Dark Knight to the rescue?

In the show Dark Knight, somenone said ” the night is at its darkest before dawn”.

Malaysia is now at its darkest moment. People has no more trust for the government and government institution. Corruption is so rampant that it is almost the norm rather than exception. Economy is stagnant, despite the rosy figures. Inflation is so high that even our roads are no more as congested as before, bearing in mind that Malaysians like to drive.. Foreign investments are not coming in. Stock market is down. Leaders of both ruling and opposition parties are at each others’ throats. Charges and counter charges of sodomy, murder, corruption, abuse of power are daily affairs.  People has nothing to really look forward too, except to live day by day…And the list can go on and on…………

If the country can be likened to  a plane flying in the sky, it is now on a flight course directly going towards the side of a  high mountain at full speed, and ON AUTO PILOT. The pilot is sleeping and the copilot and flight engineer are at each other’s throat. The passengers are screaming but the screams are falling on deaf ears….

Just that we thought we have seen a glimmer of light, with a 2 party system slowly taking shape and providing a better check and balance, this is now being threatened by the talks between UMNO and PAS. If PAS joins BN, then there will be no hope that UMNO will change. We can expect the night to get darker and longer, with no hope of dawn arriving….Racism , corruption, abuses of power, compromised institution … all these will be back to normal….not for the betterment of the people, but rather, for the self interest of the ruling elites…

Dawn may never come…

Will there be a Dark Knight to our rescue? …..I have no answer !

the winner is ….. the people of Malaysia

I am no judge, so I won’t say who is the winner in last night’s debate between Anwar and Shabery.

But one thing I am sure. Whoever won and lost, the ultimate winner is the Malaysians.

This is the right way forward for the nation. Government leaders must be ready to face anyone willing to come forward to query and debate government policies. By having this sort of debate, the people of Malaysia get to listen to the other side of the story too… which is great for stimualting the minds. By listening to different views, the minds of leaders on both side of the divide can actually be stimulated and new ideas may come out. The Prime Minister must be commended for letting this sort of debate take place… the country will be more open with this.

The West is what it is today because of the divergence of ideas, and the freedom to express such ideas are guaranteed in most western countries. With divergence of ideas comes coalescence of such ideas into new thinking which has propelled the nations of the west forward, ever since the The Renaissance. 

Our country , if it really aspires to be a first world nation by 2020, must be prepared to be more open and let dissenting views be not only heard, and be heard over the so-called official channels, in the government controlled press as well as radio and TV stations.

I hope this debate will open up a trend for future debates to be held, in normal times as well as during General Elections.

A square peg in a round hole

A commentator from Penang who has voted for Gerakan for the past few elections, romerz, emailed me about an article on Gerakan in Gerakan Youth leader  Lim SI Pin’s blog. I thought it would be good if I  comment in this forum about my views of Gerakan , given that  I have written a few articles on these.

A party’s roots is in its ideology. Gerakan’s ideology is to fight for a fair and equal society where not only every race but every individual regardless of race, sex or creed will have an equal opportunity in  education, employment, socio-economic fields, etc.

It aims to promote an egalitarian society and it is basically a social democratic party.

Under these ideals, the party advocates helping the unfortunate and the poor , not along any racial or religious lines, but rather on social strata and on a ‘needs’ basis.

As correctly pointed in Lim’s blog, Gerakan joined BN mainly to bring Development to the Penang people. In the aftermath of May 13, it also wanted to reduce political friction and promote conciliation among the races. It was in fact one of the founders of BN. It has to be noted that UMNO at that time was a much better respected party than now and money politics, as is  practiced in UMNO nowadays, had not reared itsugly  head yet.

Even then, ideology of Gerakan and most of the BN component parties were very different. Gerakan is a socialist party, whereas the big brothers of BN, namely UMNO,MCA and MIC, are all race based parties; and none are social democrats.

 But it was possible then, in the early seventies and in the aftermath of May 13,  for the people to buy  the reasons that Gerakan could shelf its ideals of a fair and equitable society for a short term, joined BN and  be supportive of the affirmative action based on race, to enable the Malays to catch up in almost all sectors. But this support was not intended to be more than a short term. Tun DR Lim CHong Eu was said not to favour any extension of the NEP beyond its original designated term. (Unfortunately, Tun Lim lost in 1990 election and retired from politics just before the NEP was supposed to come to an end).  In exchange for that shelving of Gerakan’s ideals, Gerakan managed to bring development to Penang and improved the living standard as well as the economy of Penang people.

