By C C Pung
Justice of Peace
MANY of us were brought up believing that ‘silence is golden’.
I think this maxim is subscribed to among other cultures.
In Chunese, for example, there’s a common retort that goes something like ” nobody will say you’re stupid if you kept your mouth shut’.
Or something similar in English that says”better keep them guessing rather than opening your mouth to confirm that you’re stupid’.
But like many such conventional system, it can be debated.
Silence is good when it deflects quarrels. It’s supposed to be part of emotional intelligence.
Silence is smart when faced with a hooligan or a hard-headed boss.
Silence is to keep your rival guessing, thus retaining an advantage.
But Silence is also a sign of meekness, even cowardice.
Silence is a firearm. You discharge (break the silence) discerningly.
Two examples prompted my thoughts on the wisdom of silence, or the act of leaving things unsaid.
One was PMX Anwar’s decision to back a multi-million project towards the rebuilding of the Gaza Syrip.
The other is the Sabah Electricity trying to rationalise repeated power supply disruption.
Anwar intends to help Gaza in a number of things (schools, housing): that are lacking at home.
But Anwar knows that everybody knows his main motive on Gaza. It’s Islam.
He slammed detractors for not appreciating him doing good as a global citizen for humanity.
I think his best defence against his Gaza moves was silence. He has Malaysians’ respect for being humanitarian.
But the same Malaysians are passed off with dilapidated schools and noticeable povertyat home.
By not shutting up, Anwar is forcing his critics, though sympathetic, to dig in.
Sabah’s power supply problems are old and multi layer.
It’s a story of half measures and broken promises and, in some areas, gross incompetence.
On one side are the consumers with pent-up frustration and still expecting uncorrupted power supply.
On the other is officialdom with an encyclopedia of bona fide laments and excuses.
They should focus on remembering the consumers’ only demand, ie no Interruption.
Work on it. OK, given that Interruption planned or otherwise still can occur because the supply ecosystem is so broken.
But the consumers aren’t interested in your laments or rationalisation.
If Sabah Electricity wants to maintain a conversation with its consumers, show some old fashioned empathy.
Show your men at work and, at the appropriate, show the faces of the otherwise faceless managers and big shots who have gained little in terms of consumers’ faith but a lot on contempt.
Silence but work. And, for goodness sake don’t address the complainants.
Just address the complaints and be aware that they don’t hate you nor love
I once got a response likening Interruption caused by generators downtime to the inevitability of a person getting ill and his life interrupted.
I know I can’t predict my own health. But I can certainly predict when my set of generators is likely to break and therefore keeps a strict maintenance schedule and ensuring the engineers are on top of it.
Its a classic example of someone unwittingly illustrated his gullibility, fondness in giving excuses and gullibility.
My guess is that his engineers told him so.
Silence does have merit. Happy festivals.
Editor: The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of talantang.com
