Seek to effect positive changes

Feb. 22, 2012 |
Written by Dr. A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Guam Pacific Daily News

This column is the last of my bi-weekly postings to the Pacific Daily News. I am moving on to another project. I thank the PDN for having provided me with the opportunity to offer my thoughts in this space since 1999. Those who read my columns have said they always learn something. I consider that the highest praise and will look forward to occasional submissions to the PDN in the future that will elicit, I hope, that same reaction.

To the people of Guam, I thank you for sticking with me as my writing in the last year or so has focused increasingly on Cambodia, the country of my birth. I appreciate what a reader from Guam wrote not long ago, that my writing on Cambodia also provides lessons for others, particularly those who reside in developing nation-states. That's what comparative studies are about.

Last week, my 12-year-old grandson -- the seventh-grader who read "The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror" and told me I might benefit from reading it -- showed me a slide show he made on events in the United States and in Cambodia. I was impressed by the young boy's comparative analysis skills.

On a photo showing "Occupy" protesters in America claiming, "We are 99%. We will no longer remain silent," my grandson writes, "In America, ... people complain about their problems, and woes." On the next photo showing a Cambodian riot police officer kicking a yellow-robed Buddhist monk whose legs were off the ground and whose robe was flying in the air, my grandson writes, "In Cambodia, ... they try." Photos of police tackling protesters follow.

Then comes a photo of the U.S. Unemployment Insurance Office, with the writing, "In America, ... the minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, and the unemployed receive benefits." Immediately following are photos of Cambodian children and adults scavenging the dump for food.

"In America, ... Leaders fight over how much to give the poor," reads his inscription on a photo of the presidential candidates in 2012. "In Cambodia, ... They fight over how much to take from the poor." "In America, ... You are free," an inscription on another photo reads. "In Cambodia, ... You are barely free to breathe."

The last photo of the slide show offers Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi's well-known statement, "You are the change you want to see in the world."

The slide show inspired me. It revived my teaching about the importance of quality thinking, and awakened me to the reality that the great numbers of people in my native land who are barely literate have a very long way to travel before they can change their society -- or even understand enough to want to change...

If "we get the government we deserve," we all must accept that it is our action -- our votes -- or our inaction -- through our comfort with our "zone of indifference" or "zone of tolerance" -- that bring those in the leadership to power to rule over us, term after term.

Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, who asserted the "self-evident truths" of man's "unalienable rights" to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is credited to have said, "We deserve the government we elected."

For years, in and outside the classrooms, and even in the Cambodian jungle, I inculcated in my students and told people I knew not to think of "politics" as the domain of government and politicians.

I recited what an educator wrote in an introductory to a political science textbook: "(Politics is) part and parcel of nearly all human interactions," and, "Between the cradle and the grave, we live our lives in the midst of politics." This means that from the time we are born until we are many feet under, politics affects us all. It is better to be prepared, to tackle politics before it tackles and overwhelms us.

Characteristically, politics includes two major elements: the making of a common (uniform) decision that applies in the same way to all members (a decision for the whole group and that affects everyone, active or inactive, in the group); and the use of power (authority) by one person or a group of people to affect the behavior of another person or group of people.

Politics exists in all groups of people in society -- family politics, school politics, office politics and pagoda politics, among others. In simple terms, political activity involves a person's relationships with groups (a family, school, company, pagoda, community, state) in regards to policies made for the whole group, and the exercise of power by some to affect the group.

Politics affects you and me, whether we like it or not. Thus, it is fruitful for us to be prepared and be involved in what will most likely affect us, to change its course if need be.

Here's a philosophy worth examining. There are two kinds of problems before us: those that can be solved, and those that seem to defy resolution.

Those problems that we can affect or solve -- vote in new leaders to replace those we don't like, for example -- we owe it to ourselves and our communities to act upon.

To deal with those problems that are beyond our capacity to change, we must call upon our creative and positive coping skills. We can't change our neighbors, but we can change our perspectives and develop ways to deal with them intelligently.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.