You serious ?

When a person tries to make a stand on certain social issues, he needs to voice out his stand verbally or in written form, followed by certain actions to prove that he is really serious. You gotta show to the world that you are willing to die for your cause, or at least, be willing to be penalized as a result of making a stand. Otherwise, your stand is as good as singing. Nobody really takes you seriously.

In the old days, we have got Gandhi, who refused to eat, in order to plead for dialogue with the British.

In the modern days, we have seen person like Luo Da You（罗大佑）, who gave up his American passport because he protested against American military action in Iraq.

On the corporate level, we have seen companies like Bao Li corporation (保利集团), who spent USD 25 Mil to purchase the historical monkey statue that once placed at the national garden (圆明园)and returned it to the government, to show that they care about stolen national treasures. We are talking about 25 million of cold hard cash here.

Now, if we take it to the next level, we have suicide bombers in Pakistan, or monks in Myanmar who burnt themselves. I do not in any way condone any of these actions, but they are absolutely convincing in telling us that they believe in their ideology.

But in present times, we have seen jokers who would like to make a stand, on the ground that in doing so it does not bring upon any harm or disadvantages to them.

Take, Stephen Spielberg. He refused to be on the panel of consultants for Olympics, because he is of the view that China has not done enough in Africa. Whether that accusation is true would demand a separate discussion. What I’m more interested to find out is, Does Stephen lose out anything as a result of this resignation? No. Are movies produced by him still raking in billions and billions of dollars from China? Yes. Is it not true that every single second now his wallet gets fatter partly because of the “dirty” money coming from a bad regime that he complained about? Has he refused that part of the money? Not really. Well, I wouldn’t take Stephen’s words so seriously.

Take another example, MyDin, who tries to do something to make a statement against the Dutch video clip that has allegedly discriminated against Islam. MyDinn announces that all products from Netherland will be clearly labeled, so that concerned consumers can opt for other similar products. In other words, if you are not concerned, go ahead, you are free to buy the Dutch products. Anyway, it is unlikely that they will lose much sale because it is common knowledge that majority of their inventory is cheap products made in China. Secondly, large segment of consumers do not know what those labels are for, or simply do not care. MyDinn is expected to maintain its profitability, and at the same time, have some political gain.

If MyDin had announced they would stop carrying Dutch products altogether, or that part of their revenue goes to funding an NGO to make another documentary to refute the movie context, I might take them a little more seriously.

It's not really a crazy idea to demand that all ministers of this country to get their salary based on the performence of our GDP. Negative growth means negative salary. Nothing proves you care about about the country more that doing that.