my speech NRC11 Nation Building Series 9 : Sarah Salleh Youth of Leaderonomics

Youth

They say the youth are the future of a nation, which is true  considering the life cycle’s natural progression. It is not meant as a compliment for us, it is a responsibility. Regardless of being heard or not, it is also becoming more apparent that the voices of the youth are becoming louder by the day, regardless of whether its via web, social media or on the streets. We harp about our generation’s supposedly fresh ideas, we fight for our rights at every corner and we jump at every opportunity the world gives us.

We strive to follow the intelligence and the reach of Khairy Jamaluddin and Nik Nazmi, the vision of Wan Firdaus with Young Corporate Malaysians and Dzameer Dzulkifli and Keeran Sivarajah with Teach for Malaysia, and the entrepreneurial success of Khailee Ng and Joel Neoh with Groupon. Yes, they have achieved what some 50-year olds never even dream of  but I think we dwell on their accomplishments too much. We ask others to listen to us as they would listen to these people and we get upset when they do not. At the risk of being scoffed by my peers, I say half of us do not even have half the capacity of our talented companions mentioned earlier, not just yet.

The truth of the matter is that they have gone through what most people have not, they have done what most people do not even think of and they were working on their dreams while the rest of us were in front of the screens playing Xbox or on Facebook (and some of us some still are). It begs the question, are we really mature enough, smart enough and competent enough to demand all sorts of things to be given to us on a silver platter?

Malaysia’s political atmosphere has provided youths an amazing environment for us to be heard and to be involved. Both sides of the political spectrum battle for our votes. In spite of the suspicions of their honesty, we should harness the trust, or at least the impression of trust, that is given to us.

When e-voting was introduced in some campus elections in Malaysia, there was a huge uproar over its reliability and accountability and how it is prone to manipulation. Fine, I don't know whether it was a perfect system or not, I am not going to start arguing about it. Anyway, when one side lost in a certain campus, they shouted “foul play”, but when the same side won in another campus, they shouted “the voices of democracy have been heard”. Is this the level of maturity that we are so proud of? And yet we blindly trust in them to be “fighting” for the rights of the youths.

Do not fret. There is still time and room for growth. There is time, for us to be millionaires. There is time for us to change the life of others. We are at a crossroads. This is the time for us to participate, develop and grow, most importantly grow. There is no harm to listen to the elders, as the Malay saying goes “mereka lebih dahulu makan garam”. We sometimes fail to acknowledge that some things cannot be taught. We sometimes get a bit overzealous of our own worldviews that we ignore the views of our elders who’ve seen it all. We sometimes shut our minds to opposing opinions from others. We grow by listening, learning and experimenting. We should participate, but not decide once-and-for-all. We should think, but not straight away accept. We should grow out of the illusion that we are always right.

After all, we are the future of the nation.