The leaders then also hoped that by being part of the ruling BN, Gerakan could exert its influence and corrected whatever anomalies from inside.

If Gerakan has a strong voice and is in a position to dictate terms within BN, it could try and change the direction of the whole coalition. Unfortunately, Gerakan is only a small party with not enough clout to really change the direction of this coalition, and in the process, instead of trying to change the other component parties, Gerakan’s ideology was hijacked and the perception was that it has become just another Chinese based party , maybe one with a better conscience than the rest, but nevertheless, one that is impotent to bring about  any significant policy change .

So in reality, Gerakan has become a square peg in a round hole.  How could a square peg function in a  round hole? or put it another way, how can Gerakan exert its ideology within such environment? To continue to hope so, after more than 3 decades inside BN without any success to change BN, is really to lie to one’s own self and conscience. Only when the leaders can break out of this self denial cocoon, can there be objective re-evaluation of the future direction of the party.

Gerakan was truly multiracial in its early days. Alas, it is no longer so. The whole mutliracial and nonracial approach has to be sacrificed under BN’s emphasis of race and the skewed NEP. How to recruit Malay members when the big brother is a Malay based party which views such an act as stepping over its boundary?

As I told one top leader of the party, no matter how good is the reform undertaken by Gerakan, if it still sticks to UMNO, it is signing its own death sentence,  given that UMNO’s present culture will only lead it slowly into  a self destructive mode. In a way, just one racist remark from UMNO will negate all the good works done by Gerakan, no  matter how hard Gerakan tries to reform and change.

By its association with UMNO, Gerakan will go the way UMNO is heading. And To expect UMNo to change when a culture of rot has set in is akin to hope for a habitual gambler to quit gambling.

Pakatan is not so rosy, too. I thought Anwar was an Old wine in a new bottle. But I have to give credit to him for realising many people’s dream of a two-party system, albeit an imperfect one at the moment. But with  many of PAS ’s members still harbouring hopes of an Islamic State, Pakatan can exist only  because of the existence of a common enemy, UMNO. If that common enemy is no more a force to be reckoned with, Pakatan will start to have cracks and fissures sooner or later.

So the best option is still a third force, where it can be free to advance  its ideology. It needs, of course,  to attract people of caliber from all races. It needs to practise what it preaches. A small party in the middle of 2 more or less equally matched coalition fronts, contrary to what many people think, will not split the 2 party system and will be able to exert its influence far greater than its size. By adroitly using its leverage of support, it will actually be able to exert much more influence than if it remains inside either front. And if the party can be managed well as an independent force, it should not be worried about 3 cornered fights come the next round.

(There are many examples of a small third force with great influence… in the West, In UK and Germany).

Investigate with fear or favour

10 years ago, there was the “Black Eye” incident. A Police Chief, whose duty was to  make sure that humanity is protected by the laws of the country, broke the law and almost broke the eyeball as well of a former DPM .. The incident created waves of disbelief and anger. The person who was supposed to protect you suddenly became the person harming your life…No one felt safe anymore, and credibity of the force became low because of the action of One Man, who was later on charged in Court and jailed for a very short duration, about 40 days.

Many in the Force at that time must have seen and heard of this beating. And these are people who know the law, otherwise they cannot enforce the law. Under the law, it is a crime not to report a crime when a person comes to know about the crime. SO there are many who were in the know who did not come forward to report their knowledge.

Casting aside whether one likes the former DPM or not, this beating is very wrong and those who are in the know and did not report are in the wrong , too. If we want to gain back the credibility of our enforcement and judiciary, we need to really push to have anyone fabricating evidence or covering up  to be charged according to the law of the day. Of course, there must be fair investigation, and there must be evidence. The most important thing is to have No Cover Up.

Truth will ultimately prevail. Anything swept under the carpet and covered by the carpet will not vanish but will one day be exposed. This is the law of the nature. What goes round comes around!

The country really needs to purge all the unlawful ways of doing things, benting the law to suit individuals in high positions or with good connection.. If this trend continues, our children and future generations will suffer. The country will degenerate into a society where  the rich and the powerful will always escape from misconduct whereas the poor and the ordinary peple will have no avenue to address their woes against the rich and powerful.

This is a country ruled by Law and not by Man. Everyone should goes back to the basic of ” All are equal under the law”, and Law should be supreme. Look at Hong Kong. No one is above the law, and that is an Asian society too. There must be no compromise when it comes to crime. Only then can be gain back the trust of our own people.