malaysiakini: Where PSM differs with Hindraf ... by S Thayaparan

Where PSM differs with Hindraf

S Thayaparan 9:08AM Mar 4, 2012

This is the final of a two-part interview with Sungai Siput MP Dr Michael Jeyakumar. The PSM leader provides insight into what it means to stand apart from the political mainstream but still engage with it.

Click here for Part 1 of the interview.

Malaysiakini: How does a political party like the PSM move beyond its grassroots level, especially since the alternative media is not accessible to most people?

Jeyakumar: One, we take up issues that affect a larger number of people for example the healthcare system, the oversupply of nursing graduates, the GST (Goods and Services Tax), the contractualisation of labour, etc.

Initially we were confined in communities facing dire straits, for example eviction, but now we have broadened our reach.

Two, we prepare simple pamphlets on all these issues in three languages and distribute these in ‘pasar malams', coffee shops and numerous other places.

Three, we do get coverage in the mainstream media when we do things like holding a demo in front of some ministry, orfile a case suing the PM's Department, or even holding a press conference.

Though the editors have their constraints, many of the reporters on the ground respect the PSM for its principled stances and the fact that there is often substance in what we say.

And I think that we have definitely moved beyond our grassroots bases. We have captured the attention of the Malaysian public, to a degree. And we come out with a whole lot of press statements, pamphlets and small booklets, e.g. my speeches in Parliament. Our analysis is spreading wider than it was four years ago.

Could you cite a situation when the PSM didn't want to compromise its principles even though by doing so, the party would move beyond its grassroots level?

We didn't get on to the Hindraf bandwagon though several politicians from the PR (Pakatan Rakyat) parties did. In late 2007, we were one of the few voices in the opposition that criticised the ideological basis of Hindraf while speaking out against their victimisation by the government.

It is relatively easy to mobilise people using emotive racial arguments, but we feel that will ultimately make it difficult to build the coalition of the "99 percent" that we need to build to restructure our economy and society.

How exactly did the Hindraf wave affect Sungai Siput?

It made some of the voters very angry with (former MIC chief) Samy Vellu who was perceived as being dismissive of the Hindraf movement. It also neutralised his secret weapon.

Samy Vellu (left) had managed to get some 3,000 to 5,000 Indians from outside Sungai Siput to register as voters in Sungai Siput.

These voters would be bused in on polling day and given money after voting. They gave Samy Vellu a head start in every election.

However, more than 50 percent of them got pissed off with him over his mishandling of Hindraf and so they came and voted for me.

What are your impressions of Hindraf now?

The same as it was in 2007 when the movement peaked. I understand the concern and anger that many Indians feel regarding the marginalisation of Indians by BN policy.

I respect the courage and sacrifices of the Hindraf activists. I recognise and acknowledge the role Hindraf played in helping creating the March 2008 tsunami.

But Hindraf as a movement is based on an analysis that is past its "use-by" date. It is premised on an ethnic analysis of society, and there isn't much ideologically speaking to differentiate it from either MIC or Perkasa.

The PSM has always argued that the marginalised among the Indian community need to form a coalition with the marginalised of other racial groups, including the Malays, to challenge a socio-economic system that is skewed towards the super-rich.

This is diametrically opposed to the Hindraf strategy of uniting all Indians to challenge perceived Malay hegemony. The PSM has from the beginning stated this position clearly and openly.

With regards to your comments on Hindraf, do you think that component parties of Pakatan are split along ethnic lines even though they claim to represent all Malaysians?

It is not a contradiction. You can espouse a "Malaysian" outlook despite having a predominance of a particular racial group in your party.

It is your analysis of the political and socio-economic system that is important. If you adopt an analysis that is not a race-based, you will be speaking for all oppressed Malaysians even if your membership is more of a particular race. That's one of the differences between the PR parties and the BN parties.

Do you find the lack of backing of large vocal political parties a help or hindrance when it comes to voicing the concerns of your constituents?

We find that the larger parties often are focusing on personality issues of one leader or the other, while the PSM strives to highlight issues affecting the grassroots.

It is the mobilisation of the rakyat that highlights issues that we want to bring up. Once the rakyat get involved, the other parties usually will come to show their support.

This is an interesting point. Do you view the PSM's role as a catalyst to get other political parties involved in the process and could you give an example of an issue that PSM brought to the public attention and how other political parties followed?

Yes, a catalyst and a pressure group. For example, we have always been strongly against the setting up of private clinics in government hospitals.

When I found out from an answer to a question in Parliament that the government was thinking of extending the private clinic initiative to another four hospitals (in addition to Selayang and Putrajaya), the PSM organised simultaneous pickets in all four hospitals.

The PR parties which hadn't been so concerned by the issue all came out in support of our position when they saw that the general public reacted favourably to our stance.

Our annual asset declaration is another example. Now the Penang state government has started the same. We have been on the forefront of the anti-FTA (Free Trade Agreement) movement and the anti-GST group.

Recently we started an expose of the overtraining of nurses by the private colleges, which are driven by the greed for the PTPTN (private higher education) loans.

