Awakening the Political Genie in Us...

"Mankind's moral sense is not a strong beacon light, radiating outward to illuminate in sharp outline all that it touches. It is, rather, a small candle flame, casting vague and multiple shadows, flickering and sputtering in the strong winds of power and passion, greed and ideology. But brought close to the heart and cupped in one's hands, it dispels the darkness and warms the soul."~ James Q Wilson, in The Moral Sense, 1997, p251. Free Press Paperbacks, NY.

Ten years ago, I ventured into the unfamiliar arena of vocalising my usually submerged self-censored political thoughts and started to open up discussions and discourse on our then unsettling sociopolitical situation in Malaysia, among doctors.

While many physicians felt that this was a refreshing and sensible engagement, others felt otherwise. It was not met with universal acceptance and I was accused to politicising the medical profession's news magazine.

But I argued then and as I do now, that we simply cannot absolve ourselves from things political just because we wish to remain apolitical and neutral. Many felt then as I am sure some continue to feel now, that we should not ruffle whatever goodwill and rapport we might have had with the incumbent authorities that be... Perhaps we should let these "alien" and sensitive subjects alone, for another more appropriate forum than our finely cloistered 'health' niche.

But I just couldn't remain silent, nor could I remove myself from that heartfelt disquietude that gross injustice and blatant abuses are threatening to tyrannise a pliant citizenry. See Malaysiakini's. Not because I am a foolhardy adventurist or opportunist, but because I just couldn't stomach much more of what has become of our nation and its leadership. Over the past ten years, we have deteriorated further, and today we are at its nadir of directionless shame. See Malaysiakini's Malaysia's Culture of Shamelessness.

More specifically, I have become more thoroughly disenchanted with the scale of our sociopolitical disintegration. Blatant power play seems to have superseded all our more human and humane spheres of life. As a thinking person and a patriot who loves Malaysia for its huge potential and its multi-ethnic uniqueness, I just cannot look away.

I have always believed in more open dialogue and debate, transparency and accountability. I believe in the ultimate power of the people. I believe that constructive criticisms by an increasingly vocal and more engaged rakyat are legitimate exercises of need and concern.

We should also listen to and respect opposing or minority viewpoints because these are counterpoints to help temper the exuberance of majoritarian excesses and abuse. True democracies look after every citizen including the rights and interests of minorities, and are not instruments of rough-shot power-plays of the triumphant victors...

However, the past 2 weeks have seen an unprecedented barrage of senseless politicking, accusations and counter-accusations which can only be described as tawdry and tasteless. Such an excessive bombardment of the blogosphere with endless streams of vehemently partisan invectives cannot but put a damper on our Malaysian sociopolitical scene.

Even the MSM has been drawn into this cynical game of one-upmanship, each trying to paint a different slant on what can only be extremely damaging to our nation's reputation. That is not to say anything about our current crop of leaders--is there any left, who is untainted and capable of getting us out of this quagmire?

How ironic that we've been talking about national branding! Clearly, we are now not the best example of of how to showcase, much less to brand our nation!

There appears to be an extremely high-stakes game being played out in full public view. This is not simply one of political survival, but perhaps even of surviving legal recriminations.

Perhaps, as I have earlier stated (Should We Tame the Political Genie in Us?), the ugly truth of the matter may sound jarringly disquieting and unpalatable, especially when it seems to undermine the cozy status quo that we have become so inured with.

Disturbingly, we are becoming more and more myopic and fraternal, preferring immediate and short-term gains, but appearing not to be interested in the larger picture or the longer-term consequences. In the aftermath of these ugly public spats, the nation's interests have been dragged through the mud and beyond...

Wasn’t it Confucius who exhorted millennia ago, that “to see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage, or of principle”? Is it not time to act?

We all have a right to our own political belief and/or attachment to certain personalities/leaders. But I dare say we all have to learn to be able to see beyond the horizon of simplistic yet parochial niceties and our all-consuming self- or partisan- interests. We must be able to initiate or push for change for the better, whenever there is some other greater and more paramount “truth” out there.

Why should any man be satisfied with the oppressive weight of “more of the same”, no matter how fantastically well our society has been perceived as stably humming along? Is the fear of the unknown so terrifying that we dare not venture out of our shell?

I believe we are emerging in fits and starts, from our too-long pupated phase. But our newfound freedom to express ourselves without any constraints, are floundering on lies, innuendos and make-belief, which have yet to attain a maturity of enlightened nationhood...

Perhaps, all these are the teething problems of a fledgling democracy trying to temper the zeal of having one's say without a thought as to the possible consequences...

Perhaps, our growing distrust and disrespect for our embattled institutions such as the police, the judiciary, and especially our politicians are so warped and so overwhelming that we no longer have any moral anchor to to brace ourselves with... See Bring law and order back to the judiciary.

Nevertheless, many Malaysians are now asking more pertinent and bolder questions as to our nationhood, half a century on, and wish to articulate their input as to the rakyat's role. See Malik Imtiaz's Rule by Law.

We no longer are prepared to accept the known status quo as cast in concrete where no change or improvement can be allowed to take place. We are no longer content to allow ourselves to be set in the fossilized past for ever more.

At long last Malaysians have learnt to look more closely at our society and are now daring to say that while material wealth and well-being are fine, other less tangible, less obvious executive transgressions are not, and that these have severely gotten out of hand. Karim Raslan's Power, Power, Power in Malaysia Today gives a balanced appraisal of the sad state of our political affairs of late...

The genie is out of the lamp, and it is wreaking unthinkable turmoil in our society’s sanity and sociopolitical well-being. We are no longer in closeted denial that everything thus far has been hunky-dory. We must rise up and take charge and work hard towards a better Malaysia.

We can no longer accept our chanting shibboleth of Malaysia Boleh which has threatened to blindside us, so that we have become impervious to any contrarian criticism, except for sycophantic praises.

We must climb up the rungs of our hierarchy of needs, which Abram Maslow have eschewed, and work for a greater good for all.

We must incorporate our much-vaunted Asian values, so that we can accept greater tolerance for individual freedom and fervently fight for human rights aspirations of each and every citizen.

We must not abdicate or vacate our conscience simply for political or personal expediency.

I do believe that ultimately some semblance of sanity and poetic justice will prevail, and that the growing destructive forces of Machiavellian sectarianism, unbridled power-plays and petty interests will be contained and returned into the genie’s bottle, for keeps.

That said, whatever happens, whichever victory would have been a Pyrrhic and hollow one. Our Greek-like tragedian dramas have yet to fully reach their final denouement.

Somehow, as helpless as we are, we still owe this to ourselves to want and to help make some good happen, and shape the outcome of our collective choice––one way or the other...

As concerned citizens, we must continue to speak out, so that the deafening silence can be broken, for the betterment of the society at large, sans political repercussions, sans public censure. We must escape our penchant for self-interest, and overcome that overpowering fearful, intimidated, cowering and insular mindset.

We can no longer simply stifle the political genie within us from escaping...

To quote Tagore, "Let My Country Awake"!

"Lead me from the unreal to the real!
Lead me from darkness to light!
Lead me from death to immortality!"
~ Brihadharanyaka, Upanishad 1.3.28

LET MY COUNTRY AWAKE

Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
by narrow domestic walls;

Where the words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms
towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost
its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee
into ever-widening thought and action --

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father,
let my country awake.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

A shortened version appears in malaysiakini as Revisiting the political genie in us...

(Part of this article is paraphrased from my previous MMA News editorial of 25 Nov 1999]