My Merdeka Wish for NegaraKu: The Fiendish Intellectual

A first timer knocking at the door at xpyred.textfiend.net is greeted by a strong declaration whose first liner can put off Angelic citizens -- the likes of Helen, Anak M and of course, Desi-lah, and Y&A like Kyels, Sabbie and johnleemk. Who would want to bequaint a SCOUNDREL, I ask you! I don't know about Howsy and Mave SM. My dear ER, YOU DESide. I've been pretty democratic nowadays, haven't I?


"Hi! I'm a depraved, godless, amoral scoundrel! I love anime, porn and politics! I love you government folks, too! You can explore my innards at will, just muck around with the various links I've got lined up for you! Leave a comment! Sharing is caring! Or something like that!" Desi has highlighted (BOLDED THUS) the proFANities, but I dare not press the DELETE key in case ZAM protesteth that we Bloggers also practise SENSORship! So be warned before stepping into his terrortry! I believe sometimes xpyre, like Desi, missperrs -- 'anime" should read "animals", NO?

But familairiy breeds a sense of wellbeing despite an initial fiendish reception, jso now ust ENJOY his thought-provoking Merdeka pie. It raises some questions without clear answers, but it would NOT jeopardise your health reflecting on the issues as I had had several intercourses with the nyet xpyred one. My verdict is: he's intellectual. Honourable, but NO Schoolboy. That belongs to Housey. Or I feign to truly recognise them both, or IT, whatever.

The author suggests some "waiting". " I'll watch and wonder and wait. was his parting shot. I think it's an intellectual thinking allowed that there are many possible scripts waiting for The Play on the Malaysian Stage, and each of us is a player. You determine your own role, BIG or small, but I share one CONviction (Hey, Peace Hill, found the records nyet?) in common with xpyre: WE CANNOT REMAIN AS MERE SPECTATORS.

Yes, strive to be a bardist as we all have the potential, including Helen who flagged, not flogged! this Series off, to show that we have at least tried our best. We all are equal ACTORS whether we like it or not, for we are all joint writers of the Malaysian Story still in progress.



Guest Blogger: Xpyre aka Reduce and Recycle

Malaysian Graffiti: 49 years on

Almost fifty years on and the peace our country enjoys is the envy of many nations, or so I hear. A funny thing about being the object of admiration: being told we are the standard usually means we're blind to the successes in other nations – or blind to the antecedents of our own envied harmony.

It is decades after independence and we are still operating under the threat of arrests without reprieve for dubious reasons such as the common catch-all, 'national security'. We've spent a few years without these threats being enforced on other people, of course. And, we've been somewhat prosperous. Malaysia is an Asian 'Dragon', and a model of progressive government policies, I'm told.

You want to see real poverty and a real breakdown of government? I'm told you should refer to Vietnam, or the Philippines: people living in squalor and without basic amenities with millions living beneath the poverty line; people unable to find work and must scrape together a living in the worst of conditions. For these people, I'm often told, politics is a meaningless word, and 'civil society' is a middle-class preoccupation not shared by the general masses.

In Malaysia, politics is similarly meaningless... or it used to be. Maybe Malaysians are starting to get tired of that sword hanging above their heads.


The threat of change

According to Wikipedia, Damocles was an excessive flatterer in the court of the King Dionysius. Damocles wished for a taste of what Dionysius enjoyed, and so the King offered to switch places with Damocles. King Dionysius served Damocles over dinner that evening. It was only after Damocles had finished his meal that he noticed a sword suspended over him, hung by a mere horse's hair. Damocles immediately lost his appetite.

The lesson, I'm told, is that of the fragility of power. In the case of King Dionysius, of course, the picture is abundantly clear: Kings come and go, and awfully quick.

In our Malaysian context, the picture is quite different. Our government, which has been in control since our country's inception, has never harboured any fear of loss. No, we find that fear amongst politicians vying against each other for positions of power within the same machinery. The fear of loss which should dangle above the incumbent has been transferred. Strangely enough, we are the ones now sitting beneath such threats.

Pushing political discourse into the margins only forces politics into other spaces, fortunately. And that means explicit political _expression goes underground; almost everything becomes implicitly political, if not merely socio-cultural.