We have also presented a list of ‘Peoples' Expectations' to the Pakatan Rakyat leadership in Perak that we want them to implement if they come to power in PRU13 (13^th general elections).

What is the difference between your ‘Peoples; Expectation' list and the Pakatan manifesto?

I think we, the PSM, are more grounded in the reality that ordinary Malaysians live in. So we have more specific programmes and suggestions. However, there is a fair degree of overlap between the two documents.

Malaysian politics is personality driven and you have achieved an almost cult-like status. Is there a process within the PSM to groom a new generation of leaders?

Yes, there is. We are constantly pushing/encouraging newer and younger members to take up more responsibility. Meeting and discussions are given importance within the PSM. We believe our active members must understand why we take certain decisions.

We need to enhance the capacity of our members if we wish to expand our influence. I believe that we have to give younger members room to experiment and grow. The PSM must have an enabling environment for younger leaders to develop.

Could you give us an example of where there was disagreement between (younger) members on the decisions the PSM made?

Example 1, the younger people are generally more gung-ho. Some of them have been pushing for PSM to stand in more seats in PRU13 (we stood candidates in four seats in PRU12).

They argue that for the amount of work we do, and the commitment and capacity of our potential candidates, we should be given more seats to contest.

But the majority accepted the argument that PRU13 is about changing the BN and that the general public would think poorly of the PSM if they saw us as the cause of three-cornered fights in several constituencies.

Public perception is all-important to any political party as only if the public views us positively can we succeed in winning them over to our position.

Example 2, in Sungai Siput we have taken a decision to do away with the garlanding of leaders in public functions. It's a feudal carry-over and is inimical to the development of true democracy.

But when I visit temples during festivals, the temple committees invariably want to garland me. The younger members get upset when I accept the garlanding as they feel we are not keeping to our principles.

However, the older members argue that it would seem disrespectful to refuse, and as we are still in the process of making friends with the temple committees, most of whom were strong MIC supporters; we should not be so inflexible.

What was your impression of the debate between the MCA and DAP?
Don't understand Mandarin. But from the body language, (MCA chief) Dr Chua Soi Lek looked more in control.

And given the opportunity, who would you like to debate and what would the topic be?

The minister of labour - Malaysia's current macro-economic policy is leading to a massive erosion of the rights of our workers. The minister of health - over the 1Care health system.

Part 1: Dr Jeyakumar's solitary political journey

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy.

malaysiakini: The capricious turns of Chandra Muzaffar... by Terence Netto

The capricious turns of Chandra Muzaffar

Terence Netto 1:59PM Mar 3, 2012

COMMENT There was a time when Dr Chandra Muzaffar gave a good name to the designation ‘intellectual’ in Malaysian political discourse.

His ability to illuminate principle with wide knowledge made him, at one time, one of our leading public intellectuals.

Young, politically conscious Malaysians coming of age in the time from the late 1970s to the onset of the reformasi movement two decades later just had to read him in journals or listen to him at forums to get a good grasp of issues sparking in the political arena.

His limpid intellect and lucid exposition made him the go-to person for illumination on the issues of the day.

When in 1999 he became deputy president of Parti Keadilan Nasional, forerunner of the present PKR, it seemed the logical culmination to a two decade-long exertion on behalf of the cause of building a strong, democratic opposition in Malaysia.

But after he departed the party in the early 2000s, for reasons not as clear as one would expect from someone with his gift for vividness, he began to take inexplicable stances the more strange for it being so jarringly at odds with his prior ones.

In a maverick like blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin, who has always reveled at deploying a tantalising blend of half-truths and seductive fictions couched in sensation-stoking stories, such diametric reversals can be expected - the consequence, one would think, of an a priori stance in which a lurking sense of mischief is the hint the author is more keen on pulling your leg than in making a case.  

But in an exponent of reasoned argument in the context of a stable worldview, volte-faces such as Chandra has executed in recent years put one in mind of what Gestapo founder Hermann Goering said (substitute ‘intellectual’ for ‘culture’): “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver.”

No doubt Ralph Waldo Emerson is correct that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” but Chandra’s about-turns in recent years have given a promiscuous tinge to what it means to be an intellectual.

Anwar as PM an ‘unmitigated disaster’

The development of a coherent worldview which one would then apply with imagination and flair to any subject matter ipso factor precludes randomness in choice of positions on the opinion-spectrum.

The habit of persuasion through reasoned argument, the hallmark of an intellectual, necessarily entails that one takes up a position by studious argumentation and only abandons it on pain of collision with brute facts.

Chandra’s opinions an election season ago on Anwar Ibrahim and in this poll season on regime change in Malaysia have a capricious rather than a cogitated quality to them.

To say, as he did, at a public forum just days before the March 8, 2008 general election, that Anwar as prime minister would be “an unmitigated disaster” would have been comparable to, say, if Olivier Tambo had voiced the view when a newly released Nelson Mandela was negotiating with FW de Klerk during South Africa’s transition from an apartheid state to a democratic one that a Mandela presidency would be a colossal catastrophe for the country.

One concedes that this comparison is not quite on the same level in analogical terms, but it is close. The opinion of Chandra that Anwar as PM would be an “unmitigated disaster” rang as clangorously as a fire bell in the night.

