Entrepreneurship – The Key to the Future?

Being the world’s super-powered country surely is a cool thing! I’d like to believe that beneath all the political talks of sugar-coated development goals, all countries basically have the same goal: trying to outdo each other and coming up top in this cutting-throat game. It’s a game that has been played even during the Biblical Old Testament period, but I want us today to shed a light to what has happened along this past century, and eventually to our current time with the future so uncertain in hindsight.

Surely we do remember the past feud between the US and Japan, evidenced with the Second World War’s Pearl Harbor horrifically tragic happening. I’m sure there must be a lot more than that – I only cited the most popular one ‘cause they even made a movie out of it! Japan, being the most technologically ambitious country in East Asia at the time, was ready to confront the US who undisputedly had the crown.

Japan came off as surprising because the other prominent players in both world wars are western-oriented. It was truly remarkable. However, today’s scene has changed in such an abrupt and dramatic fashion. China and South Korea have unexpectedly burst in and stolen the attention. While Japan is still growing strong, she isn’t quite the diva anymore. Who’s considered the US’s number one contender? China. What is the frenzied technological battle of the century? Apple from the US vs. Samsung from South Korea.

So, what changed? What is the kryptonite to Japan’s once super-powered state in Asia?

This writer came across an article in the International New York Times titled “Start-up spirit in a Japan craving rejuvenation”, by Martin Fackler. Pretty amazing piece of an art. I found the answer that I needed: entrepreneurship. The article described that Japan has for sometime experienced a “long malaise” of economy. I wasn’t aware of the fact other than it has been quite stagnant and quiet these days – not necessarily a good thing.

Japan has long depended on its standard of corporate gray suits. If you have a stable job, nice work environment, and ability to work wearing formal work clothes, you are considered successful. This is one of the reasons why entrepreneurship is not really encouraged. Hence, the lack of innovation to keep up with what Samsung and Apple do.

Thank God globalization comes through. A group of open-minded Japanese youths is now ready to change the stigma. Although, this is only the beginning of the battle between a long-held mindset and the aggressive wave of Internet revolution – entrepreneurs are viewed as too speculative in the money game with no tangible products, as they make most use of the Internet. Only time will tell the continuation of this tale.

What about Indonesia, our dear work-in-progress and increasingly democratic country?

The condition in Indonesia is often compared to that of the States in the 1950s, where democracy is still on a thin ice but the development is gradually better. Entrepreneurship had only gained appreciation in the early 2000s, right after the huge political reform in 1998 – our second president was forced to resign after 32 years of reigning! It was a dark time for free speech. The press was forced to conform to whatever the government wanted. Meanwhile, the government put pressure – to the point of homicide – to those who acted against the mainstream.

Entrepreneurship is deeply connected to the rise of democracy. Then, after a decade of the reform, the fruit finally has shown. BBC World's survey has revealed that Indonesia is the best place for entrepreneurship – its most suitable soil with the perfect nutrients, sunlight, and water supply. The US, Canada, India and Australia followed close behind. The survey was based on whether innovation is valued or not, and citizens’ appreciation for start-up businesses.

What does that mean?

Data has shown that a country that values innovation – the example being entrepreneurship – goes far in its development.

It’s a beginning for Indonesia. And I’ll be sitting here, waving my fist, and shouting “Go, INA!” - or not... Maybe I'll join the wave of young entrepreneurs. Who knows? A girl can dream, right?

Malala Yousafzai

She’s just a girl, on her late teens, but that doesn’t stop her from making a difference. After being forced up to grow up all too early, she has now stood before the world advocating rights on girls’ education.

Malala Yousafzai

I used to think that Noble Prizes were meant for elders, like people who have seen so much of the world, with precocious experiences to share with the younger generation. These people, I believed, are the ones equipped to be respected – at the very least, to be heard. There is some merit after all to the saying, “Respect your elders.”

Then, there are the news and media games, depicting a less-than-encouraging image of the future generation. They’re more desirable – very much so, mixed with a pinch of tantalizing sexual brands, that would have been tabooed in the times when what Marilyn Monroe did was shocking as well as revered as refreshingly new and setting the trend. I know some people who did not bat an eye seeing Miley Cyrus’s recent gimmicks. And, funnily, even though Justin Bieber’s retirement announcement was considered a Christmas miracle for some, he has had quite a following. Therefore, when the media premiered the ones we called “teen idols” and successfully brought them down too, a lot of people were left in doubts: What’s to become of our next generation?

