FEB 4 — The nation of Malaysia is a dream. It’s a dream conceived of by our forefathers that three major races, with different faiths, cultures and economic positions can work together for the general good and identify themselves as a harmonious and prosperous nation, achieving a Pax Malaysiana.
And it doesn’t matter which political spectrum you belong to, we all dream of a Malaysia we all can agree on. In a sense, Malaysia is rather exceptional for this reason; because not many nations are compelled to ponder on what it means to be, well, itself.
It’s also the reason why Malaysian politics has yet to align itself in the typical left-right continuum. But as new generations enter the scene, we see that the “Malaysian way” has slowly started to redefine itself.
I think we’re at a critical point in our “Project Malaysia.” The Opposition is strong enough to alter the status quo and is now propagating a new definition of the Malaysian way of doing things.
Meanwhile, the government now realises that it’s stuck with a sunset demographic and that if they don’t change tack, it is very likely that they would lose Putrajaya eventually. This is a strong incentive for them to eventually change strategies.
Ultimately, it leaves us, youths, with the dilemma of defining what that Malaysia is. This is where the power of Internet media will play its role.
I remember my first few months of venturing into the student/writer/activist world, meeting people of my age (20s) who were Feminists, Libertarians and other fringe ideological standpoints (well, at least in Malaysia).
Other than noticing how well informed they were of their respective positions, I took note of how they all had a following, they all write and they all are starting to get noticed.
We have a new culture of information now in Malaysia and it’s no longer limited to lengthy 800-word articles. We have Twitter powerhouses tweeting away values and sentiments. You’d imagine that you could discount Twitter as an influential media in a political landscape considering its character limit but mull over the impact of a well-worded sentiment.
Our ideas and talk points are usually formed with values as building blocks and the way Twitter is being used nowadays is aimed directly at those basic building blocks. Meanwhile, Facebook is being filled with links to articles and is being desperately used to project the thoughts of those who have their own. All of these have an impact on how we youths think and more importantly, vote.
Given, 60 per cent (loose estimate) of the articles on Facebook involve “What girls want” or “This guy did something inspirational” and 90 per cent of tweets, involve passive aggressive anonymous messages or persistent updates of their daily lives. Nonetheless we should still try to appreciate the impact that medias like these are having in our Pax Malaysiana.
For one, it takes power away from the politicians. It rids the idea of having a select ambitious few decide what gets discussed. The Internet can be a platform for issues, democratically propelled by netizens.
Malaysia, with its multicultural make-up, would benefit from this. We would be able to avoid fear-mongering, encapsulated by the “Allah” issue, by politicians. It’s no surprise why the issue grabs a lot attention but we should be very wary of the credibility of the issue when it seems beneficial for the government to stoke anger.
Bibles get seized soon after MCA reverses its pledge not to demand ministerial posts while East Malaysian parties express dissatisfaction about their lack of representation in the Cabinet, to make my point.
Although the “Allah” issue highlights very starkly the difference between our impression of what our nation should be and what our nation is, overall, it detracts our attention from other issues that would prove more pressing in defining “Malaysia”, like academic freedom of speech, history textbooks and affirmative action.
A lively activist-writer scene can help this; we can start pointing out and even start noticing things that usually don’t get political attention for the wrong reasons.
A common criticism has always been the lack of accountability and credibility in activist writers and the occurrence of mistruths. Aldous Huxley would term this as the “truth being drowned in irrelevance.”
In our context, he would fear that the flood of aspiring writers and social media powerhouses, some more misinformed than others, would disenchant Malaysian youths into superficiality.
But to fall into this line of argument would be to ignore how people read in reality. A reader who seeks balanced news will eventually find a relatively credible media. Seeing how active views are being propagated from every corner, I say no, Mr Huxley, we should be supporting this brave new media.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.
