PAY IT FORWARD

SPEECH BY Y.BHG TAN SRI
MOHD SIDEK BIN HJ. HASSAN
PRESIDENT OF THE
INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA

PAY IT FORWARD

26th INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA CONVOCATION
2nd OCTOBER 2010
(SESSION 2, AT 2.15 P.M.)

Bismillahir rahmanir rahim
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh

Honourable Professor Dato’ Sri Dr. Syed Arabi Idid
Rector of International Islamic University, Malaysia

Honourable Professor Dato’ Dr. Md Tahir Azhar
Chairman of the IIUM 26th Convocation

Honourable Members of Majlis and Board of Governors of IIUM

Deputy Rectors and Executive Directors

Representatives of Vice Chancellors

Senate Members

Companies Representatives

Deans, Directors, Professors and Staff
Graduands of the 26th International Islamic University Malaysia Convocation

Parents and Relatives of Graduands,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A very good afternoon and welcome to the 26th Convocation Ceremony of International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM). It is an extraordinary moment for those graduating today, a memorable one for parents and families, and time of deep contentment for the teachers who taught you, not just at IIUM but, through your own unique journeys, each. Congratulations!

TRANSITION

2. Graduation is a time of transition, a time of new beginnings for most, and for some a time of much perplexity. It is natural to feel the uneasiness of “so what’s next?” Al Gore a former Vice President of the United States said that for eight years he flew on Air Force Two and now he has to take off his shoes to get on an airplane. That was a great moment of transition for him.

3. In all honesty, 20 years from now you will not remember what I spoke about today, or what anyone else said here. What you will remember is the hard work that got you here, the pride and delight in the faces of your families, and mostly how you yourself felt today. In this pristine also lies a rude awakening. You will realise that thus far your life and presence has been planned for you by others – by your parents and teachers. As you walk into the world, your own person, you let go much of the comforts of that certainty.

4. Your priorities will now change. Your participation and view of the world will change with your priorities. You will soon realise that the life of a student is not as burdened as that of a spouse, an employee, a parent, a member of a community and a citizen, all at once. As our priorities change, we are moved to reflect our own roles in the societies we call home. Our expectations of the world changes significantly.

Graduating class

PAYING FORWARD

5. I would like to touch on the idea of paying it forward. Paying it forward is what you can do as you leave here today, and for the rest of your lives, to address much of our global challenges in the years ahead. The challenges before us today are overwhelming. Environmental degradation, global warming, inter-state wars, nuclear proliferation, economic imbalances and global discriminations of varying forms are but just a few to name. These challenges, I might add, may be solved as new ones bring themselves forth. But of greater importance are our own principles to resolving these issues, not the problem itself.

6. To pay forward is offering an act of goodness which could have been rendered to us once, by someone else. The order of nature is such that the benefit we receive must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, probably in a future state. Our lives are about paying it forward. We may not always render it back to those we received from, but we can to others.

7. Whether you move on to running your own businesses, or choose to work in the public sector, when we embrace a sense of paying it forward, it will thrust us to examining and pursuing ways to always improving our collective state. Always asking what more could be done, what should we change, have we travelled this road before, or shall we take the other less travelled? How can we better our education system, enhance our healthcare, increase our trade, eradicate ills and poverty in our society, raise living standards, amplifying our strength and peace as a society and nation? How do we eradicate the rules and systems that no longer work and bring in the new? We will know that the world doesn’t start and end in our home village, our towns and cities, state or country. Our actions, as a society can culminate to responses greater than what we may experience directly and locally to us.

ABSOLUTES AND RELATIVE

8. As you move into new realms of reality, your values and principles will be challenged. You will be faced with the concepts of absolute and relative. This will arguably be your biggest challenge in your years as an adult. When we were young, we are often told that it is absolutely wrong to tell a lie, to deceive, to hurt another, to steal. As you get older and particularly when at work you can be tempted to view the once absolute values of right and wrong in relative terms.

9. For instance – – I made a better bonus, bigger transaction, got a bigger car and a nicer house than someone else. Some would take this further to, “I didn’t cheat as much on my taxes as my colleague.” “I just added a few more dollars to pad my claims compared to him. I did reveal the fraud but not all”. So on and so forth.

