Let's See: A Report on African Democratizing

By 2003 in the continent of Africa there was sudden wave of election process that was being held by the whole continent as 44 states in the continent have proceeded to hold elections, marking the end of authoritarian regimes in certain states but also brings to a legitimatization to few, it was marked as a success to the western world efforts in its efforts of introducing democracy ideas to the populace of Africa but in certain capacity, Even though most of the 44 countries that have held at least one election are not full democracies, many of them have in recent years been governed by civilian regimes, which in itself represents an important turning point in the political history of Africa

           

Certain states have been on the 4^th cycle of elections while others their 1^st ever elections process, the anticipation of the people of being given the rights to choose a representative of their own and a government of their own is a alien concept to them as they have only known of authoritarian regimes and 1 party system their whole life, however the excitement of finally able to exercise and express their rights as a citizen was overwhelming,

            

In a civil society there are three democratic qualities that is the key of African populace  acceptation of democracy, the first is PARTICIPATION, most African countries have been under authoritarian regimes whereby the concept of freedom of speech, public debate & the rights to form and join civil organization is not known without repercussion from the government and is largely discouraged with caution, the rights to openly assemble to voice concerns publicly is handled by brute force in order to avoid dissent for the government, thus the greater the prevalence of these liberties, the greater the democratic quality of participation in society.

Second, COMPETITION, personal autonomy and economic rights is a rare concept to the populace of Africa as the obscurity of proper employments discouraging the believes of self preservation & dignity, for economics rights is usually owned by the ruling elites and their cronies thus limiting the opportunities of self enrichment, Third, the LEGITIMACY of a democratic government is indicated by such factors as the peaceful coexistence of various social organizations, genuinely free public discourse, and its ability to control violence and provide physical security to peaceful citizens is something that is craved by the populace as a whole in particular.

            

A common misconception among democracy supporters are that opposition groups and parties are always pro-democratic. The dubious character of this assumption is illustrated by the behavior of many African opposition parties, whereby the opposition parties will normally refusing to accept the election result, usually insisting an accusing  on abuse of power by the incumbent and election fraud ,on this particular accusation is particularly a known issue due to irregularities issue by the election committees that is usually elected, tasked, employed & paid by the incumbent, ruling parties or governments thus will not ensure a fully free and fraud free elections ,

            

This shows that democratization by elections may often be a lengthy process, and that many of Africa’s hybrid regimes may in fact be on a slow but steady track to democracy with certain liberties such as freedom of speech and economic opportunities & participation in public programs is being allowed and endorsed by the elected governments or ruling elites, While it may be too early to pass definitive judgments on more long-term social processes such as these, it appears that democratic frameworks for political competition and participation lead to greater levels of acceptance and peaceful transition for broader opportunities and freedom.

            

All human beings are born equal, with equal rights to participate in government. Elections, despite the flaws in the system that is being used as a tool by certain parties to stay in power , it is still the best available mechanism for expressing the right of self-government into the effective governance of a modern and free state .Even countries that at first glance may not seem to possess the necessary preconditions for democratic rule may still benefit from participatory, competitive, and legitimate elections. Such increases in freedoms and rights not only are of fundamental value in themselves, but also serve to propel the forces of democratization,

            

Such elections provide more than just an arena for political contest, it would sometimes give rise to new, independent institutions and often force political actors to adapt at least partly to voter preferences ,But in order for us to conclude that elections do indeed cause improvements in civil liberties, this pattern must apply to a large number of countries as we look at their electoral histories. Any transition, even a faltering one, offers hope for democratization and is better than no transition at all.

Let's Take a Look: Intercultural Marriage

Communication is not only symbolic, it is a process. A process has no beginning or end. It is continuous. All the communicating you have done affects the communication we are engage in right now. Even if we have never met prior to the beginning of this course, all previous communication with other instructors effects our communication method. Communication involves perceptions between parties.

Ethnography is a qualitative research method often used in the social sciences, particularly in anthropology and in sociology. It is often employed for gathering empirical data on human societies/cultures. In this research, Kamariah Sullivan Kadari, a typical village lady who married an American and been living in America for nearly 25 years was choose to be a respondent. Data collection is often done through participant observation, interviews, questionnaires, etc. Here, data are collected through observation. Ethnography aims to describe the nature of those who are studied (i.e. to describe a people, an ethnos) through writing. In the biological sciences, this type of study might be called a "field study" or a "case report," both of which are used as common synonyms for "ethnography"

All cultural patterns have basic components ie beliefs, values and norms. Beliefs are ideas about the world that people assume are true. Values are things that we hold- guide human behavior towards others. Problems occur when we judge others by using our personal set of values as a standard. The term ethnocentrism means believing our way of doing things and of believing is best. Everyone is ethnocentric to some degree, since our culture teaches us what the worlds is really like, we believe that the value of our culture are the best. Thus, we may consider people from other cultures who do things differently is wrong or strange.,

Cultural sensitivity begins with a recognition that there are differences between cultures. In this story between U.S and Malaysia culture, a lot of differences recognized in many aspects. These differences are reflected in the ways that different groups communicate and relate to one another, and they carry over into interactions with health care providers. Cultural sensitivity does not mean, however, that a person need only be aware of the differences to interact effectively with people from other cultures. If health care providers and their patients are to interact effectively, they must move beyond both cultural sensitivity and cultural biases that create barriers. Developing this kind of culturally competent attitude is an ongoing process.