The choice of words and the timing of their expression had about them a whorehouse quality.

If Chandra had said something more nuanced and said it at a time well before the election, it could have plausibly passed as a revision, a reconsideration of opinions he must have held when he made common cause with Anwar at the beginning of the reformasi period following Anwar’s expulsion from Umno and the BN government.

But aired just when it seemed things were going badly for the ruling coalition, the opinion exuded the perfidious stench of such nasty surprises in history as the Nazi-Soviet pact on the eve of the Second World War.

One would think that the opinion’s ineffectuality in influencing the tide against BN in 2008, culminating in an Anwar-led opposition’s historic denial of a two-thirds majority to the BN, would have had Chandra suitably chastened and thereafter appropriately cautious.

Instead, on the evidence of his latest offering that appeared inMalaysiakini earlier this week, he is driven to further contortions, conjuring up the appellation “deep state” to describe the surreptitious designs of an allegedly dominant force in US politics that wants Barack Obama to favour Anwar Ibrahim over Najib Razak as prime minister of Malaysia because this would further Israeli dominance over Palestinians in the Middle East and facilitate China’s encirclement by Washington-subservient states in Asia.

Conspiracy theories
One would have thought conspiracy theories of history, greatly enamoured by the spinmeisters of the Cold War era of a decidedly Leninist streak, would have died the death of a thousand refutations with the fall of the Iron and Bamboo curtains of two decades ago.

Obama, whom the alleged “deep state” could not force into helping the green revolution in Iran in mid-2009; whom Nicholas Sarkozy and David Cameron had virtually to shame into tardy help in getting rid of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya; who won’t help Syrian rebels just now being pulverised by Bashar Assad in Homs; who on Monday would be telling Benjamin Netanyahu that sanctions and the credible threat of force are better weapons than a unilateral military strike to prevent Iran going nuclear, is keen on Malaysia’s compliance with a policy of encirclement of China!

Hence the “deep state” in the US would prefer that Islamic chameleon Anwar Ibrahim who secretly loves Jews and the West to the English-educated but hegemon-wary Najib Razak as PM of Malaysia.  

When left-wing intellectuals attempted to justify Stalin’s murderous excesses by saying that “you have to break eggs to make an omelette”, that clear-eyed intellectual George Orwell tersely rebutted, “What omelette?”

A country steadily growing insolvent from serial corruption and from advanced misgovernment under the impact of a half-century’s unchallenged rule by Umno-BN has more urgent matters to worry about - like the purchase of unneeded submarines that won’t sink - than concerns of whether it is a proxy in alleged big power schemes.

“Malaysia a big power proxy?” is like the “omelette” of Stalin’s apologists, a self-aggrandising fiction to muddle giddy minds.

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TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal occupation for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.

malaysiakini: Dr Jeyakumar's solitary political journey.... by S Thayaparan

Dr Jeyakumar's solitary political journey

S Thayaparan 9:39AM Mar 3, 2012

'In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm... in the real world all rests on perseverance.'
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


I approach politics and politicians with great skepticism. In Malaysia, where race and politics are intimately entwined, one quickly learns that race-blind altruism is a commodity in short supply.

Dr Michael Jeyakumar is an anomaly among politicians. He is a recently elected member of parliament who subscribes to an antiquated leftist ideology (at least here in Malaysia), and is routinely demonised by the religious right and scorned by the hardcore capitalists who dominate the mainstream discourse,.
Yet, he is someone who has earned the respect of grassroots-level participants from both sides of the political divide.

The real work of serving the people happens far from the corridors of Putrajaya and in Sungai Siput where Jeyakumar in 2008 prevailed over the bellicose S Samy Vellu, president of the MIC.

This country doctor and his team of four full-time staff and eight volunteers work in relative obscurity, attempting to forge a new political and social paradigm, one with roots both in grassroots-level activism and macro-level political and social change.

In this interview, which covers a wide range of topics, Jeyakumar provides insight into what it means to stand apart from the political mainstream but still engage with it.

Last year, Jeyakumar and other PSM (Parti Sosialis Malaysia) members were detained under the obscene charge of waging war against the Yang di-Pertuan Agong during the height of the build-up to the Bersih 2.0 rally.

This would be a natural start this interview, considering the level of harassment opposition politicians face in this country.

Malaysiakini: Could you elaborate on your experience while in detention?

Jeyakumar: It was rather unpleasant. The powerlessness. Being held in solitary confinement. Being denied all reading material. They even refused to give me a Bible. I was very anxious that our detention was just the prelude to a wider political crackdown and perhaps the banning of the PSM.

As the interrogation proceeded, I came to feel that the police were not looking for the truth, but for bits of information that they could then stitch together as a plausible communist-conspiracy story.

It would have been relatively easy for them to release us after the Bersih event or to allow our first habeas corpus application to be upheld. But when they passed over these two opportunities of releasing us without looking like they were flip-flopping, I knew I was looking at a possible two-year stint.

That is when I decided to go on the hunger strike. But I had to wait till the family visit so that I could let the outside world know before I started. That was a frustrating 10-day wait as we had no family visits.

