quality of a party worthy of supremacy

A product must be of certain level of quality to be able to command a premium pricing. While quality itself is subjective, benchmarking will enable subjective matters be made objective and considering other competing products’ attributes, one can ascertain quality level of a product to a reasonable level of confidence. Effort can then be directed towards perfecting the product to beat competition. Perceived values are responsible for a product to be sought after. Values generally refer to functional value and aesthetic value. Functional value is the primary function of a product. A policemen’s truncheon or baton must be able to perform its primary or main function of knocking someone head senseless with. If the “copper” cannot use his baton to clobber someone, the weapon is said to be failing to perform its primary function. It then has no value. Having been able to be used to bash someone alone is not good enough. The weapon must have other values such as aesthetically pleasant enough to make a cop wants to own it. To make it more appealing, it has to be shiny yet sufficiently provocative to scare a potential demonstrator from staging a candlelight vigil while singing the national anthem. These secondary values must be able to entice intended user or buyer to wanting to own it and more so as far as a sadistic law enforcer is concerned as he cannot wait to break this Hindraf Makkal Sakhti dissent. A political party is comparable to any product in the market. A good quality political party must perform its primary function of helping the people and for those who are real “user” will look at other “aesthetic” functions such as sound constitution, noble causes and objectives, leaders’ charisma and members’ conduct as secondary values that a progressive party must have. Looking from viewpoint of value, one is able to see the kind of political party that appeal to the masses. Understanding values will enable one to look at a party he belongs to and help in restructuring his party to draw support and increase membership. If a political party is ancient, outdated and antediluvian, it will not be long before it meets its end. A political party must have a political will to depart from the past and move with time. UMNO as a political party is no longer able to perform its primary function of helping the people. It attempts to continue to hoodwink people into believing that it has the peoples’ welfare at the top of its agenda whereas in actual fact it just uses the people to legitimise its hold onto power. How about secondary values? These are virtually non-existent. UMNO constitution puts Malay agenda at the pinnacle of its list of major plans. UMNO is simply a racist party based on this agenda alone. It does not comprehend the fact that racial divides that separate the various races and ethnics in Malaysia has collapse. A new era has emerged where there is a genuine understanding and tolerance between these different groups. In other words, political landscape has changed and UMNO failed to understand let alone react to this transformation. This is what happens to the majority of the lower rank UMNO members. The leaders realise this change but as they themselves are the main problems, solving their problems would be at their expense. Members leave in droves. Exodus began in 1998, trickling in numbers henceforth but gained momentum again as the country moves towards the last (March 08) general election. This trend will continue and we will see a demise of once a formidable political party that has people at its heart. It is sad for those who truly subscribe to its ideology and continue to hang onto it but it is sadder still to those who have been betrayed. Nothing is everlasting and so is UMNO in this new world devoid of racial hatred. troubadour Rainy day Thursday, Melbourne! 141108