Reviving our winning ways

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Reflecting On The Law By Shad Saleem Faruqi

 As a nation, we will be celebrating our 54 years of independence. But, regrettably, the enslavement of our mind still continues despite the colonizer having long gone back home.

HARI Raya is approaching and so is National Day. It is time to seek solace in prayer and renew our resolve to overcome some persistent problems that are straining the social fabric.

Among these are the deterioration of inter-ethnic relations and the ascendancy of some shrill voices of discord that trumpet all that divides us as well as trivialise much that unites us.

However, on a positive note, this is the season to count our blessings, which indeed are many.

First, is the area of constitutionalism.

Though the cup is not full to the brim, it is not empty.There is enough in it to relish, cherish, protect and preserve.

The Constitution has survived the vicissitudes of race and religious politics. Despite many political and economic crises that could have torn other societies asunder, our Constitution has endured.

It has provided a firm foundation for political stability, social harmony and economic prosperity.

Second is the wondrous durabi-lity of political cooperation among the country’s racial and religious groups.

The coalition of 14 disparate political parties under a sometimes shaky, but nevertheless enduring, political alliance is perhaps the world’s longest surviving political arrangement.

In 1955, two years before Merdeka, it was built on a spirit of accommodation, a moderation of spirit, an absence of the kind of passions, zeal and ideological convictions that in other plural societies have left a heritage of bitterness and violence.

A similar rainbow coalition is emerging on the other side of the political fence and this raises hope for the eventual emergence of issue-based rather than race-based politics.

Third is the success of our economy and development plans.

These have positive implications for the realisation of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Consti­tution and for the success of socially ameliorative programmes.

Fourth, Malaysia has successfully used the economy to unite its disparate racial groups.

By encouraging entrepreneurship and tapping the genius of the minority communities to supply leadership on the economic front, the Government achieved twin objectives. It succeeded in developing the country and also gave every community a stake in the nation.

The fifth sterling achievement is that despite periodic tensions and racist and religious rhetoric, the country’s enduring and endearing inter-ethnic harmony has few parallels in the world.

Instead of creating a melting pot, Malaysia painstakingly weaved a rich cultural mosaic and an extraordinarily multi-faceted society.

The sixth outstanding feature of Malaysia is the peaceful and cooperative manner in which social engineering is being accomplished.

Unlike some other societies with a similar problem of identification of race with economic function and the concentration of wealth in the hands of powerful minorities, the Government did not expropriate the wealth of one community to bestow it on another.

It embarked on a pragmatic expansion of opportunities to give to every community its share of the economic pie.

Many aspects of this policy of social engineering have succeeded, though there is much scope for improvement.

A seventh remarkable feature of the country is the emancipation of women.

In the work place, in schools and in universities, women are easily outnumbering men.

In the professions, they are making their mark and increasingly moving into leadership positions.

Recently, the Constitution was amended to outlaw gender discrimination in the public sector.

Eighth, Malaysia is an exemplar of a moderate and progressive society that embraces modernity and democracy and yet accommodates the spiritual view of life.

The imperatives of modernity and the aspirations of religion mingle together.

This not to deny, however, that there are strong cross-currents of obscurantism in the last two decades that are posing a challenge to social harmony.

Ninth, Malaysia has successfully kept the armed forces under civilian control.

There has been no attempted coup d’etat and no “stern warnings” from military generals to the political executive.

Even in 1969, when law and order broke down in the Klang Valley, the National Operations Council was headed by Deputy Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak who called the shots with the army and police representatives in attendance.

Another remarkable phenomenon is that the extra-constitutional military-industrial complex, that behind the scenes dictates policy in many democratic countries like the US, has not been able to displace civilian control over military and industrial decisions in Malaysia.

Tenth, Malaysia has successfully used education as a tool of social engineering and upward social mobility.
Primary and secondary education is free and open to all irrespective of race or religion. Tertiary education is highly subsidised.

Though the Government is unable to meet the aspirations of all who seek higher education, the opportunities for upward mobility through higher education are exhilarating.



However, how far our tertiary educational system emancipates us from servile dependence on and mental slavery to Western education is another question.

As we celebrate National Day it must be remembered that the stains of cultural and intellectual imperialism do not end with the attainment of political freedom.

Freedom is a state of the mind and, regrettably, the enslavement of our mind still continues long after the coloniser had gone back home.

Most of our universities blindly ape European curricula and European paradigms.

We ignore the knowledge systems and traditions of the East.

Our books, syllabi and intellectual icons are mostly from the West. Our list of experts, external examiners and guest speakers are mostly European.

Towering personalities of our own region are shunned. Decades have passed, but our servile minds have not woken up to the damage done to our psyche.