Apprehension is awareness or understanding by something in the mind. In getting a message from source, a receiver will encode a message into his / her mind. Aunt Kamariah practices U.S culture which people express their emotions so diarectly. She believes that it is her responsibility to ‘make people understand’, sometimes pompous when explain and repeat things when in an effort to try to help the listeners. To decode verbal and nonverbal messages, she asks questions, get more information and analyze the situation. Compare to Asian culture, we usually will not express our lack of understanding because in our culture, we won’t let other people to know that we are lack of the information or we don’t want the understanding known to others.

Collectivism is a term used to describe any moral, political, or social outlook, that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivists focus on community and society, and seek to give priority to group rights over individual rights. In this situation, my point is, Aunt Kamariah view in political is very liberal. They is no any specific party that she vote for. According to her, every leader in every party have their own way of lead the country. Nobody of them is perfect to be a leader. Thus, they all need each other and they have to joined each other all the time to conduct the country. This is how she answered when I asked why she never vote in every election held.

Idioms are groups of words that, joined together, differ in meaning from the literal meaning of each separate word. They express subtle meaning in ways not possible through formal language. Idioms sometimes originate from slang, the informal phrases and newly coined words that are not accepted English usage. Slang that "works" for people may eventually become idioms, and may even be incorporated into standard English. After been staying for nearly 25 years in America, idioms that Aunt Kamariah uses that I realized is the words ‘come on beb’ that she really likes to uses in her daily conversations. She uses it often in all situations. This is one of the pure example that she brings from America, the idioms that we in Malaysia are very rarely use the words, especially in her age of fifty over.  

Cultural norms are rules that are socially enforced. In short, norms are a form of conduct. They define what is appropriate in a given culture. Norms are the outward manifestations of beliefs and values. Like values, norms can vary within a culture in terms of their importance and intensity. Here, for example, for Aunt Kamariah, when she says “twelve o’clock sharp”, the key is not to be on time, but in time. That means, punctuality is very important for her. For people in Western Europe descent, time is oriented more towards being ‘on time’ than ‘in time’.

            
Kinesics is study of body language that includes such cues as gestures, head movements, facial expressions, and eye contact. Each culture has its own interpretations of various kinesics behaviors. The body language that she uses is different compare to the typical Malay in Malaysia. A smile in Western culture generally means happiness. Aunt Kamariah always smile to show her happiness, instead of normal Malay that laugh to express the happiness in communication. Gestures signify different meanings in different cultures. The simple gesture of nodding ‘yes’ differ across cultures. Aunt Kamariah’s  head nod for ‘yes’- a ordinary Western style, similar with us.

            
Culture divided into two dimensions by Edward Hall which are low-context culture and high-context culture. In low-context communication, the listeners know very little and must be told practically everything. In high-context communication, the listener is already ‘contexted’ and does not need to be given much background information. For Aunt Kamariah, much of the information are implicit and covert. For instance, she prefer to say “I bet you can feel how cold it is to be in a winter season if you come to my house ‘, rather than use certain words to invite us to come to her house like “ Come to my house this winter, so that you can feel the cold weather”, like most of us prefer. For us, sometimes we feel Aunt Kamariah high-context communication style often appear unexpressive or even dishonest..

            
Different cultures view touching behavior in different ways. In Southeast Asia, people engage in very little touching behavior. We do not ordinarily touch during a conversation especially one between opposite sexes, because many Asian cultures adhere to to norms that forbid public displays of affection and intimacy. Here, I can see Aunt Kamariah’s style in conversation. As stated, the way she brings herself during conversation is different with us. She could easily touch men during conversation without feeling awkward. Cultures vary in terms of their rules as to who touches whom, as well as the settings or occasions in which touch is acceptable.

            
Power distance is the degree to which a culture tolerates inequality in power distribution. In relationships and organizations. High-power distance cultures tend to be authoritarian, with a hierarchical or vertical structure of social relationship. Low power distance cultures are characterized by an emphasize horizontal relationships rather than vertical ones. Differences in age, sex, generations, status, roles are minimizes.

