Don’t leave your brains at home

October 27th, 2006 gier Posted in Dazed and Confused, Politics, Rant | 1 Comment »

It’s a funny thing. I started this blog with the (ridiculous) idea that I could join the morass of punditry that pretends to be serious prognostication on the “blogosphere”. And I thought one of the requirements is to spew out pompous and bombastic sentences like the previous one. That is not true, obviously. It’s becoming clear to me that in order to blog regularly, you’d need to have at least one of these prerequisites (and preferably all):

1. A strong sense of personal worth (a.k.a. a predilection for navel gazing),
2. A strong sense that (perceived) justice needs to be done,
3. A cause that you strongly believe in (transparency, equality, p2p, open source, etc.),
4. A hobby (eating in restaurants, photography, ornithology, porn, etc.),
5. A hope (or confidence) that people will read your stuff,
6. An occasional tendency to have selective memory, and therefore
7. A predilection for what I call revisionist history.

When you don’t really feel any of the above strongly enough, and/or often enough, you end up like me. You blog very occasionally. Anyhow, the point of this entry isn’t so much about me (haha! See 1. above), but about 2, 3, 6 and 7, where if 5 happens, it’ll be a bonus. This entry is about our former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and the spat with our current Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. My first blog entry was about the spat, actually[1], and it was effectively the first time I got annoyed enough to actually write anything here.

You know, there is actually a reason why I registered mentera.org and why I call this blog “Mentera — Say Anything Often Enough”. Mentera is the Malay word for mantra and just go to that link to see what it means (if you can’t guess already), with the implication that if you say anything often enough, you and possibly a whole bunch of people would actually believe what you say is true and that you’re right. Do it long enough, with just enough things happening to actually be true and right, and enough people will think that you’re always right. For example, if you’ve led a country for 22 years, and were actually rather good at leading the country for those years, there’ll probably be enough people who will always think you’re right. Even after you’ve stopped leading the country, and someone else is sitting on the hot seat.

What is a neutral and, even if I do say so myself, non-partisan (haha, see point 1 again) observer to think when hearing what Tun has been saying with regards to the current administration and yet the observer can still remember the days when the great man was reviled and hated by not a few people? Remember Mahazalim and Mahafiraun? Ish, remember reformasi, DSAI, Barisan Alternatif and all that? Sheesh man, back in those days, he could do no right. Then he turned things around. The country got better. It wasn’t entirely his doing, but he sure helped the recovery a lot. Then he decided to step down. Dato’ Seri Rafidah were in tears when he made the announcement. Dato’ Hishamuddin Hussein jumped out of his sofa to join Rafidah in asking Tun, “Why?”. After which, Pak Lah stepped up to the plate, as it were. Someone once asked me what I thought of Pak Lah and his expected performance as PM (this was just after he became the PM). What I thought was mainly two things:

1. It doesn’t really matter, because in the greater scheme of things, my opinions are no better than any other coffee shop pundit, or even worse maybe, and
2. I think the guy would be good for the country.

To elaborate on the second point, in the aftermath of the UMNO Team A Team B fight in 1987, Pak Lah was in the losing Team B. He, along with several others, most notably Tun Musa Hitam and Dato’ Shahrir Samad did not throw a hissy fit and walked over to S46 with such upstanding politicians like Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Dato’ Rais Yatim and (the infamous, party-hopping) Dato’ Ibrahim Ali. He stayed in UMNO. Put in cold storage, ignored by the Team A guys. He registered himself into UMNO Baru, with no ministerial post, no anything. Pak Lah was (and I reckon still is) loyal. You just have to respect that.

Some time in the middle of this year, the same bunch of people asked me again what I think of Pak Lah’s performance so far. Well, firstly, the point about what I think doesn’t matter still holds and secondly, I like what he’s done so far. For example, I’m sure a lot of us suspect that some of our leaders are, frankly, morons. Well, due to the higher degree of openness and directly, greater coverage of our leaders’ movements, now we know that some of them are, indeed, morons. We get to shake our heads at MPs (and assemblymen) who are more concerned about their Mercedes allocation, the ineptitude of their sons in committing fraud, getting the family into the “family business” a.k.a. municipal council-ing, singers who sing Negaraku differently and therefore should be “di humban ke laut” and several other important issues.

We get to see Pak Lah saying that he’s got ministers with voices and should therefore answer questions (mainly asked by Tun) regarding areas which fall under their ministries. I’m paraphrasing here, but he said something to the effect of, “Why should I answer everything? I’ve got ministers who can speak, unlike before. If I have to answer everything, why do I need them, then?”. Now, you’ve got to like that, surely.

I like the fact that he doesn’t see the need to defend Rafidah (or not yet, anyway) on the accusations leveled against her and her ministry regarding the AP issuance issue. Rafidah can very well answer for herself, and she has. Though, her answers were not considered satisfactory by a fair number of people, they are free to keep demanding for more answers. You’ve got to like that, surely.

Okay, I, like many others, are also wondering what happened to the anti-corruption drive thing because I really thought there were going to be a few “big fishies” getting reamed. Having said that, I’d reckon if some of those guys get nicked, the Tun would get really upset. After all, let’s face it, during the time when Tun was PM, we were going on about corruption, cronyism and nepotism in his government. And since many of the same dudes in his government are in this government, then, using Tun’s own logic, surely he (i.e. Tun) would know of their activities and he must have closed one eye as well. What’s to stop any one of the big fishies from besmirching the Tun’s great leadership by dragging his name into the mud along with them, when they get caught? Tricky, tricky.

Here’s the other thing, I am bemused by Tun’s statement that Malaysia is now a police state. Further, saw on TV3 news the other day where Tun was saying that the government controlled media would put a spin into things and we should now turn to the Internet for better sources of news. Oh, the irony! Tun’s assertion that we should turn to the Internet for news was aired by a “government-controlled” media outlet. He said that Malaysia is a police state and it was reported in the NST, another government-controlled media outlet. Tun complained about the fact that he’s being muzzled and not allowed to speak, and Kam Raslan wrote in an issue of Options, The Edge, that a lot of people would like to have the “lack of freedom” that Tun seems to be enjoying.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think that Tun Mahathir can rightly be considered a legend. In his own lifetime even. He is already legendary. He will be remembered forever as a great man who fought for his country, his party and his people. Forever, or at least until the end of the universe. I’m just not so sure he should be too revered. I’m not so sure that we cannot be as critical of him now, in the same way that he is critical of Pak Lah.

In the same way that he was critical of Tunku and Tun Hussein Onn.

We should respect and admire our leaders. We should also keep our critical faculties and not leave our brains at home in the closet when listening to them. This would also apply to Pak Lah and whoever else that comes after him. Blind obedience is just … blind.