The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| Posted: 13 Jul 2011 05:31 PM PDT JULY 14 — Every man having been born free and master of himself, no one else may under any pretext whatever subject him without his consent. To assert that the son of a slave is born a slave is to assert that he is not born a man. (Jean-Jacques Rousseau in "The Social Contract") Two things caught my attention in a turbulent Malaysia of the week past. One, a survey and the other an event. Say a little prayer A whopping 72 per cent of young Muslims (25 and below in Malaysia were in favour of replacing the Constitution with the Quran, according to the Merdeka Center survey. This is not going to degenerate into a secular versus religious debate discourse so I'll implore a little latitude before the scorn. However, 71 per cent of those surveyed also confessed to having read the Quran only sometimes or rarely. Is it fair to conclude that a substantial number of young Muslims are keen on the Quran as the Constitution without having an understanding of its implication to government? Conversely, can it be argued that the support of young Muslims to the present British-drafted but rigorously amended Constitution is equally dubious? This might be closer to the truth, the vast majority of them have little appreciation of a Constitution to the integrity of the country. The vast majority, meaning all Malaysian youths, Muslim or not. We are often caught arguing about what is in the dish without thinking if the residents believe in nourishment. Because the same survey yielded 92.5 per cent being in support of the death penalty. Statistically, it is an aberration. From the moderate to the most liberal nations, societies are divided closely on the issue simply because of its primal, absolutist and irretractable nature. Yet almost all these Malaysians are certain of their views. I use the death penalty stat to give an insight into the poll and those polled. In a country where for decades people have been arrested, ostracised and denied for their convictions, and agreement with the government is expected of every citizen, will citizens speak their mind to pollsters? "Hello, my name is W_____. I'm from _____ research. You've never met me, but I know things about you like your phone number and name, but please be assured your information will be confidential. Now, can you tell me honestly, do you think our prime minister is doing a good job?" "Why of course I'll tell the truth. I'll also send you a photograph of me in yellow last weekend at the Bersih rally." Until speaking your truth is not a social crime or in some cases an actual crime in Malaysia, take all polls with a pot of salt. The young are trained, when in doubt or in ignorance, to go for default answers. What do you think your SPM (O-levels) examination was about? Saudi Arabia is the only country which has the Quran as its Constitution. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq have extremely strong foundations of Quranic principles in their constitutions. The other Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) members have degrees of theocracy in their basic laws. Indonesia's largest Islamic parties voted against a religious state. A similar co-ordinated survey in Indonesia yielded only 20 per cent of young Muslims want a Quranic Constitution. In the bowl Malaysia sits in apparently, the political parties and the young are seeing eye to eye when it comes to religion and its place in laws. Constitutions are difficult and challenging because countries and its peoples are difficult and challenging. This is not a Muslim problem per se, it is a human problem. To reduce the complexities, perhaps the survey could have had the following non-threatening but revealing control question. Would the young Muslim respondents prefer to live in Riyadh or New York? Teheran or Melbourne? Karachi or Paris? The answers would be forthcoming since they are not asked to transgress from their conditioning. Again, this is not to examine the value of the Quran as a Constitution, but to examine the Malaysian as a person who appreciates his Constitution, or not. The Constitution has already been altered so many times over half a century, resulting in discomforting grey areas. So yes a broad discussion of it in classrooms, law theatres and media — with adequate space for Quranic attributes to law not to just promote goodness and to feel good — would help all of us forward. Going Bersih to where? The second is the Bersih rally in principle. The resilient crowd was brave, caring and committed to peace. They would have ticked all the boxes of the Satyagraha manual. They were largely moved towards an intuitive ideal of expression. They felt the time had come to say something, but the crowd, as the Barisan Nasional leadership would have pointed out, lacked a clear cogent political view. The fault must lie with those who've run this nation since independence and formation of Malaysia. They've denied a nation — young and old, Muslim and not, pale and sunburnt, Windows and Mac users — the space and encouragement to seed its thoughts. Both the respondents of the survey and Bersih participants have been denied their liberty. Wittgenstein said that knowledge is limited by language — what is not articulated I suppose cannot be acknowledged by the mind and other actors. The Malaysian political discourse language has been withdrawn from public consumption for decades. When I first interacted with students abroad, I often felt short-changed (well, maybe not Singaporeans). Those who came from developed democracies — with academic freedom, campus activism, free mainstream media, porn channels, etc — always talked about broad issues concerning their society with ease, awareness and confidence. Be it about abortion, government social programmes, human rights or city waste-collection processes, it seemed they were continuing a conversation. This is not to say they were great conversations with meaningful conclusions marked by fireworks in the background. I've come from a place where these conversations rarely take place. Most