 

Sensationalism and materialism which threaten to engulf our generation.

 BBC has remarked that young Miss Yousafzai was a breath of fresh air in the midst of deteriorating culture. I couldn’t agree more. She is the first young person I know that is nominated as a Noble Peace Prize winner. She’s quite the inspiration.

Malala Yousafzai was born in Pakistan. The region is under the terror of the Taliban, a Muslim extremist group. The group imposed rules on its conquer. One of those rules intervened directly into her life when she was just a 7-grader: her rights to education might be abolished! It no longer became only a possibility when her fears were realised in 2008, when females were indeed forbidden to go to school.

Education - some take it for granted

It seemed the Taliban wanted females to stick to their domesticated traditional roles: abiding inside the four walls, cooking, and having children. Now, for most open-minded females out there (including me), that is simply unacceptable. Malala has the same belief. She realised that to escape her fate, it must be through education. The Taliban was blind-siding them!

Meanwhile, the Taliban had captured the attention of the world. Reporters naturally wanted to find an inside look to a country still occupied by civic unrest. Malala’s father, a social and education activist himself, was contacted by a journalist. He recommended Malala to the journalist because she was outspoken and she had a cause to advocate. Finally, this was the birth of the Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl.

The world’s attention shifted to the plight of the young girl, bravely chronicling her life under the tyranny of the Taliban, a group that could kill her and her family in a blink. She aroused an appreciation of one gift that has been mostly taken for granted: education.

How many of us are still complaining that school is boring, school is a waste of time, and all that matters? I do complain from times to times. Although, I am thankful that today I realise that school is something precious – not everyone gets the chance, and we (the lucky ones) should help our peers to get access to this basic human development necessity.

Malala, speaking in front of the United Nations

Sympathizers did come from all the ends of the world, condemning the actions of the Taliban. Malala’s voice had been heard, and she was making the complacent peacefulness ripple. Her popularity was on the rise. She was suddenly the symbol against the cruelty and injustice that is the Taliban – much like Katniss Everdeen in the face of the Capitol’s regime – a high profile target for the said regime too.

Despite increasing dangers to her life, she stood up in front of the UN headquarters, dared to question Obama regarding the US use of drones (which had taken civilian casualties in Pakistan), and campaigned for girls’ educational rights – all the while juggling her “mundane” responsibilities as a student.

By this point, she had had an onslaught of supporters, and also people who wanted her head. There was this calm before the storm. Malala was on the journey to her house from school, at an afternoon in October 2012, when suddenly, two men stopped the vehicle carrying the students. “Which one is Malala?” they asked. The students couldn’t help the knee-jerk reaction which was to turn their heads to the person mentioned, innocently pointing the two men to Malala. Afterward was chaos. A gunshot rang. Four students were covered in their friend’s blood. Malala was shot in the head.

The effort to rescue Malala’s life began. The world waited with bated breath. Fortunately, it was not a mortal wound. Malala was able to recover after a 4-month stay in England. What would she do afterwards? Would she shrink back in fear? It would be a normal reaction for a teenage girl with her life threatened.

No. Malala did the exact opposite. She refused to self-pity herself and took the way out. She became more active than before. Her shooting was a big stepping stone for her, for instead of returning favour to the Taliban, she became the world’s darling. I bet the Taliban regretted shooting her. The world’s animosity grew toward the group.

“The gun has no power because a gun can only kill, but a pen can give life,” as she was quoted saying. She is now actively promoting her memoir, I Am Malala, and is one of the world’s most influential women. The story of her life has raised deep within me a question: What kind of person do I want to be?

Malala’s life has a meaning – a mission, if you will, until it makes her valuable enough to become a target. I’m not saying that everyone should make themselves a target. That is easily accomplished by being a criminal. I am saying that it is very admirable to have a noble cause, and selflessly fight for it.

I know that a person is usually considered successful once they have a stable job, a family, and a good life. I’m sure some of you would agree to that. I really do admire people around me who have that, including my parents. They had to work years for it.

However, ...

“What if a child dreamed of becoming something other than what society had intended? What if a child aspired to be something greater?” Quote from the movie Man of Steel.

They were right. When you start to grow up, it isn’t about looks, wealth, or boyfriends/girlfriends. The question most profound in my mind is what kind of person I want to be.

Maybe I’ll take a page out of Malala’s book

She is definitely a true hero.

 

You can change the world...