What was the level of PSM's involvement during the Perak state government crisis and has the current state government been of any assistance in your work in Sungai Siput?

We enjoyed reasonable access to the Perak state government under YB Nizar (Jamaluddin). It was easy for us to arrange meetings between marginalised sectors and the state exco then.

The current state government is of no assistance. The YDP (Yang Dipertua) for Sungai Siput has not given me an appointment to meet despite being asked three times over the past 18 months. Ditto the land officer.

I and all other opposition MPs and Adun (state assemblypersons) are never invited to the Majlis Tindakan Daerah (District Action Committee) meetings that are held monthly ever since the Nizar administration collapsed.

Communities facing problems who go to the MB's office are told that they will only get help if they cut ties with me and the PSM.

And what have been the responses of those communities who have been told to cut ties from you and the PSM? Do you find support lagging for your work there?

It depends. Some communities have scolded the BN types who admonished them. Sometimes their overt support for us decreases for a bit, but if their main grievances are not handled by the BN, then it's a matter of time before they come back to us for assistance.

So, in this game, timing is crucial. Sometimes we have to give them room to explore the options offered by the other side, and not try to hold them back by threats or "emotional blackmail". But we must maintain contact so that we know when there is a need to mobilise them to protest some blatantly unfair decision of the government.

The Orang Asli are on the whole more timid (generally the poorer the community, the more beholden it is to the BN) and it has been very difficult to do work with them since the collapse of the PR (Pakatan Rakyat) in Perak - despite the bridge in Perje.

But on the whole, support for PSM's work has steadily increased since March 2008 among the Malays, Chinese and Indians, for they can see close up how the PSM works.

In many parts of the country, rejection of BN misrule is what fuels support for the opposition. In Sungai Siput, in addition to this, our work on the ground is a plus point for us.

Could you describe your working relationship with Pakatan and the kind of assistance you get from them, if any?

Working relations are cordial. I think the PR parties at Sungai Siput and Perak levels recognise and are impressed with the kind of work we are doing.

PAS played a big role in the bridge that we built for Kg Perje, the Orang Asli kampung.

Most people would be unfamiliar with the Kg Perje Bridge and the Orang Asli kampong. Could you elaborate on this project and how exactly PSM and PAS worked together?

Kg Perje is an Orang Asli kampung located about 40km from Sungai Siput town. About 20km of that distance is along a logging trail.

The 40 families there wanted to repair the existing hanging bridge. My team felt that this would be difficult and proposed that we build a new bridge. At the time of decision, we didn't realise how difficult that would be.

The project to build the 150-foot long bridge, mounted on four 24-foot high beams, took 18 months and close to RM80,000 to complete. We had to go in about 20 times to do the work, gotong-royong style.

A PAS leader, who is an engineer, helped us design the bridge and visited the site several times, and supervised the technically difficult step of raising the cables.

Several PAS members came in with us on several occasions for the gotong-royong. A PAS member loaned us his cement mixer for a nine-month period. Perak PAS also contributed RM5,000 for the project.

It really was a case of biting off more than you should have. But the party members and friends rallied around and completed a project that was far too exacting, given our meagre resources.

But getting it done boosted the morale of the PSM members in Sungai Siput, and provided a very concrete example, showcasing our commitment to help the Orang Asli. We also won the admiration and support of the component members of the Pakatan Rakyat.

Do religious or cultural sensitivities hinder the work you do?

Not too much. All religions have a "socialist" core. Politics does hinder though. Sometimes people are afraid to come and participate as they are afraid that they will be spotted by the BN and then denied the bits of aid that they are getting.

How does the PSM manage to balance the expectations of the diverse communities you represent?

It is not a zero-sum game where we have to deprive one to cater to the needs of the other. The fight of the small vegetable farmers for their rights to hold on to their land does not impinge negatively on the fight of poor Malay farmers being cheated by an Umno-linked company, or on the struggle for urban pioneers to get grants for the plots they have built their houses on.

In fact, our strategy is to try and get them to come together to support one another's demands.

What is the communication process like?

We try to get the different communities together for discussion sessions. This can be difficult because though everyone speaks Malay, the level of proficiency is sometimes not good enough to have a deeper discussion.

The PSM is essentially a grassroots-level political movement. How exactly does it enable the kind of dramatic headline-grabbing changes when lack of resources and manpower means it's best suited for small communities?

I believe that we shouldn't be overly concerned with dramatic headlines and media "spin". The real work that we do will speak eloquently enough, especially with the emergence of the alternative media.

And because our class-based, community-centred, civil disobedience approach is now quite unique in the present Malaysian political context, headline "grabbing" moments will develop from time to time.

Being overly focused on spinning the media belies a certain dismissive and even manipulative stance vis-a-vis the rakyat. However, in the past one year, we have got more than our share of "dramatic headlines" though it was more due to the miscalculation of the police than to the success of our own plans.

But dramatic headlines draw attention to social/political causes, like the Bersih movement and Hindraf, for example.

Yes, dramatic headlines do help spread one's cause. And I think that we have had our share in the past four years since March 2008.

