Chapter 6:  Great Nation, Great Leaders  (Cont’d)

The Orchestra Conductor

The orchestra conductor model is seen beyond the symphony hall, more typically in academia and research institutes. In a roomful of accomplished individuals, you do not have to shout to be heard. You will be heard clearly even when you whisper if you have something important to say. People follow you because they want to, not because they have to. In an orchestra, all the musicians are talented and accomplished. They do not need a conductor to perform; they could do that on their own. Early in the last century, inspired by Marx’s ideals of the classless society, there was a movement towards a conductor-less orchestra. Even in those instances they still needed someone to at least keep the timing.

The conductor brings out the best of his or her musicians so together they could put on a superb performance. He or she serves more than just as a human metronome, rather to bring his (or her) unique interpretation to the composition. The conductor is “above all, … a leader of men,” as noted by Schonberg in his The Great Conductors. “His subjects look to him for guidance. He is at once a father image, the great provider, the fount of inspiration, the Teacher who knows all.”15 The relationship between musicians and conductor is based on mutual respect and understanding. A good conductor makes the orchestra perform beyond what it thinks it is capable. Equally important, an orchestra of able musicians could do better without a conductor than with a bad one.

This leadership is seen in modern hospitals and other complex organizations. My hospital went through a series of temporary CEOs, yet it ran smoothly as we were all professionals. To be effective and perform beyond the ordinary however, a hospital must have effective leadership.

This point in leadership was well understood by President Reagan. He appointed capable and seasoned individuals to his cabinet, and then let them have their way. This was in marked contrast to his immediate predecessor, Jimmy Carter. He too had an equally talented cabinet, but he felt the need to micromanage them. Reagan was reelected; Carter was a one-term president.

I would schematize this leadership model as a series of boxes (the followers) arranged circumferentially around a central hub (the leader), with a series of arrows going both ways between the center and the periphery, as well as between the elements in the periphery. If the military leadership were a pyramid and the coaching style a block with a gentle sloping roof, then a symphony model leadership would be a bicycle wheel.

The communications in an orchestra are intricate; the musicians and conductor depend on each other for feedback. Players in the wind section have to hear and be sensitive to as well as react to the brass section. The conductor serves as the overall guide.

The orchestra musicians are highly talented; they are proud of their skills. Yet there is remarkable absence of power struggle. The first violinist does not aspire or scheme to be the assistant, and later, conductor. She is not sitting by coyly in the wings plotting the downfall of the conductor so she could ascend to the podium. She is content and proud being the first violinist, thank you very much. She may occasionally indulge the conductor into letting her be the soloist. Yet with such seemingly informal structure, the orchestra performs complex operations flawlessly.

This model of leadership is rare in politics. The predictable drama is for the number two (or anyone else for that matter) challenging the leader. Unlike in an orchestra, it is rare in politics to have a team of highly talented individuals, each able to stand on his own. The typical pattern is for the leader to appoint only his supporters and cronies, and they in turn are beholden to the leader.

Nonetheless when we have an orchestra-like political team, the results can be phenomenal. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal team was one.16  In Canada, there was Prime Minister Lester Pearson’s cabinet in the 1960s. Roosevelt proved that government, properly harnessed, could be a force for the betterment of society. He gave hope to a society crushed by the Depression, and later under a very different set of challenges, led his nation to victory in World War II.

Up north, Pearson with his considerable skills as a former diplomat, successfully healed the deep fissure between Canada’s two founding nations—English and French—in time to celebrate its bicentennial in1967 in rousing unity. He convinced Canadians that they would be far better off remaining united instead of splitting. He did it not through military fiat or using the bully pulpit of his office, rather by coaxing and appealing to the best qualities of his people, just as a symphony conductor would of his musicians.17

Pearson’s Bilingual and Bicultural (B&B) Commission was also a rare demonstration on the effective use of committees and commissions. All too often such bodies are used more for avoiding decisions and ducking responsibilities, typically exemplified by Abdullah Badawi’s Royal Commission on the Police.

Leaders like Roosevelt and Pearson assembled a team of highly talented men and women, individuals of strong will and great accomplishments. They were not wallflowers; they spoke their mind freely. Consequently, their cabinets often resembled a team of wild cats, each going their separate ways. To the uninformed they may appear chaotic and disorganized, but the important key was that they accomplished great missions. That in the end is the hallmark of a great leader, and equally, his great team.

Next:  The Holistic Leader

Applying The Malaysian Formula To Iraq

Today’s Iraq faces two monumental problems:  the increasingly violent insurgency and the deepening sectarian strife, both feeding on each other with great devastation.  Iraq reminds me of Malaysia of the 1950s and 60s.