We've had Sepet and the recently banned Lelaki Komunis Terakhir (banned); we've had 18?, also banned; we've had the Black Metal issue, which has brought to light issues of moral policing by a religious hegemony now fast enveloping our nation; and others. Boundaries are being tested, and none so clearly as with the Moorthy issue and the Lina Joy issue.

The Ancient Regime and its Enemies

These efforts have come hard on the heels of various blow-ups since June last year, when there was a minor riot over the Approved Permit issue and the hike in fuel prices. By themselves, I have no doubt that these issues wouldn't have presented major problems to the players in government. It was a series of blows to Mahathir that jolted him to action, it seems.

First, Mahathir's son was mentioned as owning Approved Permits; then MV Augusta was sold for pittance; and then the incumbent cancelled plans for a new bridge over the Johor Straits. The last was more than he could take, and quiet murmurs became open questions. The ensuing conflict has been played out in the newspapers and in the media - on both sides. A friend likes to characterize it as a tussle between the old and the new; I can't help but see the divide as between the old and the not-so-old.

Both sides are of the same stock, and both sides are tussling over prime pieces of political and economic real estate, if only for their proxies.

(The current problem is fascinating, if you're interested. Imagine a power structure centered around one man for the past 22 years, with most important government functions under his ambit, and now a successor who is unwilling to wield the full might of his position.

Then imagine a young upstart politician circumventing old power structures riding on the successor's position with an ambition to emerge as the sole power in BN. And then imagine how this young man and the 'old man' are both circumventing the old order of things internally and externally. Will there be signs of collapse? Will there be a split in the party? Will that be a good thing? I'm no political scientist, so someone should tell me.)

The only good to have come out from all this is that the current incumbent is forced to offer willing sacrifices to the public. Whether this means the castigating of a Mohd Said or the dissolution of an ECM Libra, you can be sure that the political horse-trading is carrying on with a renewed earnest.

Which, of course, begs the question: is the new-found transparency and accountability for real, or is it put up in contradistinction to the excesses of the Mahathir government? I suppose only time will tell if we are at the brink of a substantive change after 22 years of political hegemony.

Clampdown

It was perhaps because of the brewing instability in the government that clampdowns are now popular. I remember the more infamous ones: Badawi declaring the Approved Permit issue "closed"; Najib offering compensation to Moorthy's widow, declaring the issue "closed"; Badawi declaring the Inter-Faith Commission "unnecessary", and the issue therefore "closed"; Badawi, after lengthy non-explanations from his ministers, declaring the bridge issue "closed"; Badawi, citing possible religious and racial tensions, declaring the issue of Article 11 and 121(1A) "closed". The latest, and most 'earth-shaking', of course, were warnings that bloggers face "closure", literally, if they talk cock.

There are several more I'm not remembering, but you get the point. I must admit that I've never, in the space of a year, witnessed so many issues forced to "close". I should feel elated that efforts have stepped up to bring issues usually swept beneath the carpet into the light. I feel ambivalent, however. In the light of the political shenanigans of old man Mahathir and not-so-old Badawi, I can't help but feel that the aforementioned clamp-downs were more the result of political expedience rather than real concern; you can't wage war on more than one front - to do so would be folly.

It worries me somewhat because there's no telling what a cornered (Abdullah Ahmad) Badawi will resort to. With the ever present threat of the government resorting to Emergency powers (which, if you don't know, are still in effect) without the necessary oversight only means that these powers can be wielded at will. This is especially scary when will to survive overrules good sense.

What's even more worrying is how these clamp-downs by the government have affirmed, if implicitly, the opinions of the religious-right, especially on contested issues. Issues that would be best served if discussed have been unceremoniously squashed beneath blanket declarations for even less meaningful reasons. This sort of sanction only assures the religious-right of the veracity of their opinions, when these opinions cannot withstand the force of objective discourse.

For victims of this implicit sanction, look no further than NST's Sunday 27 June 2006 column by Malik Imtiaz Sarwar. I hope you don't think I'm melodramatic when I say that Mr Malik is, to me, the face of Malaysia today after 49 years of independence: living under the threat of final dissolution. When I first heard about death threats against Mr Malik, I thought I was reading something out of an absurdist comedy.

Death threats. The very phrase stifles dialogue, emasculates speech and paralyzes thought. With one anonymous declaration circulated via email, sms and through fliers, the issues of apostasy and the Constitution suddenly lose their meaning. What meaning remains? None. Religion? Why, religion is mud and all talk is more mud and God is mud when you're threatened with death. Why mud? Because when men are willing to resort to taking another's life for what that person thinks or declares, then they've chosen to wallow in the mud like animals.