1. December 2008 - The bicycle campaign, especially when the CPO (chief police officer) of Selangor arrested the entire northern team in Rawang.

2. Our annual asset declarationritual.

3. The case I filed against the Prime Minister's Department for the withholding of constituency funds to the opposition MPs.

4. The EO (Emergency Orders)detention took the cake, but we never imagined that that might happen.

But there must be a baseline of serious work on grassroots and national issues. Only then does the party come out looking good, with the spotlight on us. Otherwise, people will view the headline grabbing efforts as cheap and desperate stunts.

TMI: Malaysia after regime change — by Thomas Pepinsky

Malaysia after regime change — Thomas Pepinsky

March 03, 2012

MARCH 3 — As Malaysia prepares for its 13th general election, due no later than April 2013, the long-standing competitive authoritarian regime will face one of its most difficult tests. The 2008 elections dealt a surprise blow to the incumbent Barisan Nasional (BN), and ever since, Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government has struggled to protect its now-fragile majority. After four years of renewed opposition activism, rumours of defection from Umno, and the recent acquittal of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysians will have the chance to vote the BN out of office once and for all.

In a post-BN Malaysia, observers will closely monitor the role of Islam in public life. Much of what happens will depend on the shape of the government that follows. In terms of the composition of a post-BN government, two outcomes seem most likely: (1) a multi-ethnic Pakatan Rakyat-based (PR) coalition in which PAS, PKR and the DAP all participate, perhaps along with one or more east Malaysian parties; or (2) an Umno-PAS “Muslim-Malay” coalition, again perhaps involving the co-operation of one or more east Malaysian parties. Either way, PAS — an explicitly Islamist party — will be part of the government.

That PAS would advocate for a greater role for Islam in Malaysian public life is undeniable. PAS describes its goals as follows:

    Memperjuangkan wujudnya di dalam negara ini sebuah masyarakat dan pemerintahan yang terlaksana di dalamnya nilai-nilai hidup Islam dan hukum-hukumnya menuju keredhaan Allah. [Fighting to create a society and government that is run according to Islamic principles and the laws which please Allah]

    Mempertahankan Kesucian Islam serta kemerdekaan dan kedaulatan negara.[Defending the sanctity of Islam alongside independence and national sovereignty.]

The prospect of PAS in government alone is worrying for those many Malaysians (both Muslims and non-Muslims) who express concern about the Islamisation of Malaysian politics and society. Moreover, a PR-based government would struggle to balance PAS’s goals with the DAP’s largely non-Muslim constituency. That would make an Umno-PAS alliance all the more attractive to PAS, while Umno, whose membership is not restricted to Muslims but is overwhelming Muslim anyway, would likely not hesitate to return to power with a new coalition partner.

Questions about PAS after the BN may reflect the concerns that many non-Muslims in Malaysia have about the role of religion in public life, and Malaysia’s Hindu minority in particular has cause for grievance on this account. But this obscures the corrosive effects that six decades of ethnic partisanship have had on the prospects for Malaysian democracy. It is a mistake, in other words, to focus narrowly on PAS, or broadly on Islam itself, when anticipating Islam in a post-BN Malaysian political order. Doing so confuses the potential consequences of PAS in government with the factors that have contributed both to PAS’s popularity and to the current state of Islam in Malaysian public life.

PAS itself has not played a major role in the Islamisation of Malaysian politics or Malaysian society. Rather, it was Malay politicians in the pre-independence period (the very same group that went on to found Umno) who enshrined Islam in the constitution and legally defined Malay-ness with reference to Islam. This was done not in the name of Islam, but to protect what were perceived to be “Malay interests”. After independence, with communism illegal, social democracy discredited (through its historical affiliation with a largely Chinese opposition party), liberalism cast as antithetical to Malaysian values, multiculturalism or pan-ethnic solidarity discouraged through the party system, and the Bumi/non-Bumi split underlying every aspect of social and economic policy, the only “Malay” alternative to Umno’s Malay platform was PAS’s Islamist platform.

Today, in a society in which economic function and demographic characteristics such as urbanisation no longer distinguish Malays from non-Malays as easily as they once did, core issues such as religion have a new importance for voters whose political identities are constructed through an ethnic framework.

The strategic logic of political competition in Malaysia’s plural society therefore rewards parties seeking Malay votes when they appeal to the characteristics that define Malays in opposition to non-Malays. It should not surprise anyone that when Malay voters find Umno politicians wanting, they are likely to vote for the only opposition party whose political outlook has not been labelled as “un-Malaysian” for the past half century.

Facing this, non-exclusivist opposition parties such as the DAP and PKR have struggled to transcend the ethnic paradigm in Malaysian politics. The choice for non-Malay, non-Muslim voters has been whether to cast their lot with their own regime-allied (and ethnically-constituted) parties, the “un-Malaysian” multiethnic opposition, or the Islamist PAS.

The fundamental challenge for public life in a post-BN Malaysia is not Islam, it is ethnicity’s dominant role in defining Malaysians’ political identity, and this challenge just as pressing today as it would be if a new government with PAS comes to power following the upcoming elections. Of course, PAS’s explicitly religious goals are important to note, but there are few things that it could do in government that are not already within Umno’s capacity today.

