The Power Of Disillusionment
when i realized
santa didn’t exist i thought i was the
only person
who knew so at seven years old
i decided to save christmas by
playing santa for my family that year
christmas eve arrives and
i run into my parents also
playing santa
yeah that was an awkward conversation
but my parents eventually share
how learning about santa’s fictionality
was also disappointing for them growing
up
they told me they were just as
disillusioned
as i was but knowing this
truth empowered them to preserve the
magic
for me the next generation
now i find that really interesting and
not just
because it made me never fully trust my
parents
again i’m just kidding
no i found it interesting because
it implied that disillusionment
which is the disappointment upon
realizing
something isn’t as good or as magical
as you thought it to be that
disillusionment
is the key to continuity
think about it no child gets
a santa unless their parents understand
that father christmas is really
just that your father
on christmas
and so in the emotional toolkit needed
to affect
change disillusionment is a necessary
feeling
most of you here today are like me
you’re young and finding your way in the
world
a world brimming with opportunities to
fast-track your dreams
but the truth is we’re entering
a world of santa clauses
and that means at every twist and turn
we’ll come to see things for what they
are
rather than what we hoped or assumed
they would be
and it doesn’t get easier each time
but here’s the cool part
that’s not a bad thing
disillusionment is a powerful feeling
that can be used for good especially
in the context of sustainable change
making
let me illustrate
last year i started interning with the
all women’s action society
awa a malaysian women’s rights ngo
founded in 1985 with the purpose of
addressing
gender-based violence
now awam is one of the key ngos in
malaysia’s 30-year-long fight
for a stand-alone sexual harassment film
back in october 2020 i saw awam’s online
petition
to table the sexual harassment bill
and honestly it was only then
that i learned malaysia has no specific
laws
comprehensively protecting everyone from
every type
of sexual harassment
and that the few we do have are severely
limited
in fact let’s imagine for a moment that
you want to make a report let’s say
you’ve been sexually harassed and you
want legal recourse
well for starters the only place you
will find a legal definition
of sexual harassment is under the
employment act
so let’s play it out from there
if you’re not a full employee
maybe you’re a student or an intern
you’re not covered
if you were harassed in a public space
like a bus a shop
or even the street outside of your
office
you’re not covered
in fact what do you have in front of you
right now
your phone your laptop the online world
if you were sexually harassed right now
on this medium you
wouldn’t be covered
but for argument’s sake let’s just say
you can use the employment act
well that’s great now do you have
physical evidence or witnesses
because the burden of proof is beyond
a reasonable doubt
beyond a reasonable doubt that is an
incredibly
tall order given the nature of sexual
harassment
and the fear factor involved in speaking
up as a witness
and yet these are the barriers
faced by survivors of sexual harassment
right here in malaysia
which also means these are the barriers
faced by
over one in three women
and one in six men
as a matter of fact everything i just
outlined
came from actual experiences of real
people
who turned to awam after they’ve been
failed
by our current laws
and so in real time i saw awam and other
ngos push for a bill that could address
all of this and i knew
i needed to help
so what followed was a three-month
journey
of ups and downs
in october we started the social media
campaign
for the bill and hashtag rocky up for
the bill
and it was thrilling we managed to
galvanize
everyday malaysians to take a stand
be it signing our online petition
sharing information
donating and writing to their mps
we got the rakiyat that is the people of
malaysia
involved in ways they didn’t even know
they could be
and that’s not all in the span of a
single month
aomon received over 100 calls just from
supporters
asking how they could help ensure the
bill gets
passed
but then in mid-november
we learned that the bill would not be
tabled
the draft just wasn’t ready
now instead of waiting another year awam
chooses
to pivot awam
pivots with a paper petition
which is a first in legislative history
to at least invoke discussion on sexual
harassment
among our elected representatives
taking the support of over 500
paper petition signatures we then
counted of victory
in december when yb castaripato
stood to read our paper petition in
malaysian parliament
in an act of amazing bipartisan support
why be ahmad
provided the necessary seconding to
allow our cause
a spotlight
it was incredible to create history and
push
this year’s long fight a step forward
but really the wow moment for me
was seeing that ever crucial pivot
after november
getting knocked down only to rise back
up and do something no one had seen
before
so let’s dig deeper into how awong
did that
you see when the bill failed to be
tabled in november
the person on the team feeling most
defeated
and dejected was me
the young intern who joined about a
month ago
because it was a huge santa claus
moment only
in place of santa’s red coat was
bureaucratic red
tape carefully concealing
a disappointing lackluster reality
and yet while i was feeling so defeated
i looked around me and saw something
entirely
different the aom staff and other allies
approached november as a disappointment
but not a deterrent from fighting back
harder and better
i had to realize that if things were as
simple as i naively thought
we wouldn’t still be here fighting the
same
fight for 30 years
and so by understanding the realities
of what they were up against awan was
able to turn a setback
in november into an opportunity
because we ended up setting the fight
for a sexual harassment bill
on a more sustainable trajectory
rallying more public support than ever
before
and putting us in the books as the first
ever paper petition brought to malaysian
parliament
now that is the power
of applying disillusionment in the grand
scheme
of change-making
so when things don’t go the way you
expect
allow yourself that moment of clarifying
disillusionment because
you can and really should feel
disillusioned
just don’t relinquish hope because of it
in 2020 while fighting for the sexual
harassment bill
awam’s telenita helpline received 802
cases that is
802 cases ranging from sexual harassment
and domestic violence
to mental health and financial hardship
in december the very month we took the
paper petition
to parliament we were also racing
against nearly a case a day
of sexual harassment
and at first glance that may look like
persevering against
disillusionment
but actually knowing the dire reality
of what was at stake fueled our
resilience
it’s not lost on aom how significant it
was
that even in the time of a pandemic
supporters came in and out of our office
thanking us for fighting so they
might live without the fear
of being sexually harassed and having no
real laws
to protect them
knowing how deeply unfair it is
for people to go about their everyday
lives
in that fear kept us going
again there is power in applying
disillusionment
and so if there is one thing that i want
you to take away
it is this
inherent in the very definition
of disillusionment is the eye-opening
realization that something isn’t as good
as you believed it to be
now that is an uncomfortable feeling
no one enjoys finding out santa’s not
real but
we shouldn’t be afraid of it
disillusionment is not an enemy
we have to overcome it is a tool
that empowers us to inspire change
that will last
because discovering something you
thought was working
is actually broken that
is an invitation to fix it
and that ladies and gentlemen
is the power of disillusionment
thank you very much