1 million scouts……

or 1 million idiots in scout uniform??

This was in the news some time ago. Not hot news… but the jist of it is that someone ‘up there’ announced plans to increase the number of scouts in Malaysia from 200,000 to 1 million. My question to the people ‘up there’ is this: Are they planning on having 1 million scouts, or 1,000,000 poor souls who doesn’t know anything at all about scouting dressed in the scout uniform?

I’m not the most qualified person to write something like this…. but who is ever qualified to write a blog post? I’ve been a scout for 9 years and 10 months. 5 years as a scout, 4 years and 10 months as a leader, and 2+ years as a rover scout. (One can be both a leader and a rover at the same time). I haven’t spent very many years in scouting, but I have spent more years in scouting than the average Malaysian scout who enters in secondary I and leaves after secondary V. The success of the scouting movement is not in how many entry-level scouts there are, but in how many of those scouts stay in scouting, and how many of those scouts come back. For scouts to want to stay in scouting after adulthood, or to come back to scouting after they’ve left it, they must be imbibed with the scouting spirit, to have enjoy scouting to the core, to have been bitten by the scouting bug, to live the scout oath and law, not just while they are in uniform, but even when they are out of uniform.

It is easy to dress a person up as a scout. Just throw him a uniform. One can even memorise and recite the scout promise, but that does not always make one a scout. Just ask yourself if you live by the principles of the rukun negara. We all had to recite the rukun negara when we were in school, but how many of us live by those principles? If we did, if all the people did, if all the people governing our country did, then we would have a clean and fair judiciary. Do we? I’m not going to talk about the judiciary now, I’m just using it to illustrate a point.

The scouting bug, the scouting spirit, isn’t as simple as reciting a promise. Not even attending and completing a woodbadge course during a tenure in a maktab perguruan can make a true scout out of a teacher. And the knowledge passed on from these teachers to the scouts will not make the scouts scouts, not unless the teacher has been inbibed with the scouting spirit.

In order to increase the number of scouts in this country to 1 million, the country would need 125,000 scout leaders (I’m using the 8:1 scout:leader ratio). To be a scout leader, one needs more than a woodbadge. One needs scouting experience. Scouting is more than uniform and a promise. Scouting is about loving nature, about understanding the patrol system and implementing it, about camps and hikes, about breating, eating and living the scout promise, about teamwork, leadership, cooperation, about passing on knowledge from one generation to the next, about being independent, about knowing how to play when its playtime, to work when its worktime to know what is good for oneself, and what is bad. Voluntarism is a very important part of scouting. Volunteer scout leaders participate in scouting because they enjoy scouting, because the are happy when scouting knowledge and spirit gets passed on to the next generation. Volunteer scout leaders never every get monetary returns, they do scouting because they have the BP spirit deep in their hearts.

Can mass production produce the same result as the scouting bug? Can monetary incentives produce the same result as years of enjoyment, years of happiness and experience gained from scouting? Can mass produced scouts really be called scouts? It is easy to dress-up. It is not so easy to be a true scout.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Scouts are coming. Soon, that familiar Scout’s uniform will be seen in every housing estate, village, Felda scheme, Pusat Giat Mara and Institute Kemahiran Belia centre.

The Scouts Association of Malaysia also plans to introduce the Rover Scouts (for those aged 18 and above) at private and public institutions of higher learning, national chief Scout commissioner Colonel Prof Datuk Dr Kamarudin Kachar said.

He said the organisation wanted to increase its Scoutship from the current 200,000 to one million in three years.

“We started the Scout movement in Felda schemes in Johor, Negri Sembilan and Perak some five or six years ago. Now we want to take it nationwide,” he said after a dialogue session with Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said at the Scout headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

“We are now moving from school-based to community-based. The idea is to instil social integration and national unity and to reduce social ills. This is most important,” he said.

Introducing Rover Scouts at the community level, he said, was also geared towards community development, increasing environmental consciousness and advocating peace.

He added that the Rover Scouts would also be introduced in countries with a large number of Malaysian students.

“We have Rover Scouts in Indonesia and the authorities in London have agreed to us setting up a troupe there as well.”

The association is also planning to introduce Rover Scouts in Australia, Russia, Egypt and the United States.

“The objective is to instil patriotism among Malaysian students overseas, and to increase their leadership qualities, living skills abilities and upgrade their working skills,” he said.

The International Scouts Academy of Malaysia will also function as a leadership and skills-training hub for uniformed bodies from all over the world, he said.

Brunei, Singapore and Indonesia have already indicated interest in sending Scouts here for training. There are 18 million Scouts in the Asia-Pacific region.

A variety of activities have been planned for the 100th anniversary of the Scout movement in Malaysia from May 12 to 18 next year.

The star event will be the 100th year jamboree at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Commemorative coins and stamps will be issued as well.

“Six thousand Scouts, including 1,500 from Asia-Pacific countries, will attend,” said Kamarudin, adding that the association had applied for a RM2 million grant from the Youth and Sports Ministry.

Source: NST – 2007/10/09

Note to readers: I wrote this a few days ago, many times, and I was a lot more mad about this, and the post was a lot angrier… but streamys kept messinag about and I kept loosing my post… the more i lost the post, the angrier the post got…. but in the end strymyx won… and here I write it again… but it probably doesn’t get the point across as well as my last post did… but it may be a better read since its not so angry… either way… at least I wrote something I guess… heh.. Regards…