Umno has presided over — and its campaign messages and public policies have encouraged — the rise of Islam in public life. It is tempting today to see what Judith Nagata called the “reflowering of Malaysian Islam” as merely a local instance of a global Muslim awakening, but this misses the very politics of Islamic politics in Malaysia.

In the Malaysian context, the rise of religion is the unavoidable consequence of the politicisation of ethnicity. A PAS-led government might go further than the BN has in prosecuting perceived insults to Islam, or in expanding the domain of Islamic family law, but such worries already mark Malaysian public life. The religious issues facing Malaysia are far deeper than the ruling party’s religious outlook, and having PAS in government is best understood as the outcome of decades of social change and religious conflict rather than a possible independent cause of future religious tensions.

It is reasonable to wonder what Malaysian politics would look like with an avowedly Islamist party like PAS in government, but as always, the meaning of Islam in Malaysian public life cannot be separated from the dominance of ethnicity in Malaysian politics.

The “solution” to the “problem” of Islam in Malaysian politics — if one believes that Islam is indeed a problem — is the same as the solution to many of the other issues that face contemporary Malaysian society: a post-ethnic movement (not merely a multi-ethnic one) in which Malaysians identify, assemble, and act as Malaysians rather than as representatives of ethnic groups in a zero-sum competition for power and resources.

This is what many hope that a PR government would mean, and in rhetorical terms, that is what Najib’s 1 Malaysia campaign promises. A recent article in the Economist suggests that many young Malaysians would welcome such a post-ethnic politics. But they will have to wait, for Malaysian politics as BN-versus-PR restates the ethnic politics framework without moving past it. — New Mandala

* Thomas Pepinsky is assistant professor of government at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. His work focuses on comparative politics and international political economy, with a special focus on contemporary issues in Southeast Asia. His interests include the politics of finance, authoritarianism, Islam, and finding a way to move Ithaca to the tropics.

Žižek and social change in Malaysia – Part 2.... by Alwyn Lau

Žižek and social change in Malaysia – Part 2

February 26th, 2012 by Alwyn Lau, Guest Contributor · Add a Comment

In the techno-apocalyptic hit movie, The Matrix, the hero John Anderson (eventually renamed Neo) was given the choice of two pills by his mentor, Morpheus. There was the blue pill, which would keep Neo within the illusory realm of the computer-generated world of The Matrix.

Or, he could take the red pill and plunge down the rabbit’s hole of the truth (that the world as he knows it is nothing more than a software being run and he’s really stuck in a gel-based bath-tub with two dozens wires plugged into him).

Blue – to stay inside illusion. Red – to have one’s eyes opened to truth.

Žižek has, however, proposed a third pill: One which lets us see the truth within illusion (let’s call this the purple pill).

In one of his master-classes on Lacan, Žižek discusses a comic strip in which three men are asked what they enjoy doing in their free time. The comic strip shows each person answering with a particular hobby (e.g. playing an instrument, mountain-hiking, painting the house, etc.) but thinking the same thing: sex.

Žižek then suggests that reality is more complex because given the nature of sexual fantasies, who ever dreams of doing the act immediately and ‘animalistically’ as if the only thing going on inside even the most horny minds is the ‘act’ of coupling itself ?

Don’t we all weave a narrative of fiction (be it about seduction at the office, at a friend’s house, whilst cooking, or whatever)?

The point is, according to Žižek, the comic strip had it backwards: It should’ve shown the men saying ”I want to have sex” whilst imagining different scenarios (e.g. in the park, at the symphony, at the backyard, etc.).

Which brings us to the second Žižek /Lacanian principle in this series (go HERE for the first one):

Truth takes the form of fiction.

Our social world cannot survive without fictions. Truths require fictions.

Take our social and business conversations. Don’t businessmen often ‘dance around’ at the start of negotiations and make all kinds of pointless trivia before casually easing up to the matters at hand?

Then again, is it really possible to have business discussions sans the small-talk?

Don’t we, whenever we have to point out some embarrassing mistake (either by ourselves or others), often cloak the communiqué in ‘polite laughter’?

Then again, especially with people of equal status, how often do we simply call up a person and immediately point out an error?

And when has any political party ever admitted any of their actions or policies to be politically motivated in the least?

Is this because they really think people don’t know?

Or could it be precisely because they know that any intelligent voter will be concerned should their favourite party admit to having political motifs at all?

What would every BERSIH supporter think if all of a sudden Anwar declared out loud that part of BERSIH’s objectives was to put Pakatan Rakyat in power?

Then again, is the proposition that a major public rally against the incumbent government has something to do with raising the popularity of the Opposition, in the least surprising?

And if not, would it not then be the public nature of such a declaration from which the shock-value is derived i.e. that suddenly the truth (which everybody knows) is no longer ‘in the form of fiction’?

Likewise, would the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) ever explicitly state that 1Malaysia seeks to exclude certain parties from being in office, that it’s about keeping UMNO in power, etc.?

The truth of political hegemony relies on the fiction of universal popularity.

