MAY 1 — I give up. Sometimes you just have to.
Understanding the Malaysian government at times takes scholastic rigour I cannot rise up to, especially this past week.
For what seems a lifetime, we have been told that liberalism, pluralism and multiculturalism are banes to the Malaysian way of life. Seriously, there are not that many more ways to be unequivocal about its position on the matter, ministers just come out and say it — sometimes one and another, and at times all three. In summary, bad, bad and super bad.
Malaysia fears the scourge of liberalism, braces for the corruption of the self which is pluralism and admonishes multiculturalism because it foolishly postulates that people are the same and they have to know each other on equal terms to be a harmonious society.
Officially, we are to believe only the putrid mind of a remorseless Western zealot bent on destroying Malaysia would produce such vileness, and our countrymen are best advised to fight this encroachment all day, all night, even during bathroom breaks. Piss on yellow culture and douse it with stink.
So far clear, harnessing and regulating bigotry is more productive and realistic than stamping it out. OK, right. Don’t use the force, give in to the dark side and feed the storm-troopers.
Then the Malaysian government goes out of its way to welcome a half Kenyan-half white ex-law professor — have you heard of an illiberal don? — who did smoke marijuana in college, later became a local community organiser which means he was a social activist and now the doyen of multiculturalists worldwide, to Malaysia for a celebrated trip. The fact he is President of the United States does not blemish Barack Obama’s out and out liberal leanings, and yet Malaysia’s willingness to oblige the global symbol of “leaving the hate behind” is just loco.
Malaysia rebutted its own relentless arguments championing archaic racism and indifference by rolling in The Trojan Horse.
It’s akin to rows of sea and land monsters like Godzilla providing a guard of honour for Ultraman, and then destroying the city inhabitants after Ultraman flies off, as he does without fail to protect other cities.
As you can see, it’s dumbfounding considering what has transpired. Much of the dry stuff is already in the press, however I’d want to imagine the more surreal conversations he may have had with the Malaysian leadership. I’m speculating, but there would have been a bunch of chats in that 48 hours.
Because for every waking hour he was in Kuala Lumpur, every minister including the prime minister tried to milk every photo op, or even selfies, with the Hawaiian born leader of the free world!
Let’s hallucinate these encounters. (The following conversations did not actually transpire, they really did not)
Just my imagination
While I am certain there would have been some territorial tension when the Home Minister Zahid “Sheriff” Hamidi met the man in charge of the global police, the question must have been laid out, why is free speech under attack in Malaysia?
Zahid would have rejected this and asked where in Malaysia this lie was being perpetuated so that he can ensure such lies are stopped. He’d say don’t worry and wink assuredly, next time such fabrication against a benevolent 50-plus-year-old government will not be repeated.
Instead I’d hasten to add he’d ask Obama not to travel around with too many black Secret Service agents. He’ll outline the racial profiling practised by the authorities: One black man in Kuala Lumpur walking around is selling you fake watches, but several black men together then they are just up to no good and may get arrested. Anyhow, just to be safe all of them are rounded up one time or another, just good sense.
The police, the minister would assure are not racist, even when they name sting operations against Africans as Operation Black Crow for instance.
This would have been an appropriate time for Obama to slip out of the room and bump into the Minister in charge of Islamic Affairs Jamil Khir Baharom. Who else to ask about the multiple custodial disputes involving split up Muslim and non-Muslim ex-spouses over their offspring?
The minister may have presented the standard response that laws on custody in civil courts should not matter. For when it is left to secular laws, children who may already be Muslims — even if the children themselves do not know about it — may be placed under the care of a non-Muslim parent, ultimately have their faith compromised. No can do, he’d add.
At this juncture, the president might pray for an exit. For the situation defended means he should have been raised by his Kenyan father, who is Muslim, rather than by his non-Muslim mother, and even supports that later in his young life his Indonesian step-dad Lolo Soetoro should have had custody after his mom Stanley Ann Dunham ended her second marriage in Jakarta.
Maybe the wrong US president to have sympathy for a lopsided legal process, but perhaps there is hope if he were to cross paths with the prime minister himself on the lawns of Putrajaya encircled by man-made lakes.
Am I doing OK?
Prime Minister Najib Razak may have asked “Barry”, has he been a modern enough PM since he has taken enough selfies, posted on his vastly populated Twitter and Facebook accounts and branded his 1 Malaysia slogan up, down and sideways.
Obama would have waxed lyrically about all that is wonderful about the country and the present government’s government to keep the nation moderate.
But were he to ask Najib what was the stratagem to keep him in power or to raise the nation’s capacity irrespective of the moves cementing his power base, I suspect the PM would have a long pause. I’d be curious to know too, in the unlikely scenario it was asked. Because it would explain whether survivalist politicians or willing statesmen are in charge.
Comments on conversations that never happened
But as I put to you at the start, I give up on why the present government was determined to have Obama here. The direction it wants the country to head to, and the direction someone iconic like Obama tend to nudge people to — slowly but surely — are diametrically opposed.
Or maybe, as detractors state it, any American president will be only concerned with national self-interest and would tell a home minister it’s his country and as long as American factories are not ransacked then no harm no foul; or to the religious minister that faith is hard to comment on and that different nations have the right to their own laws no matter how contradictory they are; and to a prime minister that as long as Air Force One can land inside the city and the Chinese navy is not setting up base in Johor Baru then he is doing a spectacular job in harnessing the democratic energy of the country.
Time will indeed tell if between the parades and bouquets being exchanged, the visit of Lyndon B Johnson in 1966 — at the height of the war in Vietnam and violent reorganisation in Indonesia — which was all public relations and to stem the red tide is repeated 48 years later by Obama.
Perhaps not, since Obama started living a year later in 1967 for five years in Jakarta. He is the first president to have a personal account of the region and of what US national interest can do for the long term future of the region, which includes Malaysia.
Maybe he does not want the same legacy, and perhaps some conversations transpired.
This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