#HasJustineLandedYet

I felt my jaw dropping when I saw the whole world (well..., almost. Like, the online part of it) united over one single tweet. A tweet meant for joke, carelessly tossed, has managed to draw sensation, laugh, and absurdly, ire.

I'm sure that those of you who've been following the news have known the story. Unfortunately, my country is on the shortlist of places who are not *in* the rage. Can't blame 'em, though. What with the case of Banten ex-governor in a graft scandal dominating the national news.

For the sakes of those of us who don't really know the whole story, here... Let me polish my story telling skills and relay it to you.

On Friday, 20 December 2013, a PR executive for InterActiveCorp (IAC) tweeted the tweet in the picture above, just before she took off in an 11-hour flight to South Africa (She came from London). She only had less than 200 followers, but one of BuzzFeed's reporter, Andrew Kaczynski, got wind of it. He re tweeted it to his considerably larger followings - being a reporter and all.

And there began the whirlwind. Users on twitter were responding with a normal scale of bash and incredulous-ness, at first. Questions like, "Is this tweet for real?" and "Are you stupid"' were thrown around. But those were within the boundary of good ol' Internet shaming-joking. Then, began the appearance of intolerable-police-of-the-internet individuals. Of course, in the name of all that's good and holy, such (jokingly) racist tweet like this is tolerable, right? Maybe no.

While the PR executive was probably lounging comfortably inside her plane, she was unaware, that the anti-AIDS activists were directing their "crusading" at her. Granted, it was a slow Friday night. No horrible disaster. No breaking news immediately to be taken notice. As the consequences, even major news outlets like Business Insider had sniffed out the building storm. A woman in Miami picked up an ingenious inspiration in the form of #HasJustineLandedYet. Needless to say, it was like sugar for hungry ants who would eagerly prey on boring Friday nights.

Justine's landing would become positively historic by now, articulately worded by this person below.

Kieran Healy @kjhealy

I don't think America has watched a landing this closely since Apollo 13 re-entered the earth's atmosphere in 1970. #HasJustineLandedYet

Parodies were being made. This one's my favorite.

As usual, there HAS to be some people who were just opportunists by nature. AIDS organizations immediately drew sympathizers to donate, even to the point of establishing www.justinesacco.com as a fundraising page.

This incident has been covered by The New York Times, CNN, ABC, and other news outlets; became a joke among pilots ("Pilot on our flight just told us we had a time to send last minute text or tweet before takeoff but to remember to 'be careful, kids'."); used by GoGo the wireless internet on flight provider as a means for their marketing (which was withdrawn later on); made a point in the forever-waged war between conservative vs. liberal; and catapulted Sacco's fame beyond international superstar Justin Bieber's in search box.

When her flight landed, Justine suddenly found herself in a terrible predicament: she lost her job, received backlash from her boss and the rest of the world, effective immediately became a national pariah in the country she was stepping her feet on.

It was funny, alright. I have to admit that. But my personal take on this one is that it only reflects how much the social media has power over us all.

An article I read put it the best of all.  

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/12/21/why-did-buzzfeed-and-co-target-justine-sacco-for-online-assassination

"Her life was destroyed while she was out of touch with the world and couldn't defend herself."

It was a form of journalistic assassination.

If a regular joe twitter user like Justine Sacco with even less then 200 followers can be such a worldwide target, then how can we all be safe? I've heard that the NSA spying has dramatic backlash from around the world. Even the newspapers in my country have campaigned heavily against the Indonesia-Australia spying scandal which is one of the implications of the NSA whistleblower. People are offended when having their privacy disturbed. We shouted foul at NSA for doing that to us. Then, we've gone and done the same disturbance of privacy to Justine Sacco.

Are we sure we are completely innocent of any thoughts about racism?

What happened to freedom of speech? What happened to giving someone a benefit of doubts?

I express my sympathy over what happened with Justine Sacco. However, with all the articles that I am seeing on my google search result now - about how people are now expressing their regrets over the recent event - I think it's fair to say that I have great hopes!

Justine Sacco shouldn't have deleted all her accounts just because of this mishap. I can't imagine what she must be going through, but I'm sure the Internet (and the world) will give her a second change.

Right, guys?

PS: In relation to journalism (yeah, because I can't bear to not mention the J-word in this post. Unreasonably.),  lo and behold this is how one journalism's negative spotlight can (possibly) destroy a person's life. One good thing, though. More attention on the AIDS sufferers from around the world. More donations, too.