In this sense, perhaps it’s less helpful to keep repeating how UMNO is full of cronies, scandals and so on.

Perhaps Lim Guan Eng and Karpal Singh should go live on TV (local and international) commending Barisan Nasional for being absolutely and 100% corruption-free.

Such a fiction – precisely because it FAILS to hide the truth of BN’s corruption – could spur people to ask what in heavens is happening.

“If all you want to say is that BN is corruption-free, why are you saying that BN is corruption-free?”

This would be akin to a world-class criminal who inexplicably gets caught (which, in the movie The Dark Knight, was actually what the Joker did).

In such cases, what’s being done is that fiction is being wielded to pronounce a ‘special’ kind of truth. The objective is nothing other than to direct their listeners’ attention to the ‘deeper’ truth hidden within their actions or statement (or, in the case of the Joker, to ‘hide’ his truth from the police).

Isn’t it remarkable, too, in an age where ‘clear’, unambiguous theological doctrine is encouraged, that Jesus in particular decided to make his main form of teaching parables i.e. storied fictions?!

Was there something about the kingdom of God which couldn’t abide with overly straight-forward direct exposition?

Could it even be the case that God ‘learnt’ from the Old Testament apostasy stories how even the most detailed and precise form of truth-propositions (i.e. commandments, rules and regulations) failed to touch the heart and therefore preferred His Son to speak awry for a change?  To obtain holistic understanding precisely by risking mis-understanding?

Theological truth – to be grasped in its life-changing totality – needs the narratival power of ‘fiction’.

I recently chanced upon a strange event.

The government has recently embarked on some heavy renovation works in the area that I live. This has caused the re-routing of traffic away from a common road to one which passed straight through some (reasonably high-class) residential houses.

As I drove out, I soon I reached a fork in the road. If I turned left, I would have to drive through right in front of the houses. If I turned right, I would drive on the rocky half-road prepared by the contractors temporarily. It was entirely my choice.

But here was a peculiar sight: A man, obviously a resident, was standing at the fork with his dog, holding a thumbs-up towards my right turning (towards the common half-built road) and bowing repeatedly towards me.

It appears this man, having reached the end of his rope with the traffic and pollution, decided to humble himself by sincerely requesting drivers to take the public road, instead of the one leading to the front of his house (and others).

It was a strange, almost ‘fictional’, sight which nevertheless worked well to communicate the truth of his predicament – that economic growth, the very vehicle of his wealth, as manifested in burgeoning public development, was now taking away his privacy and (to some extent) his very idea of a home.

A master of business, of profiting off the institution of economic consumption, had to adopt the fiction of a servant – bowing, kow-towing even – to present the truth that business/consumer interests are ‘consuming’ the very place where he lives.

That man embodied the paradox of Capitalism: That our very efforts to obtain riches will double-back on us. If the man at the road was a businessman, it’s more than likely that his riches were assisted by some government infrastructural works which disrupted somebody else’s living space! Yet now here he is. Almost powerless at a road which threatens to engulf his peace of mind.

Which brings me to a final ‘truth’. What if the lies and sensational events and debates of Malaysian politics all serve to embody the biggest publicly disavowed truth in the country?

What if all the battles against injustice, against corruption, between Pakatan and Barisan, all serve to fictionalise the one truth that people dare not admit i.e. that in the end political justice is ultimately wedded to economic prosperity?

The fiction of the entire political sandiwara (shadow play) serves to ‘hide’ (precisely because it presents in hidden form) the truth of Capitalism. This is the truth that in the end it’s not justice that matters, it’s not freedom of speech, it’s not racial unity, it’s not the plight of the orang asli - in the end, it’s the national bank account. That must be sustained at all costs and ultimately the nation couldn’t care less who’s in power.

Recall, too, the 1999 General Elections which saw the majority of Malaysian  Chinese – arguably the most educated and well-off group in the country – more or less vote the Barisan Nasional way and remain relatively unaffected by all the cries of Reformasi.

Perhaps this also explains why in Selangor, the government juxtaposes ‘no plastic bag’ Saturdays with the ever-increasing growth of building projects. So on one hand, the people should care for the environment whilst on the other the air and rivers be damned if developers need to worship at the altar of Profit.

Capital’s supremacy today takes, because it exploits and hides behind, the formof political struggle – is this true? Or mere fiction? Or do we need a pill to figure it out?

Žižek and social change in Malaysia – Part 1... by Alwyn Lau

Žižek and social change in Malaysia – Part 1

February 12th, 2012 by Alwyn Lau, Guest Contributor · 10 Comments

Slavoj Žižek is widely acknowledged to be one of the most creative and vibrant inter-disciplinary philosophers today. He has written more than 30 books covering topics ranging from cultural theories and film criticism to political philosophy, theology and psycho-analysis. Some of his more popular and accessible works include Violence: Six Sideways Glances, How To Read Lacanand First As Tragedy, Then As Farce.

This series of articles discusses some ‘principles’ (if they can be called that) extracted from the work of Slavoj Žižek and applies it to Malaysian life. Here’s the first one:

#1. “The way to overcome a problematic scenario is to fully identifywith its assumptions and framework”

This is known as traversing (or disturbing) the fantasy. Žižek explains this via the example of three popular movies.

