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The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

Posted: 22 Nov 2012 04:23 PM PST

NOV 23 — Sometimes democracy works in very funny ways. I recently observed this first hand in Cairo, Egypt, where a revolution recently ousted a dictatorship.

Everyone is familiar with the Arab Spring and one of the countries that played a big role in it is Egypt, where I currently am shooting a documentary for Astro Awani.

Tahrir Square, in the heart of Cairo, was where the entire Egypt gathered after they were all tired of the dictator Hosni Mubarak and decided to bring him down.

A country that was suppressed for years suddenly took matters into their own hands and turned themselves into a democracy.

Now they have a new government that they chose themselves through democratic elections. A government led by a Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohammed Morsi.

And so on the first day that I arrived in the city, I immediately headed to the iconic square (which I surprisingly find out isn't square at all… it's really a roundabout!).

A crowd of about 300 people had gathered on a street off the square and were obviously demonstrating against something.

They started to get quite violent, throwing rocks and what looked liked Molotov cocktails into a school that had been taken over by the police.

I asked around to find out what the demonstration was about and why people were so angry after recently turning democratic.

Apparently, they were angry because they claimed that the police had accidentally killed a boy with a tear gas canister during a demonstration the day before.

I observed that the crowd was concentrated at the entrance of the cordoned-off school, while the rest of Egypt walked nonchalantly along minding their own lives.

I chatted with more Egyptians in Tahrir Square and what I found out was that ever since the revolution, the square has hosted a demonstration almost every day.

It happens so often that the attention given to such activities has slowly started to fizzle out and, basically, no attention is given anymore.

Egyptians, after decades of being forced to be silent, have suddenly become so vocal that they feel they need to start a "revolution" over everything.

This can be a blessing and it can also be a curse. What happens when a society becomes so vocal that it drowns out everything and people start becoming immune to the noise?

If a demonstration happens all of a sudden in a country, of course, everyone pays attention. What happens when it becomes a daily affair? People lose interest.

And this is exactly what is happening in Egypt. People are demonstrating against the authorities and a new government that they feel is not doing enough.

And what are the authorities and government doing? They are just ignoring the demonstrators and continuing as they were.

The demonstration that first day I was in Tahrir Square was a good example. The crowd was screaming loudly and throwing rocks and trying to set the school on fire.

The police? They didn't even come out of the school. They stayed behind the walls and, once in a while, would throw some rocks back at the demonstrators.

This went on for a few hours and then even I started to lose interest and walked away with my translator to get a shawerma to fill our hungry stomachs.

So what happens now? Democracy becomes too rampant that it becomes a threat to itself? Funny isn't it? But you know what? I really think it's okay.

In my honest opinion, Egypt is on the right path. Demonstrations, no matter how petty the motives are, will always be allowed now that the new government is in power.

The Egyptians' emotions are still pretty riled up after their revolution and they just need to calm down and get their thoughts together over their newfound freedom.

Once they do that and start maturing, they will know how to pick their battles and what should be demonstrated and voiced out against.

It's better to be in a situation where you can voice out over anything and when an issue is big enough and gets enough attention by the people, it will speak for itself.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

Will PR become the proverbial rabbit?

Posted: 22 Nov 2012 04:02 PM PST

NOV 23 — As the end of the year approaches, there is still no sign of any election being called. Now it looks like the general election (GE) will only be held after the automatic dissolution of our Parliament in late April 2013. Another possible date is perhaps March 2013.

Malaysia's political landscape cannot be more different from that of the United States. Yet the recent presidential election there reinforces one important fact. That even if a person or a party cannot win the majority of the biggest ethnic group, the person or the party can still win the election by winning an overwhelming majority of the minorities.

President Barack Obama won because of the votes of the minorities. He carried almost 93 per cent of the African-American votes, over 70 per cent of the Asian and Hispanic votes, but got only 39 per cent of the votes of the White majority. In contrast, his opponent won the majority of the white votes at around 59 per cent but still lost the election.

Based on this, I think it is possible for Pakatan Rakyat to win the next general election in Malaysia, given that majority of the Chinese will vote for the opposition. What is needed is to make certain that the majority of Indian votes go to PR. Most of the Malay votes (my estimate is over 60 per cent) — the Malays form the biggest ethnic group in the country — will be for BN.

Bearing this in mind, I think it is politically unwise for PAS members to publicly suggest that should PR win their party president should be made the prime minister.

The support among the Chinese and Indian Malaysians for PR should not be taken for granted. One of the reasons for the level of support shown is that many of these people believe that even if PR comes into power with little government experience, it has at least a very experienced leader in Anwar Ibrahim and he can be accepted by all the ethnic groups.

While many Chinese had no qualms about voting for PAS candidates in the last election, it was because they supported a coalition in which PAS is only an equal partner and not the dominant one that would head the group. If the PAS president is to be the next PM, PAS would be perceived to be the dominant force inside the coalition, a prospect which may not be unlike that of BN having Umno as the dominant force. If that is the case, expect fewer of these people to support PAS in the next election, thus weakening the prospect of PR forming the next government.

PKR, on the other hand, is seen to be more moderate and multiracial. As such, its leader Anwar would have much more appeal and would be better accepted by all groups.

Those PAS members reminded me of the Taiping Rebellion of China in which a rebellious group which started as a reform group against the Qing Dynasty degenerated into a group of leaders fighting more for the spoils of war rather than the cause, when that war was not even half won.

I suggest that PAS members put more effort into winning the votes rather than harping on about who should be the PM. By doing so, they are actually doing a favour for BN; a situation akin to shooting one's own foot.

I think generally PR should not be too complacent at this stage. By all indications, they have a chance to win, but the prospect is still an uphill battle, even though the uphill slope now is not as steep as before.

Remember the story of the tortoise and the rabbit. The rabbit, while on the way to victory, became too complacent and thus lost the race to the humble tortoise.

This is a lesson which PAS members as well as their president should take to their hearts if they do not want PR to become the proverbial rabbit.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Jumaat, 23 November 2012

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

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