Malaysia then was wrecked by a vicious communists insurgency that among other things successfully ambushed and killed the highest-ranking British colonial officer in the country.  As for inter-communal hostilities, the Malays and Chinese had just had a bout of mutual madness slaughtering each other in the political vacuum that followed the sudden Japanese surrender in World War II.

Yet today Malaysia is an independent nation free of colonial rule and with its ethnically diverse citizens living in relative harmony.  As for the communist insurgency, its leader now living in neighboring Thailand recently petitioned a Malaysian for the right of return.  Imagine a former bandit court now having faith in the court system!

Malaysia’s success was remarkable considering that communism had then successfully penetrated the region.  In Vietnam, America did not prevail despite having superior forces and considerably more resources.

While then Defense Secretary McNamara was obsessed with “body counts” as a measure of the war’s progress, Malaysian commanders were making every effort to ensure that their troops were not being senselessly killed in ambushes or civilians needlessly caught in the crossfire.

Malaysian leaders intuitively knew that for every innocent victim killed or maimed, the whole family, clan and village would then become the enemy.  For every hamlet “destroyed in order to save it,” you would have created an entirely new set of committed foes.  The body count would then become not a measure of progress but perversely, the exact opposite; a figure not to be celebrated but condemned.

More sinister would be the temptation to inflate such figures.  If our troops could be killed in “friendly fire,” how much easier it would be to have the innocents get caught in the crossfire and then be labeled “insurgents.”

The Malaysian “Emergency” was even worse, with Communist China supporting it.  It took the genius of the Malaysian leader at the time, the late Tun Razak, not to treat China as a potential enemy but an ally.  That was a bold step at the height of the Cold War, and long before Nixon saw the wisdom of engaging China.

Ignoring the prevailing wisdom, Tun Razak bravely visited China seeking its leaders’ assurance not to support the insurgency in return for Malaysia recognizing China and initiating diplomatic and trade relations.

Without China’s support, and with Malaysians increasingly fed up with the violence, the insurgency rapidly collapsed.  By not treating China as a potential enemy, it did not become the enemy.  As for trade, China is today Malaysia’s major trading partner.

When I read on the increasing number of insurgents killed in Iraq, I am far from being assured, haunted by the curse of the old “body count.”  Imagine such news being broadcasted in the Arab world, with images of Abu Ghairab as the prop.

Those Islamic terrorists are terrorists first, and Muslims second; they are a threat to all peace-loving people, Muslims and non-Muslims.  Defeating them would require the effort and cooperation of all.  That will not happen until we, the West and the Muslim world, recognize this commonality of purpose.

Today there is widespread misperception in the Muslim world that America’s war on terror is nothing more than a barely concealed assault on Islam itself, the old Crusade resurrected.  There is an equally dangerous misperception in the West that the values and norms of these radicals represent mainstream Islam.

If great wars have been precipitated by misunderstandings of much lesser magnitude, imagine the dangers posed by such monumental misconceptions.

It is just as baffling to the average Westerner that Osama bin Ladin and his ilk remain popular in Pakistan as it is for the Muslim villager to comprehend why the Pat Robertsons command such respect in the White House.  Granted, the evil deeds perpetrated by Osama are in no way comparable to the gaffe of a Pat Robertson, nonetheless the underlying assumptions and mindset differ only in degree, not kind.

When America denies visas to respected Muslims like Tariq Ramadan and Yusuf Islam, it is implicitly treating them, and by inference their followers, as potential enemies.  The slope from potential to real enemy is made steeper with each incident.

America’s war on terror assumes that once a terrorist, always a terrorist, or that the only good terrorist is a dead one, a residuum of the Cold War mentality.  The Malaysian approach was the exact opposite.  It saw immense propaganda value of a captured or surrendered terrorist repenting.

The world too has seen many a terrorist subsequently becoming statesmen, with a few even winning the Nobel Peace Prize!  Those we regard as terrorists today were once our heroes.  We embraced them as freedom fighters in White House ceremonies when the objects of their terror were the Soviets.

America needs the Muslim world to successfully execute the war on terror.  Likewise, the Muslim world needs American help in ridding the extremists within its midst.  This common objective would best be achieved with America and the Islamic world not treating each other as potential enemies.

