and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served.
“He recognises no national goal except as it is the consensus of the goals that the citizens severally serve.
“He recognises no national purpose except as it is the consensus of the purposes for which the citizens severally strive.
“The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.
“He will ask rather ‘What can I and my compatriots do through government’ to help us discharge our individual responsibilities, to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our freedom?
“And he will accompany this question with another: ‘How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect?’”
You will get the same impulses from the soon to be and often quoted passage from Najib: “People, give me your trust….”
The writer is a former Umno state rep. This is an excerpt of a comment which first appeared on his blog sakmongkolak47 blog.