While parochialism and narrow chauvinism are not called for, we have to take pride in our own heritage and draw sustenance from it before supplementing it with wisdom from elsewhere.

Nevertheless, as the commemoration day of our independence draws nigh, we must count our many blessings.

There is much in Malaysia’s struggles and successes that is worthy of emulation by friends and foes alike.

This is not to say that we should be complacent. As we celebrate 54 years of independence, our laws and institutions, our values and our views cannot remain impervious to the changes and challenges all around us.

In the realm of law and politics, there are always new challenges and opportunities that beckon the human spirit.

> Shad Saleem Faruqi is Emeritus Professor of Law at UiTM and Visiting Professor at USM. 

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The true meaning of independence 
Malaysia still in pursuit of full independence 

3 Powerful Skills You Must Have to Succeed in Sales

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by Sharon Michaels

A key to successfully sharing and selling a product, service or idea, is to ask questions and then listen quietly and carefully to the answers. Many of us try too hard to convince people to buy instead of discovering what our future customer or client really wants, needs and desires from us.

To succeed in sales remember these three listening and relationship building skills:

S – Sincerity – Listen without an agenda, it’s not about your needs.

E – Ethics – Don’t try to talk someone into something, listen to what they want.

A – Asking – Serve others by asking questions that will assist them in making a wise buying decision.



Building win-win relationships means remembering that it is not about what we want but what the other person wants. Here are three relationship building skills that when used regularly will have you increasing sales and creating satisfied loyal customers.

1. Listening sincerely and without an agenda. The buying process is not about you and your wants and needs, it is about the customer. Too many of us come to the sales table with our own agenda. We are sometimes too busy thinking about quotas, promotions and commissions. It’s not about us, it’s about the wants, needs and expectations of the prospective buyer.

A sales person with an agenda tends to push too hard and often doesn’t listen well. Leave your agenda at home. Sincerely focus on your customer and how your product can best serve their hopes, dreams and goals. Zig Ziglar said it best, “You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people what they want.”

2. Don’t talk someone into something, allow them to make their own buying decision. Doing what is right for everyone involved is the ethical thing to do. I’m reminded of a phrase from Dale Carnegie’s book, How To Win Friends and Influence People, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

Your role in the sales process is to present your product in a clear, concise and truthful manner—with integrity. The best customer is the customer who can make an educated decision based on what is best for them. A loyal customer is an educated customer. You are not in the convincing business, you are in the sharing business. Your job is to ethically offer the product, service or idea, explain the benefits and answer questions. Your customer or client will then make a buying decision based on the information they’ve been given. Making the sale is about asking questions, answering questions and building a trustworthy win-win relationship.

3. You can serve your client/customer best by finding out what they want, need and expect from what you are offering. Sometimes, we are so excited to share everything we know about what we’re offering that we forget it is about your potential customer’s expectations. What is important to you may not be important to them.

I’m reminded of a story: A young mother just starting out with a large network marketing company was excited and eager to share her business with other stay-at-home mothers. She was having coffee with a potential recruit as their children played near by. The young mother was eagerly showing her products and explaining the business potential. She went on and on about how she could stay home with her children and didn’t have to leave the house to conduct business.

The mother who was listening seemed to suddenly turn off her interest and attention. When our eager young network marketing mother asked her friend to join her in the business, the friend replied with a resounding, “No,” The business-building mother was shocked and saddened, “Why?” she asked. “Because,” her friend said, “I want to be able to do something that allows me to get out of the house and socialize with other adults.”

Moral of the story: Ask questions and listen. Don’t assume that what is important to you is important to your future customers.

Successful selling isn’t about what you want, it is about how can you best serve the needs of your customers and clients. Coming from a sincere place of service, will help increase sales and develop loyal client and referral base.

Keeping the three elements of SEA (Sincerity, Ethics, Asking) in mind, you can easily and effortlessly find new customers and clients who will want to do business with you now and in the future. Selling your service, product or idea is about doing the right thing for everyone involved – it is about building win-win relationships.


Sharon Michaels is a business coach and the author of How to Give Yourself the Power to Succeed. She produces and hosts the weekly radio show, Women Enjoying Success and the blog Power to Succeed. Check out her weekly Ezine, Unlimited Success for Women. 

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A neighbour underestimated

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Ceritalah by KARIM RASLAN

The buoyant statistics coming out of East Kalimantan underline the extent to which the once-poor neighbour has eclipsed Sabah. And until Sabahans can exorcise their ghosts, Indonesia will remain an untapped mirage.
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WE are living in an age of tremendous financial turmoil. Currency and equity market gyrations have dramatically altered relations between nations and entire regions. Indeed, the decline of US and European competitiveness and the attendant acceleration of Chinese wealth have been the most note-worthy developments.

What is less well-documented is the fact that these trends have also led to significant changes within South-East Asia with China’s (and India’s) hunger for natural resources driving prices ever higher.
This is most apparent on the island of Borneo.

In 2010, the GDP per capita in Sabah was RM8,450. By way of comparison, the GDP per capita in the neighbouring Indonesian province of East Kalimantan (or Kaltim) was over US$4,000 (RM12,000).



While the Kaltim statistics are inflated by skyrocketing coal, as well as oil and gas prices, the reality shows a marked increase in living standards for the province’s 3.2 million people.

In fact, Kaltim’s booming economy is also contributing to Sabah’s shortage of labour for the plantation sector.

Meanwhile, decentralisation initiatives (dubbed regional autonomy) meant that a greater proportion of the natural resource bounty was being retained locally.

Kaltim is Indonesia’s largest producer of both coal and oil/gas. At the same time there are plans to increase palm oil planting to well over 1.5 million hectares.

Balikpapan – the premier commercial hub with a population over 600,000 – is also a major transport and services hub.

The city’s Sepinggan airport (with over five million passengers a year) is Indonesia’s fourth busiest.

The buoyant statistics coming out of Kaltim underline the extent to which the once-poor neighbour has eclipsed Sabah and indeed Malaysia.

This is all the more ironic given the fact that for many decades Sabahans have felt imperilled by what they’ve perceived as waves of “desperately poor” Indonesians and Filipinos pressing at their borders.

Indeed, the control (or lack of it) of migrant workers has been an enormously controversial issue in Kota Kinabalu.

Sabah’s exponential population growth – most notably in the 1980s when naturalisation policies (covert or otherwise) were at their most pronounced – witnessed a dramatic increase from 929,992 in 1980 to 1,734,685 in 1990.

Indeed, it is arguable that Sabahans have been traumatised by the massive influx of illegals.

The state’s indigenous communities have seen their demographic and political leadership whittled away.
Unsurprisingly, they are deeply suspicious of Indonesians and Filipinos.

All this has made it difficult for Sabah to leverage Indonesia’s current prosperity despite the state’s strategic location.

Sabah has very poor connectivity with Kaltim, so much so that even the lengthy land border lacks formal road crossings.

Still, Indonesians – including Awang Faroek, Kaltim’s Governor – are lobbying hard for a link at Serudong along the Tawau/Kota Kinabalu road.

In the absence of an overland crossing, hundreds of thousands of Indonesian workers in Sabah have been forced to travel by ferry through Tawau’s meagre and unimpressive port facilities.

By way of comparison, the Entikong crossing between Sarawak and West Kalimantan has become a major thoroughfare with countless buses plying the route linking Pontianak and Kuching.

Moreover, it is estimated that some 3,000 Indonesian students are currently studying in Kuching’s many private educational institutions.

At the same time, direct flights (on local carrier, Kalstar) linking the two cities have further enhanced connectivity and opportunities for businessmen on both sides of the border.

Kota Kinabalu and Balikpapan are like step-sisters. A journey between the two cities requires an awkward and time-consuming detour through either Kuala Lumpur, Singapore or Jakarta.

The alternative is the nerve-wracking ferry from Tawau to either Nunukan or Tarakan ... neither of which are particularly attractive for tourists or business travellers.

But Kota Kinabalu remains a superb destination.

With its waterfront lifestyle, schools, hospitals and international flights, the city is poised to become a popular hub for Indonesians – from as far away as Banjarmasin, Makassar, Samarinda and Manado.

It is worth noting that all four cities are beneficiaries of the natural resources boom and growing faster than the national average.

Indeed, other Malaysian cities such as Penang and Malacca have become adept at tapping the Indonesian demand for healthcare, education, housing and retail.

It remains to be seen whether the socio-political trauma of past decades could be overcome to allow Sabah to maximise these opportunities.

However, thankfully, some of Sabah’s leaders are beginning to recognise their neighbour’s vast potential.

Flamboyant former chief minister Datuk Harris Salleh has been a major promoter of the cross-Borneo linkages.

Last year, he undertook a highly publicised tour across Indonesian Kalimantan.

Similar sentiments are raised by Sabah Economic Development and Investment Authority CEO Yaakub Johari who confidently said: “History aside, we see Sabah acting as a conduit between an expanding Indonesia and the dynamic Northeast Asian markets.

“Enhanced connectivity whether by land, air or sea is a must.”

Until Sabah and Sabahans can exorcise their ghosts, Indonesia will remain an untapped mirage.