            
Stereotypes influences the way we process information on how we think. A stereotype is a generalization about a group of people and can be positive or negative. When we stereotype, we make assertion about the characteristics of all people who belong to a particular category, without realize that  members of a social group never share a particular characteristic. In this story of Aunt Kamariah, one value that I found stereotype with her, same with other Malay is the use of finger while eating rice. Although been staying for 25 years in America, Aunt kamariah still use finger while eating- one of the most popular habit among all Malay. She told me once that she’s like other Malay that like to use finger instead of spoon and fork.

            
Paralanguage consists of how something is said, not what is said. It included vocal qualifiers (volume, tone), vocal segregates (uhh, umm, shh), and and vocal characteristics ( sobbing, laughing, whispering). Cultural differences exist in each of this. Vocal characteristics and their meaning also differ across culture. For us in Malaysia, saying ‘ya’ means ‘yes’ while other people speaking is common to show agreement to something. But, for Aunt Kamariah, she would wait till the second party finish talking before give any response, because she seeing it rude, as violation of turn-taking cues.

            
As a conclusion, intercultural communication, like all communication, is contextual. A context is a combination of factors- situation, setting, circumstances, the people involved, the relationship of those people, and so on. In short, context is the overall framework within which communication takes place. Everybody become who we are because of stories we listen to with our eyes, ears, and heart. This is true whether we find ourselves in our own culture or one quite different with our own.

            

Let's See: Some Review on the Past GE13

In the recent 13^th Malaysia General Election (GE13), political campaign is very important issue highlighted by parties involved. The objective to win the poll almost impossible to be achieved without political campaign. Parties would do whatever possible to voters’ mind and consequently win the election. Political campaign held by Barisan Nasional is seen as very aggressive as the ruling party would do anything they can to achieve their target.

Barisan Nasional had set their target for the campaign. Obviously, the party wants to maintain ruling the country and to prevent the right from being taken by the opposition. Nobody able to reject the fact - the opposition which is from Pakatan Rakyat gained support from the citizen day by day. The opposition never stop pointing out Barisan Nasional’s fault- in any way which to them not relevant to be implemented. For example the opposition claimed that government service tax that to be implemented by Barisan Nasional is to fulfill their political agenda and make profit up to RM27 billion from there. This has affected the image and reputation of Barisan Nasional and resulting to importance of political campaign by the party during the election.

People would say that the media is owned by Barisan Nasional based on the campaigns held. Before the election, the media played important role in disseminating Barisan Nasional’s agenda in getting support from the citizen. Printed or electronic media were used aggressively every day. For example, via TV and radio news, news regarding Barisan Nasional’s achievement aired at the beginning slot during the prime time, almost every day. In addition, the media also without exception convey negative news related to the opponents.

The message conveyed are mostly highlighted Barisan Nasional's reliability of taking care of citizen’s welfare, and also agenda or plan to develop the country and the people. These are promoted in detailed by the government through various mediums such as special events, road shows and so on. For example, event to launch Bantuan Rakyat 1 Malaysia (BRIM)  was seen as a very effective campaign to win the support from the citizen.

After all the campaigns, Barisan Nasional received all sorts of response from the public. Some consider that the campaigns were quite extreme in terms of use of unfair media in disseminating information. Certain groups think that there was also Barisan Nasional government's target to use media in their campaign. News on BRIM for instance was done purposely before the election to get votes and support and now the news getting lesser published. In this case, there are two groups of public which are those giving support to Barisan Nasional after all of the campaign, and also the other group, who changed their mind to support the opponents because they feel there was unfair implemented in the campaign.

Let's Investigate: Communication Problems that need to be identified as a Preparation to Response to a Crisis

  The first one is communication problem in the crisis communication team. The public relations executive must have crisis communication expertise so that he or she will know what to do when communication problem occurs in the team, among the members. This stage is very important. For example, the team should be working together sufficiently and cannot have any problem because this can lead to the failure of getting conformity to resolve upcoming problem.

 The second one is communication problem of the spokesperson. Spokesperson in the crisis communication team must have the ability to communicate well and ensure message conveyed is complete and useful to resolve the problem. He or she will be the only person to speak when crisis happened so, must be trained in advance to be a good speaker and able to ‘stand up’ during the crisis.

The next communication problem is problem in giving notification to the internal and external stakeholders when crisis happened. Company must establish notification system that allow them to rapidly reach stakeholders. Companies must consider to upgrade their communication system as a preparation of any problem. For example today there is technology that can be set up so that it can automatically buzz all stakeholders in pre-established database and keep trying to reach them to convey the message.

Other than that, the next one is problem to identify the company’s stakeholders. The communication team must know who are the company’s stakeholders? Who are the important ones? Either employees? Or banks? They need to be informed about the crisis and the team must then identify the best way to let them know about the problem- also to avoid them from making pre-speculation if they heard the news from other source.

In conclusion, the communication issued related to crisis response is very important to ensure damage can be minimized. Companies need immediate response and the first stage of it is comes from the communication team before the next level. The slower the response, the more damage brought by the crisis is incurred.