By Farish A. Noor

At a recent Law Conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Prime Minister Abdullah bluntly told the country’s lawyers that demonstrations and protests about the apparent mismanagement of the country will do little to change things but will only give the ‘wrong impression’ that ‘something is wrong in the country’, and that this will scare away foreign investors. The Malaysian leader was alluding to a recent protest march organized by the country’s lawyers that saw more than two thousand lawyers marching up to the Prime Minister’s office in Putrajaya demanding reform of the judicial process and serious enquiries into the conduct and election of judges in Malaysia. Perhaps the Prime Minister was also alluding to the planned march on November 10^th organized by NGOs like BERSIH which have called for free and fair elections in the country, supported by opposition parties like the Peoples Justice Party (PKR), the Malaysian Islamic party (PAS) and the Democratic Action Party (DAP) of Malaysia as well.

What began as a relatively small event has now grown into what may become a landmark moment in Malaysian history: The march’s organizers aim to gather 100,000 citizens at the Merdeka (Independence) Square of the city and then march on to the national palace to present their petition to the King (Agong) himself, calling for the Monarch to intervene and look into their complaints about the poor governance of the country on issues ranging from corruption to abuse of power by the leaders of the ruling UMNO party and the government. As Latheefa Koya of the People’s Justice Party notes: “BERSIH’s march marks a crucial point in Malaysian history where people from all walks of life, and not just political parties, demand free and fair elections in Malaysia. By doing so they are in fact calling for greater participation in the democratic process”. The King has already signaled that he is prepared to receive the petition, while other rulers such as Perak’s Sultan Azlan Shah have publicly bemoaned the state of the judiciary in Malaysia.

While it is true that Malaysia is not Burma, it is striking to note how intolerant the state is when it comes to popular expressions of the people’s will in the country. Predictably the Malaysian government has reacted to the proposed march on November 10^th with the usual round of threats: Those who attend the demonstration will be regarded as trouble makers and due action will be taken, the government-controlled news agencies have already warned.

In response, the President of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) has called on all members of the party to attend the rally and to swell the numbers of participants instead. According to Hatta Ramli, one of the senior leaders of PAS: “This is to show that the members of the Islamic party are supportive of this move by the Malaysian NGOs to call for free and fair elections. It is going to be a peaceful demonstration, so why the need for such warnings? The Malaysian Human Rights Commission (SUHAKAM) has stated that the Constitution allows for free peaceful assembly, so we are merely exercising our right to demonstrate our concerns about the conduct of elections in Malaysia. This is the expression of popular democracy, of the people’s will and our intention to see that we have clean elections in Malaysia.”

Nor are the march’s organizers fazed by the threats of reprisals. According to Raja Petra Kamarudin, who runs the country’s most widely-read online news site Malaysia-Today.net, “they (the government) have been issuing such threats for more than a decade now, so why should we worry? They insist that we apply for a police permit but we know that such a permit will be refused anyway. In some cases in the past permits were given but then withdrawn at the last minute, so this time we merely informed the police that we will be having the march and we will go ahead.”

The Malaysian government is worried that such a public display of dismay over the government’s record will focus attention on Malaysia in a negative way. Instead it has tried its best to spin the story of Malaysia’s successes one by one, the latest being the achievements of the country’s first astronaut who was sent to space on board a Russian rocket to dock with the International Space Station in orbit. But special effects and cosmic stunts have not altered the realities on the ground where Malaysian politics remains dominated by news of scandals involving corrupt policemen, politicians being accused of manipulating the judiciary, and alleged links between the government, police and underworld mafia triads and gang bosses. One of the latest revelations involved the corruption behind the Port Kelang Free Trade Zone project, where operating costs and overheads have skyrocketed from 1.8 to 4.2 Billion Ringgit (RM), leaving ordinary Malaysians shocked and stumped on how such projects can lead to such large kickbacks for so many well-connected individuals. What is more, all of this is happening under the eyes of the Badawi government, which came to power four years ago on the promise of ridding the country of corruption once and for all.

As the crucial date of November 10^th gets closer, the machinery of the state along with its security apparatus will undoubtedly be cracked up to demonize the protestors and to prevent the march from happening. Prime Minister Abdullah may lament the occasion as it sends out the clear message that the people are fed up with his lackluster performance thus far, but it will hardly be the reason why foreign investors are leaving Malaysia. Indeed, if anything were to restore the faith of others in the country, it would be the freedom to demonstrate openly and peacefully without threat of violence from the state.

No, if foreign investors are giving up on Malaysia is has more to do with the plethora of corruption cases involving members of the police, the routine abuse of power by the elite, and the deplorable reputation of the Malaysian judiciary and civil service at present. And the responsibility for these failures lie not in the hands of the Malaysian people, but in the government itself – headed by none other than Abdullah himself.

End.

Dr. Farish A Noor is a political scientist and historian at the Zentrum Moderner Orient and guest Professor at Sunan Kalijaga Islamic University, Jogjakarta. He is also one of the founders of the research site www.othermalaysia.org.