In the bus-thriller Speed (with Keanu Reeves), there’s a scene where a terrorist takes a policeman hostage as part of his attempt to escape. The hero decides toshoot his own colleague in the leg. This makes it virtually impossible for the terrorist to drag the policeman outside, thus completely foiling the terrorist’s plan.

Similarly, in the Mel Gibson movie Ransom, the father of the kidnapped boy radically subverts the kidnappers’ demand by offering millions of dollars for information leading to the rescue of the boy. In some sense, the father had already accepted the loss of his son; his actions, therefore, reflected and generated a complete reversal of the situation, putting the kidnappers on the defensive.

Finally, and most radically, in The Usual Suspects (starring Kevin Spacey), the protagonist when threatened with the murder of his wife and children, proceeds to kill his own family thus removing them from the equation and allowing him total freedom to pursue his enemies.

In all the three cases/movies above, the coordinates of the game were totally changed; the system no longer appeared the same to all involved. This is what Žižek hopes to see in political action – acts that bring about massive systemic crisis and a drastic subversion of the socio-political framework itself.

Another example Žižek mentions is given at the start of Jose Saramago’s book,Blindness, in which during an election a virtual no-show of voters dealt a severe systemic blow to the whole system.

Žižek claims that such an event - a mass rejection of elections which necessitated a reappraisal of the very concept of democratic elections – was ‘more violent’ than what Hitler did with his world wars and genocide which, so Žižek says, was a very busy and active way of ensuring that nothing really changed; the Third Reich embodied, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”, a French phrase oft quoted by Žižek, meaning, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”

Why?

Because Hitler, instead of addressing deep class antagonisms, chose to (mis)-direct Germany’s problems towards the Jews, homosexuals, Communists and so on.

Yet the movies examples and that of Saramago’s novel point to one key element of political action which Žižek challenges us to: That true ‘acts’ of the Real involve a striking at one’s self, a voluntary (and often desperate)personal sacrifice of what truly matters.

Such actions include the radical faith that in order for something ‘better’ to emerge, even the ‘good’ at present must be vanquished if only because it continually chains to a fantasmic system constituted by and propagating a deception that there is no better system to speak meaningfully of.

These examples also highlight how, perhaps the ultimate way of defeating a bad situation could be, to act as if one completely holds to its fundamental tenets in the hope of thereby exposing the lie or facade of the system itself. This is the obverse of the fact that, according to Žižek, people tend to believe things half-heartedly, ‘from a distance’, at arms’ length and so on. Yet it is precisely such distantiation of belief which keeps us in bondage to the system prescribed by the belief.

Why?

Because the distance deceives us into believing that we’re not really assimilated, thus allowing us to simultaneously continue behaving as if we do believe.

Take the Malaysian education system. Virtually everybody realises and recognises how superficial and unhelpful it is for children to keep working and hunting for the highest number of A-plus’, to continue with memorisation/rote-learning and such.

However, in direct contradiction to these concerns, parents still continue to push their students to score as high as they can in every school examination. The very same parents who say they “no longer believe in the education system” will chasten their children for not performing well within that system.

If pushed, the normal response will be, “Well, I don’t really believe in the system, but unfortunately our culture and industries still rely on it”  - in other words, I don’t believe in it but since someone ELSE does, I have no choice!.

This is akin to one of Žižek’s most quoted jokes about the man who believes he’s a seed of grain. He goes to a doctor, gets some medication and a week later the doctor asks him if he still believes he’s a seed of grain. The man says, “No, but the chicken still does!”

The solution – traversing the fantasy – would then involve acting as if the system was 100% correct and without error. So, parents who want to challenge the system of A-accumulation can possibly do the following:

• pull their children out of all activities not related to obtaining an A;
• lobby that all extra-curricular, physical education, moral education and health education be replaced with extra tuition classes;
• perform severe public punishment on their children should they get even 1% less than the score required for an A;
• insist that schools should hire only teachers who have scored a minimum number of As’ in their previous examinations at school or university or at teacher-training colleges, etc…

Crazy and disastrous?

Exactly.

The rationale is to push to the extreme the effects of a system which privileges top marks to the exclusion of thinking, creativity, teamwork and fresh pedagogical approaches.

But back to politics.

Some historical milestones Žižek has considered suggestive of this kind of Real Act include the May ’68 student protests in France, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (and the founding of the Church), the Bolshevik Revolution, Stalin’s collectivisations,  the recent revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia and of course, the French Revolution.

In the Malaysian context then, what could a political act of the Real look like?

What fantasy-belief sustains the political system (which almost every Malaysian condemns)?

What is it that every Malaysian will never say they believe, yet inadvertently determines our behaviour?

Alwyn Lau is a member of Friends in Conversation. He is presently a lecturer in Sociology at KDU University-College and is also pursuing a PhD  at Monash University (Malaysia). His research interests include theology, critical theory, political philosophy, psychoanalysis, hot food, misunderstood people and the occasional bad movie.