10. We tend towards a world where our rights and wrongs are relative to another because the world is not black or white, but grey we say. We then compete towards these relatives to gain the something more, and bigger. This argument is completely and absolutely wrong in the context of right and wrong. If you never lie, deceive, or steal, you will never have to remember who you lied to, how you deceived, who you hurt, and what you stole. Rights and wrongs are absolutely absolute. This does not change with time. It doesn’t with modernisation. It simply will not with globalisation.

11. When we start our lives, not least our values on relative terms, they will then be the terms with which we build our own families, our communities and our own next generation. It has been said that the school will teach children how to read, but the environment of the home must teach them what to read. The school can teach them how to think, but the home must teach them what to believe. Each of our absolute values of right and wrong will, in the final analysis, define the environment and eco-systems we ultimately approve as a civilisation.

BUILD SOMETING THAT WILL BE REMEMBERED

12. Civilisations will be remembered not by how they lived but for what they achieved. Most of us here would by now know of the prime days of Islamic Civilisation to its recedes. But let’s step further back and look at the Greek civilisation, a civilisation different to our own. The Greeks lived about 2,500 years ago in Athens. We may not know their lifestyle or how they lived, but we have all read and watched their achievements from such movies and literatures like Ben Hur, Clash of the Titans, The Gladiator, Hercules, Spartacus, Alexander the Great to name a few.

13. The Greeks developed the full alphabet set and became the first literate civilisation. They introduced the ideology of political democracy and philosophy. They wrote plays, epic poems and songs which are produced and reproduced in the form of theatres, musicals, and movies to this day. The Modern Olympic Games came from the Greeks as a testament to striving for excellence through a series of competitions. Simply put, the Greek civilisation is remembered for its influence in politics, literacy, philosophy, art and ideas which touched every part of the world. There was also decadence. But when we speak on a subject, we never hesitate to quote the Greeks at some point in a conversation, today.

14. I mention this because civilisations are built on achievements and not traditions. They are built on legacies and their payments forward, and not on unyielding cultural postures. They are built on steadfast vision that makes un-stereotypical difference to their surroundings, often far beyond their own localities. We know this of our own Islamic civilisation. To do this we have to move away from our vistas of comfort and into the wilderness of our intuition. We often believe that our limitations are external when in fact the chains of our limitations are mostly and always inside us. When we break past these chains, the world is then your oyster. One of the biggest mistakes we can make in our journeys is to readily accept the known and resist the unknown. We should, in fact, challenge the known and embrace the unknown. In the unknowns may lie our own prosperity.

SOMETHINGS JUST DON’T CHANGE

15. These are exceptional times for you. For every one of us who are blessed with an education, it is yet another person released from the shackles of poverty into greater human dignity. Forty to 50 years ago, how many countries could make a 4 to 6 percent growth? Maybe 30 countries? Today at least 130 countries have equal opportunity to making such growth, barring external limitations. Such is the progress of the world you are about to make a difference to!

16. You have an extraordinary world waiting for you. Henceforth, the opportunities available are yours to unleash. In spite of the progress, prosperity and advancement, what the world ultimately rewards us for will never change with the times. And that is honesty, integrity, hard work and a sound character. These are values which enables one to pay it forward in all that we choose to do. These are values that tell us it is not just about you – – it is about something bigger than you. Our sights must extend far beyond our own comforts. When we are able to do that we will build better for the next generation.

17. The University extends its pride and appreciation on your achievements today. The quest for knowledge and purpose of life has been the founding stones of this University and the evolving character of IIUM. It is our hope that our teachings of ethics and moral purpose will be the guiding compass to your moments of doubt as well as your moments of prosperity.

18. I would like to congratulate all parents and guardians of students graduating today. You are by far the most important link and strength in the life of these graduates. To the staff of IIUM, our collective strive must be to explore new intellectual horizons and never stop raising the bar of excellence of IIUM. I would like to commend the University for earning the top ranks for “excellent university” from the Ministry of Higher Education.

19. Excellence is the antidote to injustice and inequity. Excellence is built on our hold of absolute principles of right and wrong, regardless of the times. Excellence is ushered in by our commitment to always, and always paying it forward. Excellence is founded on the ability to view the world beyond just us. I wish you all success in building a much better world for all of us.

May Allah bless you.

Wabillahi taufik wal-hidayah.
Wassalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh