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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Signing off for the niceties of colonial masters, obedient servants, wives ...





Marina Mahathir, daughter of Mahathir MohamadImage via Wikipedia

Musings By Marina Mahathir

Civil servants, when writing to others, sign off with the phrase declaring themselves as servants of the people, their real masters in theory.

THE penny dropped for me the other night. It suddenly dawned on me that the ubiquitous sign-off “Saya yang menurut perintah” on government letters was in fact a translation of that quaint colonial bit of politesse, “Your obedient servant”.

While the latter may not have been meant at all sincerely (Humphrey the smarmy Chief Secretary in Yes Prime Minister comes to mind), still I find it fascinating that while we have studiously imitated all the administrative niceties of our former colonial masters, we have managed to go our own way on this little courtesy.

You see, “Saya yang menurut perintah” literally means, “I who obey orders”. This is not quite the same as “Your obedient servant” that should be translated as “Pembantu setia anda” or perhaps, more accurately, given the way we treat our helpers these days, “Hamba abdi setia anda”.

Not only are the words lost in translation, so is the sentiment behind them.

The English version, used by civil servants when writing to others, is meant to convey that they are servants of the people.

As I said, this may not be meant sincerely at all but, as the Brits would have it, correct form is everything.
Our version however begs the question: whose orders are you obedient to? Ostensibly, these should be orders by the government of the day and by extension, the people who voted them in.

We also pay the taxes that make the salaries of civil servants possible. And at over one million of them, that’s a lot of taxes.

But we all know that obeying their real masters, that is, us, is not really our civil service’s calling. So whose orders are they obeying?

It’s a valid question when you see so many cases where the people’s concerns seem to be dismissed in favour of, well, who knows?

For example, why are the residents of Gebeng’s worries about the Lynas rare earth plant hardly entertained? How is it, when we are supposed to become ever more developed, we are expected to hold ourselves to lower safety standards than Austra­lians?

When civil servants make life difficult for the people, what is that obedience for?

I read a sad story about someone who, finally, after years of trying, gave up staying in this country, where he was born and bred, because the family could not get their utilities fixed.



It might seem small but these are public amenities our taxes pay for, and we should not have to beg for them to be fixed. Why don’t we simply call ourselves a Third World country so that our expectations are not too high?

The other day I met someone who was so tired of trying to jump through the bureaucratic hoops trying to get his proposal approved that he went overseas to try and sell it. And did so with far less aggravation.

I can’t say whether his project has any merit, but I can understand his agitation at not being able to discuss facts and figures, merits and demerits without being passed from one clueless person to another.

So perhaps our bureaucracy ought to have a far more honest sign-off from now on. How about “Saya yang akan melambatkan (I who will slow things down)”?

Talking about obedience, every paper’s been abuzz about this obedient wives’ club this week. Talk about anachronistic; nobody has pushed this type of archaic concept since at least the 50s.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry to read of women degrading themselves like this, blaming everything on their own sex’s supposed inability to keep their men.

Life’s miseries are attributed to women smelling less than fragrant! Wow, who would have thought of that!

Not long ago, a male politician said the best Muslim wife is the one who would drop everything, undoubtedly even feeding the baby, every time hubby wants some nooky. He should be the patron saint of the OWC (Obedient Wives Club) .

It does strike me as interesting that the guys who like to say these things are rarely the sort women would generally drop everything for. Do you think George Clooney ever has to even think about this?

I actually propose another club we women should join. It’s the Good Husband and Father Fan Club. Like any fan club, members will extol the virtues of the good husbands and fathers they know.

Hubbies who help at home and who do homework with their kids, for example, would qualify. If they are clean and smell nice, they would get lots of bonus points.

Each month there could be a Hubby and Father of the Month, and they would all compete for Hubby and Father of the Year.

And yes, their prowess in bed would also be a consideration.

3 comments:

righways said...

Malaysia's administration systems and its civil servants' mentality are still in British colonial period despite 55 years of the so called independence from British. Looks like it is fixed never learn never change!

Related post on "Malaysia Obedient Wives Club (OWC) to offer sex lessons:
http://right-waystan.blogspot.com/2011/06/wives-to-learn-from-obedient-wives-club.html

Anonymous said...

The public should understand what it means to be working in the government service. First of all, there are 1.2 million government servants in the whole of Malaysia, each officer with his or her own way of thinking and with his or her own attitude. Second, except for the highest management closest to the politicians, the rest are answerable to their immediate boss. When they talk about teamwork, what they really mean is full cooperation with the highest management plus the politicians without any questions asked. When they say rakyat didahulukan, pencapaian diutamakan, it means how the ruling politicians want to dahulukan the rakyat and what pencapaian they want. You cannot be doing things on your own or else you will only be frustrating the government's plans. There is an organization chart and if you look at this chart, you will find that no where in this chart is the public involved. Therefore the government servants are what they are supposed to be. Servants to the government. But the people go to vote. Once they change the government, the other government that comes in will have its' own system of management. But the government officer will still have to listen to his immediate superior. So it depends on the ruling politicians. The system in Malaysia is sometimes can, sometimes cannot. It is not a smooth system. Think. If things have been so good, you should have the most efficient. Till today, you still have to wait. Till today, you still can use the backdoor. Till today, you still have to know somebody. It is still a crooked system. Full of suspicions. Full of deceit.

rightways said...

The government systems should be decolonized!