MARCH 4 — It has been an emotional week for Malaysians in light of recent political events. None of this was what most voters sought, neither was it expected.
It is 2020 and yet Machiavellian politics is still the order of the day.
I am sure I am not the only one tired of intrigue and telenovella-like twists.
One thing I do notice is that those with a hand in the recent political drama are old faces, names that have played a part in our politics for decades.
We are way overdue new blood.
It is unacceptable that our leaders are predominantly of a certain age.
Times have changed — we cannot keep associating age with wisdom as recent events have proved that is not the case.
It seems with Malaysia, we either run in place or run backwards while pretending to move forward.
Not to be ageist but the problem with too many of our senior leaders is how much they lack in imagination.
We need new ideas and fresh approaches, ways of thinking that do not follow what has long been the accepted norm.
I do think we still do need senior leaders, but many of them should be in advisory roles and not in active ones.
It is the young who are still bold, who still dare to dream and who are no longer as naive as we would have been decades ago.
In the old days, being young meant you knew too little and had precious little exposure to pressing issues.
Our young are not as cloistered. There are so many resources available to them now, so much more knowledge and experiences that they have access to unlike their predecessors.
Look at how much of our current global landscape has been shaped by people who were once young and brash enough to ask not just “Why? but “Why not?”
The role that our senior leadership has is really to help, to uplift, to mentor the people who are quite literally our futre.
If they refuse, then, the simple answer is that they need to learn to get out of the way. The young are coming, whether they like it or not and I, for one, look forward to a future not full of living relics.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
