How about abolishing women’s wings in political parties?

 

I’ve been hearing the sound of half our population, our womenfolk, waking up and agitating for some changes.

Perhaps international reports, such as those on the Taliban in Afghanistan taking girls out of schools to focus on housework and breeding, may have stirred something in them. Or that so many countries are now being so ably led by women. Whatever it is, more power to them.

At the recent Barisan Nasional women’s wing conference, they demanded, among other matters, a special university for women. That seems to be happening, and I’ve taken the liberty to name it the Women Institute of Technology, Careers and Housework. You’re welcome!

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They want a 30% quota of parliamentary seats too. Now 30% is a time-honoured Malaysian quota, which requires a special affirmative action programme, probably called the New Empowerment Policy (NEP) to help them reach this target, which of course guarantees they’ll never reach it.

They also want a women-only bank. Here, and you can thank me later too, I’ve tentatively named it the Women Financial House, or WFH. Women can now honestly answer the question of where they expect to get money by saying WFH!

But what about asking for something even more radical – abolishing the women’s wing in Malaysian politics altogether?

The existence of such wings suggests political parties are primarily for men, with some concessions made for women, an oh-OK-if-you-must-really-have-it gesture. It’s almost as bad as having a youth wing.

Or perhaps not. Youth wings of political parties are worse. They’re there to mindlessly take up whatever silly fights the main wings have declared, and leave all the thinking to the adults.

In our society, young people are expected to keep a respectful distance behind the adults, show daring and courage (but not brains) and be patient as they wait for their place at the main table.

This is silly. In other spheres of human achievements, the young are at the vanguard, whereas in Malaysian politics it’s a bunch of geriatrics monopolising the job of running the country to the ground, while the young enjoy the occasional scraps thrown at them.

The world doesn’t quite work that way. Einstein was 25 when he gave the world E=MC2. He was barely in his mid-thirties when he crowned it all with his Theory of General Relativity that gave the world black holes.

Other youthful examples: the late Steve Jobs, Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai.

While the old are supposed to have experience and wisdom, often these “assets” are just war-weariness, excessive caution and fear of change, or more likely fear of losing privileges their age has earned them.

Age and gender have a disproportionate importance in our society. While many may wish to appear younger (especially those who’ve too much of everything, including years of living), there are many in our society who also want to appear older.

This is especially true in the kampungs. Kampung youths try to appear older because society there respects older people more than younger people.

On a related matter, I support the women wing’s desire that the constitution be amended so that women have the same rights as men when it comes to citizenship of the children they gave birth to while outside of Malaysia.

It’s funny isn’t it: a child born abroad to a woman whose husband is a Malaysian is automatically a Malaysian citizen – but a paternity test may not actually show that the child is an offspring of the father!

Yet any child born of a woman is clearly an offspring of the woman – no maternity test necessary. (Well, there’s the matter of test-tube babies, but if they’re willing to go to all that trouble…)

While we’re at it, I’d like to propose some constitutional amendments of my own. Here goes…

Nobody over 50 can become a prime minister or cabinet or state minister. Beyond that age they would have been so soiled by politics that they would have probably lost the ideals or principles they may have started out with.

And if they are already in office at the time, they must retire at 60, or whatever is the official age of retirement for the country.

The same age rule should apply to the senior civil service positions of director-general and secretary-general. If civil servants didn’t reach such a position by that age, they should be compensated if they wish to leave and try their luck out there in the “real” world.

Let the government’s loss be the private sector’s gain.

The government would benefit by having people with energy and idealism undiminished by decades of turf battles, and the business sector would gain some with wisdom and experience.

A common argument is that society would lose the experience, knowledge and wisdom of these people. My answer is we’re opening a two-way traffic between the public and private sectors, which should benefit the country immensely.

These “highly experienced” people are clueless about so much to do with todays’ world, be it about business, technology, the environment or the world. I wouldn’t trust our country’s digitalisation agenda to them for example, even if they actually could spell digitalisation!

I have daughters who wouldn’t want to be in the women’s wing of any political party, should they ever, God forbid, enter politics.

They’d want to be kicking ass in the main wing. Whatever they lack in wisdom they’d make up with energy, passion and an understanding of how today’s world functions.

I know these rules would mean I’d never make it to the heights of politics here. But I probably wouldn’t want to live in a country run by somebody like me, and neither should you!

Let the old folk who would have to make way for the young join me in happy retirement, writing sarcastic, sanctimonious missives against the world while enjoying our teh tarik. It’s a lot of fun! - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.