May 23, 2013
| Praba Ganesan is Parti Keadilan Rakyat's Social Media Strategist. He wants to engage with you, and learn from your viewpoints. You can contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @prabaganesan |
MAY 23 — "Well, when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal." — US President Richard M. Nixon.
It may be ultimately dissatisfying, but every day our children look at the world through our lenses and are unconsciously designing the future world they will reside in. And if the passing weeks in Malaysia are to set the tone for our present, then I worry about what lies beyond the horizon.
For you see, the term "our lenses" has to be qualified here at home.
Not all adults in Malaysia are responsible directly or indirectly for the children outside their immediate families — these young ones' conditioning is primarily the state's prerogative.
Therefore the government of the day has a monumental effect on the psyche of our children, even if that government does expire eventually. From school, telly and national service, the intervention process is comprehensive and relentless.
(On a personal but related note, I "unfriended" a person on Facebook yesterday for I got tired of his bigotry even if I am sure he inherited it and had help sharpening it in our public schools.)
The children — long after they cease to be that and age to being taxpayers — they can't help but see things and their consequences as they have been taught by the system.
This country in its formal structures beats fairness out of its inhabitants. Its institutions have for years abandoned ideology and have floated along the needs line of Umno's expediency, therefore operating on a dysfunctional basis of being: a state of proving Umno is truth, and truth is Umno.
When Umno says it, it cannot be wrong
Since Polling Day till today, all 18 days, no Umno leader or senior government official has owned up to any error. In a tumultuous period where the majority of Malaysians are peeved their voice does not carry the day, and a record number participating in daily citizen action events — Black505, Facebook campaigns and solidarity gatherings for arrested student activist Adam Adli Abdul Halim (18 of whom were arrested yesterday) — those in power remain adamant, they are convinced they have not erred in any way shape or form. Nothing is wrong. For wrong is what Pakatan Rakyat does, and right is what Umno-Barisan Nasional says.
The naked celebration of the regime's infallibility is not yielding any gain for Umno. Instead, they appear to be the sorriest looking winners of an election in living memory.
It is not only that the 51 per cent of those who voted for Pakatan are numerically superior than the 47 who cast their support for BN, it is that the former is inundated with the articulate, educated and opinionated and the latter largely passive and disinterested.
Some point to the seeds of hope in the Umno camp, based on a few squirms.
Point in discussion is that there have been three Umno leaders who have disagreed with the assessment of Prime Minister Najib Razak that the Chinese are to be blamed for BN's poorer form, but none of the trio — an ex-minister but still MP, ex-deputy minister and no more MP and, finally, now-minister and still MP — have been openly critical of the PM's racist tendencies.
Muffled yelps in the wilderness will not do, for they don't even scratch the pipe spewing toxic hate into our reality daily. The public will have to stop over-appreciating private thoughts of Umno men and instead expect them to defend their principles come what may.
If they speak of tolerance but choose never to speak against intolerance then they are no better and perhaps worse than their silent comrades.
Which moves us to the other character, the one claiming to be mischaracterised repeatedly — the Election Commission.
The EC failed to provide reliable indelible ink for an election they had five years to prepare and test for, and then five days to fix after the early voting sessions indicated botched liquids.
They have not apologised to the Malaysian people, they honestly believe that we are all too stupid to remember when July comes.
Still, the children sit and watch the developments.
Why is fair important
The question of why adults want to have children or even if they should have children will long endure to perpetuate stalemates.
But when there are children, the issue turns primarily to what is desired from parenting, what is the preferred outcome.
It appears while the measurements differ, we would generally like our children to be decent, the type who don't kick dogs into monsoon drains or set fire to garbage bins.
To be most days, a fair-minded person.
Which is why living in Malaysia today can poison the soul and deflate the youth's idealism.
No matter what mom and dad say to young Jem, Julia and Jess, the wards can see that in Malaysia, what is respected is power.
The manner in which power is accumulated is sometimes regrettable but does not matter in the larger scheme of things.
For example, the submission by Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) CEO Wan Saiful Wan Jan that the elections were "partially free and not fair" and then followed up by saying that he accepts the outcome because "we have to move on."
I'm tempted to ask who is the "we" in this need to move on?
This is not being just cynical: Perhaps it is easier for think-tanks that can go on analysing irrespective of who is in power, but it is downright disrespectful to acknowledge with details that something was shamefully gamed and manipulated, something concerning the well-being of all citizens, and then ask the victims of the fiasco to go on and pretend it did not happen because it is too damn hard otherwise.
With all due respect I have my own submission, that is IDEAS took the path of least resistance and for that they lose that much more credibility.
Because stripped of all pretensions, young Malaysians are reminded that process, transparency and regulations, which we can just plump together to the basic word fairness, do not matter.
What does matter is to be the person who decides what is right or wrong with no regard for basis, and if failing to be that person, then to be the many swarming around the boss people for favours.
You have to be a fool to think that these lessons are not being repeated by our adolescents in their own lives.
That standing peacefully outside a police station to defend another's right not to be arrested for his political belief is wrong and should be punished. And that brutal attacks on peaceful demonstrators are quite OK if they are done to defend the integrity of the regime in power.
Real pillars to building a just and loving society!
Fair is important because while it may be a difficult concept to explain, it is an easy emotion to sense.
Children in their innocence see fair in clearer terms and perhaps it is in mishandling of what is fair that they too lose a little bit of their innocence and humanity.
For you see today in Malaysia, the ethos is as Nixon put it, wrong or right in Malaysia is a function of who is doing it, not what they are doing or why they are doing it. Be wary, what type of adults we will be producing in the near future.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
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