Values.....

Sharing is caring, some people say. Sharing is definitely one good value to hold dear. Here I am sharing what I read recently on values.....

“....Icelanders, still stunned by the collapse of their banks a year ago, chose “honesty” as their chief national value on Saturday at an experimental assembly of politicians and ordinary people to map the island’s future. Some 1,500 Icelanders, from ministers to fishermen, took part in the experiment, dubbed the National Assembly, in an attempt to define their basic values as the country of 320,000 continues to grapple with its worst-ever economic crisis...... Honesty topped the list of Icelandic values that resulted from their conversations, followed by respect, equality, justice, responsibility and compassion.....”

A point to note, Iceland is a country with some similarity to us. Put aside that we are in very different climate zones, Iceland a developed country, Brunei a developing country. In many terms we are in the same bracket as Iceland: population size, high literacy rate, population age structure, high percentage of urban population, life expectancy, similar GDP, the labour force numbers, annual budgets, high mobile and internet users, just to name a few.

Based on this, some people may say it is reasonable to argue, we may come up with similar values if we do the same exercise. But in reality, are we?

Let’s look at another piece of news from a neighbouring country with similar culture to us. This particular survey highlighted what the respondents felt most pressing issues are.

“......Corruption and abuse of power is the most important problem which needs to be solved, a new survey of voters in the country released today showed..... Notably, the kind of graft listed as most serious was petty corruption, with 42 per cent viewing it as “very serious.” This was followed by nepotism (41 per cent), fraud (37 per cent), corruption among politicians (34 per cent), grand corruption (30 per cent) and administrative corruption (24 per cent).....”

Wonder what will be the result if the same survey is done here. Not wanting to speculate on the outcome, if we as a country hold dear to our values, it will not be surprising to see corruption and abuse of power comes well below in the list. May be, just maybe, social problems, welfare, crime and public safety will come higher. But looking at the current situation, I will not be surprised to see “financial woes” comes on top. If I am a betting man and into horses aka lumba kuda, this will be odds on favourite.........


P.S.
Congratulations to my son ..... well done son...