I shudder when I imagine happy-faced murderers wielding knives.

More than anything, the figure of Mr Malik speaks eloquently of the fragility of civil society in Malaysia. It's funny that 49 years after independence, we're no closer to having a real voice, and a society willingly tolerant of discourse. Perhaps things are starting to change for the better. After 49 years, it's about bloody time.

There is an interesting bit to the myth of Damocles and that infamous sword. I'm sure you've caught it by now: it was Damocles' ignorance of the threat hanging above him that allowed him to enjoy his short-lived revels in the court of King Dionysius.

So on Merdeka day, I will watch the floats, and the dancers and the marching men and women in uniforms on television. I'll watch and wonder and wait.


DESIDERATA: I'm still in deep thoughts over xpyre's write; luckily, like him, I'm NOT expired. Inspired. May add my thoughts later in the day.

Meanwhile I hope my EsteemedReaders engage this fiendish Guest Blogger (add the R somewhere later) while I go R&R a byte. ~~ Desi


PS: DESIDERATA rejoins CONVERSATION with xpyre @11.35PM:

It's just another 25 minutes to the dawning of my country's 49th birthday -- but I don't feel the festive air that normally precedes such an important milestone. Instead, the atmosphere is thick with "doom and gloom", and what's reported Screenshots today does not help to lift the unpleasant sensesurrounds. I bumped into xpyre at the Post where JeffOoi pressed the DELETE key the most number of times since I started visiting his abode some two years ago. Incidentally, xpyre also left his footprint there, and I advise my ER here to spend Merdeka Day getting educated over this INCIDENT -- it has longterm implications for ALL BLOGGERS, and I may soon be activating my Word Verification...after several deferments and much reluctance.

I expressed my "regrets" to Jeff over the outcome of the "shoot the (I won't dignity to state name of senior journalist at MSM)... for good" episode, originating from a Commenter Ilmran who already expressed "Apologies" for causing such unforeseen drama and IMHO, "over-reaching" from the main protagonist who lodged a complaint with the autorities which then held a "mediation" hearing involving Jeff. The outcome was that Jeff had to register publicly the "Apologies" by Ilmran, again.

I reprise my Comment left at Jeff's, with some slight editing, mainly typos:

"Jeff (and to Ilmran2):

All along I have said It was a case of Much Ado Over Nothing. I still hold that opinion -- but I salute you, Jeff, and Conversationist Ilmran, for being gentlemen extending the APologies.

To me, a Blogger inspired by "M.blogsworld sifu" Jeff to start 2 Ides of March ago, the Outcome marks a BLACK DAY FOR THE POTENTIAL 5TH ESTATE in NegaraKu, definitely an affirmation of the poor state of affairs, particularly its senior practictioners in the likes of Guna (I hesitated using the 'ilk of' so that Jeff has less 'editing" to belabour...Sorry, did I digress?)of the 4TH ESTATE here! coming just a day before 49th Hari Merdeka. I feel sad.

Just part with these lines from another sifu Max Ehrmann:

"I Go My Way

Al round is haste, confusion, noise.
For power and wealth men stretch the day
From dawn till dusk. But quietly
I go my way..."

"May peace and progress be on Us -- Our NegaraKu --despite ...
I.S. A:men."

This episode, especially its afterath, is associated with xpyre's point that ~~"
Which, of course, begs the question: is the new-found transparency and accountability for real, or is it put up in contradistinction to the excesses of the Mahathir government? I suppose only time will tell if we are at the brink of a substantive change after 22 years of political hegemony.

I had expressed at some forums that the recent "Springtime of openness in media -- both MSM and online -- reporting, could turn out to be an ILLUSSION than a permanent REALITY". This landmark episode involving JeffOoi is a precursor of worse measures to come -- So on the Eve of Hari Merdeka, Desi said his Prayer (I.S. A:...) and now joins xpyre in his refrain ~~

"So on Merdeka day, I will watch the floats, and the dancers and the marching men and women in uniforms on television. I'll watch and wonder and wait."

I hear the clock striking Midnight, and I don't see Cinderella rushing out of the Ballroom. No, there is no silver carriage awaiting to take poor Desi back to "They live happily ever after"-land. NegaraKu, Quo Vadis?