Responding to dangerous short-term politics

Jan 19, 2024

MAKING SENSE - Emmanuel Joseph

Dubai is a well-known destination for many Malaysians working in the Gulf area, or for those of us flying internationally with its popular airlines, Emirates. It is also a well-known destination for exhibitions and trade shows, even a hub for cutting edge technology like vertical farming and Internet-of-Things. Of course, it is a tourism hotspot and global financial hub as well.

Most recently, it added to its list of accolades, a rather infamous label ? a destination where politicians meet and plot to overthrow the government, joining the other fortunate or unfortunate towns of Kajang and Port Dickson in the list of locations associated with sinister political moves, the first international city to be added to the list, which has grown to include several hotels!

While on one hand, Malaysians are long bored of political antics that this ‘news’ no longer perturbs us, the toll it exacts on our institutions and norms cannot be underestimated.

The long chain of events that led to this latest alleged conspiracy, being propagated by a once-popular fugitive blogger, a few well known, if rather rude, cyber troopers and the legions of online propagandists, willing to lap it up and disseminate this unverified, unverifiable ‘news’ does not augur well for a mature, united, harmonious country. Rather, the opposite.

A radical slant
This stretches to the 2000s. Exacerbation of Barisan Nasional’s shock defeat in five states led to a sharp increase in race-and-religion themed undertones to the political narrative which, sadly, has now turned rather mainstream. As these previously anathema storylines have become so normalised, we shrug them off as part and parcel of silliness that we have devolved into, an occasional meme-worthy punchline we share on our family WhatsApp groups next to sparkling “Good mornings” and assorted blessings from various saints.

Not that there is anything wrong with memes, morning wishes, or assorted saints.
The “best” has given way to the “most tolerable”, and what was a most radical thought yesterday has become centrist and moderate, appealing even, to us today.

We have reached a level where merely existing — being allowed a small space within defined parameters and guarded walls are things to be celebrated and sighed upon — “at least we still have that!”

After all, in the age of misinformation and bogeyman politics, we tend to ask what Théoden asks in the second Lord of the Rings trilogy ? “The world changes, and all that once was strong now proves unsure. How shall any tower withstand such numbers and such reckless hate?”
Answering again, and again.

The movie version replies, “Ride out to meet it!”

As helpless as one reply is to the hundred lies, we should still ride out to meet it.

As hopeless as one act to spread the truth is, in the face of a thousand programmes to make whichever leader’s version of their truth, manufactured to sell their ideology, we still ride out to meet it.

Continue organising, mobilising, and participating in events that advance the cause of democracy and its offshoot topics ? elections, freedom of expression, sanctity of the law and citizen empowerment.

These institutions need defending, and we should support initiatives that promote moderation, and condemn those that do not, even if we feel inclined to support a certain stance for want of similar faith, religion, or race. The moment we do so, we fall into the same category of the people we dislike.

Issues like Palestine are sensitive and multidimensional and should not be dismissed off easily, either way. Sometimes, we may understand the need to hold onto heritage and sentiment, but this needs to balance with equity, fairness and a liberal dose of reality.

A recent example would be a Sarawakian school board’s decision to stop Muslim students from conducting a Quranic recitation graduation ceremony (or khatam), due to the school’s historic Christian heritage. This does not seem fair to the Muslim students and is the foil of what we have been arguing here in Semenanjung ? against prohibitions of wearing crosses, and the fight to keep Good Friday a school holiday.

We cannot afford to separate Semenanjung and Bornean issues, nor can we look at issues from a religious or racial lens at the time, as we expect others to do the same.

Continual dialogue
It is important to continue dialogue and offering our halls as platforms for conversations with our neighbours, leaders, and friends in a continuing effort to find common ground, despite the increasing difficulty to do so.

Perhaps the easiest to participate in, but also the easiest to give up on doing, is informing our elected representatives what we think about what they say. This is especially so in our polarised demographic, with an MP or ADUN who already echoes what we think, or who does not need to consider it. In either case, it still matters to speak, as we vote not only with ink, but our voices every day, and continued silence may imply that the issue does not really concern us.

Elected representatives are there to serve and listen to our views (and mostly, they do) regardless of whether they are our preferred choice or otherwise.

We are blessed to belong to a Church that is already multicultural and global to have experience in dealings with all sorts of political ideologies and administrative ideals.

Tapping into our common experience with each other would not only facilitate, but perhaps even allow, us to catalyse conversations to counter short sighted ideas and help everyone see the bigger picture that eludes them, intentionally or otherwise.

(Emmanuel Joseph oversees IT as his 9-5 job and from 5-9, he serves a few NGOs, think tanks and volunteer groups. He serves as an advisor for Projek Dialog and is a Fellow with the Institute of Research and Development of Policy.)