OCTOBER 29 — Thou shall not worship false idols.

Unfortunately here in Malaysia there is never a shortage of pilgrims marching up our versions of Tirupathi to pay homage to insolent madmen.

The people are not used to a functioning government and office bearers are not used to functioning as custodians of ideas.

One lends to the other’s degeneration and now the only discussion to be held, as my Ipoh taxi driver mused on our way to Taiping, is about why things won’t get better.

Discuss why we are screwed — screwed less or screwed more — that’s his suggestion. 

A country can fail to meet its lofty ambitions but what can be done when the country’s ambition is to exist and avoids its lofts burning down?

The country’s slide presently has been inevitable for decades, because it is built not on principles but on compromises.

New compromises are manufactured to window-dress old ones.

There is rarely an outcome worthy of a nation with such promise, just a series of clever quips from all sides usually mired in anecdotal evidence.

Truth needs makeup

I fear that decades of compromises have rendered us short on a real intellectual tradition laced with circumspection and self-critique.

Like ruling politicians pointing out that opposition MPs holding out placards when the prime minister was delivering the proposed Budget last week, were being disrespectful to the chamber. True, they were. So perhaps when they opposition MPs are speaking in the lower house next, government officials can hurl down demeaning banners. But wait, the proceedings are not transmitted on terrestrial and cable TV. Could it be that these lawmakers are not allowed the space to engage their colleagues in government fairly in Parliament and outside it too, and therefore resorting to desperate means? The converse too, don’t the government’s men feel denied their opportunity to confront the apparent lies of the opposition legislators?

Or is it far more controllable to outsource decisions away from a crowded house of two-hundred and twenty-two to a — bloated but decidedly less — Cabinet of 30? And if that is the case, the argument, then reducing decisions to prime minister and discretion to share as and where necessary to the rest of his Cabinet must be more desirable. And by that extension, outsource away all really necessary roles from the ministries and pass them down to the prime minister’s department. Too much work for one department? Worry not just pass a bunch of ministers to that department. Now all that is necessary is in one small room, whichever room the prime minister is sitting in.

Turning representative government into a single leader’s fiefdom does not happen overnight.

As I said, a real intellectual tradition laced with circumspection and self-critique. If that was present, this malady befalling us today would not have occurred. It’s not the leadership that’s gone sour.

While everyone can have moments of cleverness, widespread intellectual rigour is impossible without institutional support. To say something after considering it, to weigh it through the lens of principle and cognisance of self-interest. This is the heavier component, to not ignore causality and context, and to appreciate the people who live the decisions even if they do not shape it.

If that were present enough, we would not be in the present quagmire.

It’s not the prime minister alone responsible. The ring of responsibility extends to beyond his ministers, legislators, senior civil servants and the likes. I am unsure how many of us fall into the category but far too many take too little responsibility.

 

For example the minister for youth and sports said debate is the way forward.

Does he actually believe it, or it is just a convenient thing to say to look cool to twenty-year-olds? And if twenty-year-olds grow up to believe that to say things and not to believe in them is how adults deal with the real world, why are we upset when reality becomes unreal?

Because this minister also parades his youth parliament, a preparatory programme for future leaders complete with simulated parliamentary proceedings. Are they exposed to concepts of the House Speaker not entertaining resolutions deleterious to the government of the day and expelling MPs whenever they expound on what harms public perception of the political masters?

The rest are resting

It does not stop there.

A whole generation of Malaysians have passively accepted it is unnecessary to have intellectual tradition laced with circumspection and self-critique. It is better to have acceptable outcomes — economics, politics, social and anything else.

Four days ago, a friend was passionate to discuss about rising costs and talked about toll concessionaires. What struck me dumb was her repeatedly and roundabout — you don’t get many of them on paid highways — manner of referring to the government consigning toll agreements as official national secrets.

She said that “for whatever justified reason” the government placed those contracts as state secrets there has to be a way forward. The reason why there is no way forward is because the government has used tools like official secrets acts with no time expiration to serve their own interest.

Those hiding commercial agreements as something threatening the well-being of the federation, cannot in any circumstance state they were thinking in the best interest of the people. It completely has no intellectual merit. But she felt if the government in its infinite wisdom to hide facts from her, then there are valid reasons that she is yet able to fathom and what people like her need to do is seek solutions around the limitation, not question the limitation.  

All these bits have patched together a large wall forcing inertia out of Malaysia to growl like a tiger. Instead we grumble like intellectual paupers.

We were a new nation. We are no more a new nation.

It is time irrespective of political persuasion to stop yielding to non-arguments. More than 50 years ago there were heated debates in the United States over segregated states legislating separate water fountains (or dispensers) for whites and coloureds. They have other debates today, but more than 50 years later, Malaysians don’t have a place to debate if we need state-funded water fountains let alone who drinks from them.

Want a change? Ask a hard question. And don’t run if the answer is challenging.

*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.