A Tale of Two Launches

I think it would be fair to say that every day there's something or other being launched in KL. Sometimes it's a commercial venture, sometimes a book, new movie, album. Or sometimes a new cause and campaign.

Last week there were two of the latter. But they were rather different in the way they came out.

I blogged about the launch of the Charter of Compassion on November 12. On that day, people all over the world witnessed the launch of the Charter and affirmed it. They promised to show compassion to others and to forego any violence towards people different from them. They agreed to live by the Golden Rule 'Do Unto Others as You Would Want Others To Do Unto You".



I went along to the KL launch of the Charter. It was held at the pretty posh PJ Hilton. Unfortunately I noticed straightaway the lack of 'vibe'. You know that feeling of excitement that surrounds something big? I couldn't feel it.

There was a big board up where I dutifully scrawled a message but I took so long about it that I didn't notice that the Guest-of-Honour Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had arrived and was scrawling something beside me. So embarassing!

Anyway on to the launch proper...the event was organised by Yayasan Budi Penyayang, JUST World Trust and the Malaysian InterFaith Network, all worthy organisations. They had the usual speeches and video and children going up onstage with signs that spelt out 'COMPASSION'. I saw several people I knew from various NGOs.

The event actually ended earlier than scheduled so I managed to get back to the office, all the while wondering what was missing from the whole thing. To me, it felt rather flat. Perhaps it was just the launch. In the afternoon there were two panels, one of religious leaders and one of young people. Unfortunately I had to go to a funeral so had to miss them but I was told they went well although by the time the youth panel came on, the room had emptied considerably.

Meantime I was following other Charter launches elsewhere in the world and they all sounded like wonderful inspiring events. Karen Armstrong herself spoke at the one in Washington DC. Elsewhere people held prayers, walks, readings, meditation, blogs for compassion, a coming together of people for one cause. There was even a 'Compassionate Financial Planners' event in Canada!

But in Malaysia, we had an event in a room where people sat passively, watched and listened.

It was only when I went home and looked at the brochure they gave out that I realised what was the problem. The brochure had photographs and small write-ups of various charities. Orphanages, societies for various diseases, for disabled children. All very worthy but it told me one thing: the organisers had equated compassion with charity.

Which it is most decidedly not. Compassion is about being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes and empathise with them. It is not simply about pitying someone or giving them money. It is about genuine and sincere embracing of another to alleviate their pain and suffering. It is most of all about respect for the other, and understanding that they have the same human rights as you do.

It would have been so much better if they had had people get up and say what compassionate act they would do as they affirm the Charter. For example, if someone got up and said that they would ensure that their town was friendlier to disabled people. (As it happened, in an act of non-compassion, the PJ Hilton did not make ramps available for Dr Chandra Mudzaffar, who is in a wheelchair, to get onto the stage. And he's the chair of the Charter for Compassion in Malaysia!). Or if someone said they would tutor orphans facing exams so that they would not be disadvantaged. Or would help transgendered people get jobs. Things like that.

If you go to the Charter website and look up the acts of compassion, you will see many examples big and small that people have pledged to do as part of this movement. Some are just every day acts that they have seen or experienced. Here are some examples:

" My friend Amber's daughter Jessica is dying, she may die anyday. Tonight when I was visiting Jessica in hospital, Amber showed her incredible compassion when she knelt at my feet by Jessica's bed and lovingly cared for my broken foot, an injury so minor compared to her own suffering."

"Last week I met a couple who had recently become parents to an intersex child. I learned from them that their Minister, unable to understand this, had refused to christen the child. I called round and found three ministers who were willing to perform the ceremony and provide pastoral care."

"My friend was a doctor in Zambia working on AIDS. He came home with an idea: link US communities with Zambian caretakers of orphans so the children could go to school. I joined him and others to form Communities without Borders. Now we are providing education for more than 1100 children."

That's what compassion means. Obviously it is something that we Malaysians can also do, if only we truly looked around and saw what was needed. Needed by others, not ourselves.

I read a story in a blog of a teacher here in Malaysia who was faced with a schoolboy who was late to school every day. After several warnings, he had to cane the boy as punishment which the boy submitted to passively. Yet the next day, the boy was late again.

Finally the teacher went to the boy's house and found that he lived in an extremely poor area. He saw him and his mother standing by the roadside waiting. Eventually another boy ran up, promptly took off his school uniform and gave it to the first boy, his brother. It turned out that the family was so poor that the two brothers had to share one set of uniforms.

But what was the teacher's reaction? After crying and hugging the boy, the teacher decided that what he should do was pray, fast, read the Quran and after about six other things which mainly was about himself, he finally came to 'help orphans and those in need'. It didn't seem to occur to him that his very first action should have been to find some way to get a set of uniforms for the boy so that he would not only not have to share with his brother but would also not need to be late for school. Or better still, buy a new set of uniforms for both the brothers because the current one must be worse for wear by now.

That's a lack of compassion. I would put that in the same category as able-bodied people who park in disabled parking spaces because those are nearest the lifts or who abuse their domestic workers by making them clean three houses and six cars and sleep for only 4 hours per night.

So we shall see where the Charter goes in Malaysia.

A day later I attended another launch and this time the atmosphere was completely different. The Bar Council's Constitutional Committee launched a campaign called PerlembagaanKu/MyConsti which was not only a timely one but one that was conducted in a way far different from any BC campaigns thus far. I think it helped that the 99 members of the MyConsti team were young and were not all lawyers because they devised a campaign that was hip and happening, innovative and creative.

Using a fun cartoony logo, they used Facebook and Twitter to tell the public about the campaign. In so doing they managed to viral spread the message and create a buzz. At the same time, they got the mainstream media involved and got more coverage than any other campaign before.

At the launch, there was a real air of excitement. Instead of hiring a professional MC, one of the committee did it himself in perfect and correct Bahasa. Then Edmund Bon, the baby-faced chair of the committee gave a rousing speech about the campaign and why it was necessary. It was the sort of inspiring speech that would have been good at the Charter for Compassion launch too. (Perhaps one should not get politicians to launch these things. Datuk VK Liew, the Deputy Minister in the PM's Department in charge of law, gave a speech that seemed dull and pedestrian compared to Edmund's.)



They showed a video which was funny yet gives the message. And after the launch there was an interesting forum on the Constitution in which five legal experts gave their sometimes differing views. At times hilarious (as when Prof Azmi Sharom said that some politicians took the Constitution as a manual titled 'Governance for Dummies'), the forum was nevertheless informative and inspiring. We realised that we really know so little about the Constitution and that very neglect of it is what allows us all to be manipulated.

So two very worthy causes but two different approaches. Guess which one is likely to have more legs?