Crack the legal whip and corral them cattle-like into camps so they become friends?

Nanny just doesn't get it. You just can't order people to be chums. There's some mysterious chemistry that brings people together with scant regard to race, creed or colour.

The really obnoxious part of the National Service (NS) is the totally unnecessary creation of a new class of law breakers.

The other galling aspect is the absence of a proper public debate on the issue before that piece of legislation passed into law. What has happened since then has added more to the plate of the already overburdened police.

Consider the move carefully and it will strike one that adoption of the law was the height of idiocy, for one it closed all honourable exits for the government.

More importantly, it has generated needless animosity, not just among the general populace but especially among parents with teenage children.

The programme has all the hallmarks of being hastily stitched together without much thought given to gauging the response of the country's youth at whom it is aimed.

Or to give it a Malaysian flavour, it appears to be decision based on hangat hangat tahi ayam (short-lived enthusiasm) factor.

Self-inflicted disease

Some of the trainees, despite the fine gloss put on by the subservient mass media on the whole show, voted against the NS in dramatic fashion.

Vandalism on a scale never seen before in this country set back some of the host institutes of higher learning by millions of ringgit; it was a frighteningly explosive expression of anger.

Thoughtful people will agree that this is no way to forge a Bangsa Malaysia. It already exists though in nascent form, in the way the babas and nyonyas, and the chitty communities may have evolved.

The burning question is why this haste when there's already the Rakan Muda programme that is quietly doing its work outside the public eye? Couldn't the NS be incorporated into that?

There is growing suspicion that nanny is nervous about the rising economic power of China and India with the diaspora of both nations forging economic links with their countries of origin, the consequences of which I leave to your imagination.

And fearing for the future, the government has displayed all the signs of having acted from the rut of ingrained habits; reaching for the stick and not the carrot as it were. In short the idea of the NS appears to be have a touch of paranoia about it.

There's extreme reluctance to openly admit the cause of root of racial polarisation for a good reason, for fingers will point straight away at politicians for spreading that poison for decades.

Anyone with any grain of sense would acknowledge that there is no instant cure for that self-inflicted disease much less through the application of the law.

Credit due

Malaysian society has reached a level of development that it can no longer be ruled through commands from on high.

That there is a need for the government to canvass public opinion on issues of great concern to all is becoming ever more apparent.

The government has already dipped its toes into the water on the matter of police reform and the proposed amendments to the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure code regarding crimes against women.

Credit must be given to them for finally opening their ears to the public outcry over these two issues.

This public dialogue on major issues should be maintained and absorbed as part of the nation's political culture.

That over, it's about time our leaders stopped flogging the dead horse of noble values, for they're not fooling anyone.

Which one among them can actually, hand on heart, swear that he or she can be held up as a role model for the younger generation?

Off hand, no name springs to mind. So, if they want to help future generations, they should recast themselves in those much vaunted noble values first. Don't dish out advice at every opportunity which already looks like something that the cat's been at.

And while at it, the government should take a good hard look at the NS legislation and find the courage to admit its mistake, and junk that law.

A majority of people are bound to agree that it's really flawed legislation, never mind the experts in the Attorney-General's Chambers. For it is creating a new social ill when we are already suffering indigestion from a surfeit of such problems.

Make NS an exciting adventure that teens can look forward to which is what they need at this confusing and formative stage of life. And by word of mouth alone the NS can succeed with little of the headaches the authorities of have brought upon themselves, the children and their parents.

In short, give up the old habit of wielding the whip. This is the 21st century and the age of information, remember? And time for nanny to bow out.