of my school teachers would have rather swallowed arsenic than facilitate a classroom discussion about what is faith and where do we draw the line between what we believe and what we want others to believe. The unrestrained manner and the commonness of the discussions abroad made me feel like a football player who played all his life on a dirt pitch and now had to make do with a proper playing surface. There were adjustment issues, not skill issues. This is not me apeing the West, or glorifying the Western experience. Our people are smart, savvy and amazingly adaptive to all climates. There is just potential over potential across this country, I've seen it. We can have conversations, debates, exchanges, radio forums, movies and books just as well as other nations. But we will have to have them to grow. To continue the engagement of 28 million Malaysians. The roundabout Malaysian development model — all areas OK for upgrades and collaboration except for open, unfettered and protected political discourse — has caused a nation to be handicapped politically. Which is why the Arab Spring has met dead ends. These countries are not wrong to seek a future without dictators, tainted elections, partisan politics and widespread malfeasance. They know what they do not want, but those they wish to rid have spent their time in power to rid the population's ability to shape its own political narrative. So they are uncertain, too circumspect. This is not new. The French Revolution in 1789 did end tyranny, but the lack of a broad political narrative due to centuries of absolute rule caused a period of darkness. The take-home point here is if Malaysian democracy fumbles, far more than most nations, when the time for change comes then the blame falls squarely on those who engineered our handicap for decades. That's that. Have a good cheerful and brilliant Bastille Day. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| How democratic elections still failed Sabah Posted: 13 Jul 2011 05:16 PM PDT JULY 14 — "How can you say our elections are unfair when BN lost five states in 2008?" I hear that refrain over and over again to the point I want to scream. And stage my own private rally in front of Putrajaya. Let me tell you a story, of a 16-year-old girl witnessing the 1994 Sabah state elections. I was that girl. Imagine turning on the television to watch a video showing derelict shacks, illegal immigrants (who Sabah natives recognise on sight) living in squalor while in the background a refrain plays, calling on viewers to "Binalah Sabah baru (Build a new Sabah)!" Nearly two decades later and I still want to punch whoever made that video in the mouth. Thank you, Peninsular Malaysians, for insulting us so blatantly with your propaganda. Thank you for demonstrating that you can't tell locals apart from illegal immigrants. Is that why the latter get issued ICs around election time when most local women can't get PR status for their foreign husbands? A little back story: PBS was the ruling party at the time and despite the propaganda and dirty tactics employed by Barisan Nasional, PBS still won. This despite BN spreading nasty rumours that PBS had a Christian agenda and was planning to shut out Muslims from the government. Even when a former prime minister launched his own campaign to beggar the state into submission, shut off allocations, allowed infrastructure to fall into disrepair and engineered a smear campaign against then-Chief Minister Pairin Kitingan that has only ever been surpassed by the anti-Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim propaganda. Though perhaps for Anwar it is a case of karma. For it is believed he was among those behind one of Sabah's darkest periods: the great frog exodus. PBS politicians betrayed not only their party but the people who voted for them. Who voted to keep PBS in power despite being denied federal money, despite the smear tactics. I remember watching the results on television, watching in disbelief as PBS members announced they were jumping ship and giving their allegiance to BN. For years after, those politicians were called traitors and shunned by the locals. No matter; Putrajaya rewarded them with ministerial seats anyway. Years later, one of the frogs, Datuk Lajim Okin, had the nerve to claim he did it (jumped) for the people. And the result was Sabah being given its own university, Universiti Malaysia Sabah. So, fine, we have a university now. But why is Sabah the poorest state in Malaysia? Why, according to UN statistics, more than half of Malaysians living below the poverty line Sabahans? Why did a little boy commit suicide because his mother couldn't afford to give him 20 sen for ice cream? And what breaks my heart is that so many of the rural folk have stopped believing in the electoral process. "Buat apa bah aku mahu mengundi? Diaorang semua boleh kena beli." (Why should I vote? All of them can be bought.) Once, before, the Kadazan Dusuns were willing to come out to vote for Pairin, their Huguan Siou (paramount leader), despite him not having the resources to give them sewing machines and "goodies". 1994 crushed Sabahans' belief that their votes mattered anymore. Is that the future you want for Malaysia? For citizens to become so disenchanted with polling they don't bother to turn up? Is this the ideal we fought for? A country where our "leaders" send their children overseas, pay millions for Facebook pages and sic water cannons on dissenters? I am sorry to say this but our leaders need to understand that a democracy requires respecting due process, upholding ethics and fair play and serving the people, not some overfed politician. It is not a game of Monopoly where the winner takes all; the ultimate losers are, in the end, the rakyat. It is high time our leaders learned to stop shouting and start listening. If there is one thing to learn from Sabah it is that those in power have no qualms to crush ideals with might and subterfuge. Sabah, and this nation of ours, deserves better. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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