Are you in or are you out? Why the opposition isn’t broken

About Politics, ALL ARTICLES | February 17, 2007

By NATHANIEL TAN

(Editor’s note: This article is a rebuttal to John Lee’s 6 Feb. article Prosperity vs. ignominy, and how the opposition isn’t really helping Malaysian politics.”)

Cynicism runs deep in almost any Malaysian who cares about Malaysia and Malaysian politics. John Lee’s recent article represents an angry brand of cynicism, which remains superior to apathetic cynicism - because it shows that Lee still cares.

The gist of his piece seems to be that the government sucks, the opposition sucks (possibly more than the government), and there’s a good chance the country is doomed to perdition – although I’m exaggerating, of course.

Let’s examine some of Lee’s points with regards to the lack of opposition efforts to present themselves as credible alternatives to the government. Perhaps these points would be more credible themselves if they were not blanket statements for all opposition parties, as well as if they took into greater consideration the diversity of Malaysia.

I think a more intimate understanding of the opposition landscape will indicate there are nuances between the different parties in terms of their overall strategies and branding. I posit that Lee’s criticisms apply to some parties more than others.

In addition, the ultimate goals Lee has set out for the opposition may not be as different from the ones held by the opposition leadership themselves (or some of them at least) - the attainment of political clout.

What differs is the means to that goal; Lee is convinced that the failure of the opposition to garner sufficient votes is because they have not focused on selling themselves as credible alternatives. Again, this criticism is well taken, to a certain extent.

However, this view presupposes a better understanding of electoral behaviour than politicians themselves have. My conversations with young and old political actors from both sides of the spectrum have seen politicians sharing their own experiences and views with what gets voters riled up and what wins votes and elections.

Needless to say, every voter cares about different things. In electoral politics, what matters is the masses. So when faced with the question “What moves the masses?�? we can posit two ends of the spectrum in dealing with the matter:

a) Presenting oneself as a credible alternative through position papers, explaining alternative policies to voters and so on, and

b) Highlighting and emphasising ad nauseam the faults of the current government, giving voice to the rakyat’s deepest inner grouses.

Lee appears to be firmly convinced that it is the former that would propel the opposition to electoral victory. Politicians I have talked to say it is the latter that has the most effect on the outcome of an election within a given constituency.

I think it is also important to take Lee’s realpolitik approach to heart. I soundly echo his point that at the end of the political day, the only thing that matters is how many seats you can win.

Assuming however, for just a second, that the older politicians’ grasp of electoral behaviour is more accurate, then logic suggests that the way to win more seats is to do exactly what Lee has decried: pander to the masses and harp on government inadequacies.

Idealistic and noble though the emphasis on credible alternatives and a more wholesome approach to opposition politics may be, the question at heart remains: how can the opposition win more seats? And if pandering is truly the way to do so, would those of us who find pandering distasteful be willing to do so?

Lee has stated his opinion on this matter, one which I respect and find to be relatively well-informed. I am still forming mine, and am seeking for now to tap the experience of those who know the business best, while attempting to retain whatever objectivity that comes with being a newcomer.

In truth however, the most pressing reason that drove me to write a response was the hope of persuading the likes of Lee - whose writings appear to be informed by deep and sincerely felt frustrations - that their virulent dissatisfaction is not something that can only be expressed from without. His article suggests he is content to remain an eloquently angry voice on the outside, but I fear that would mean the loss of truly badly needed talents.

Malaysian politics has no shortage of fuming armchair critics and backseat drivers. It does however have a shortage of young people willing to set aside their cynicism for the briefest of moments and give joining (those “hopelessly flawed�?) others to give change one good shot.

Is the opposition crusade itself too flawed to join? Everyone must give their own answer. Mine is simple: not yet.

And if the current opposition line-up just doesn’t do it for you, then start your own party - I think Malaysia would benefit from more choices. If the quality of football truly bugs you so much, get on the pitch; it doesn’t matter as much whose team you’re on or what position you play.

Alternatively of course, at the end of it all is the cloud the young and troubled Lee paints over us: the problem of emigration. I suppose where this is concerned - when all is said and done - it comes down to how badly we want something, and how much we’re willing to pay for it. Those are choices you have to make for yourself, and I don’t deem it right to judge others for the paths they choose.

Call me an air-headed loony, but I myself believe that Malaysia and Malaysian politics needs more faith and less cynicism; more hope, and less despair; more attempting, and less ranting. Reality exists not to shape us, but for us to shape.
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NATHANIEL TAN is a contributing writer for theCICAK.

He runs www.jelas.info as well as www.bangkit.net, and is the editor of the recently published book Mahathir vs. Abdullah: Covert Wars and Challenged Legacies. Buy it, and he may yet be able to continue writing.

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Nat and I had a bit of a friendly chat about this; I don’t know if he’d be okay with me sharing transcripts of our emails, but I understand his point of view, and agree with him on a number of points. I think my point of view regarding the opposition’s failures can be summed up by a rebuttal I wrote to another fellow who criticised my position on the opposition:

http://www.infernalramblings.com/articles/Malaysian_Socio-Politics/127/

I also think that there’s a bit of a false choice here. We certainly need less ranting, and more action, but not all writings and rantings are void of meaning. From my point of view, Malaysian society is deficient in commentary that contributes ideas. We have idealists taking action to propel their ideals forward, but often, they don’t have a roadmap for how to get where they want to go.

Nat told me that if we simply put an end to corruption and racism, our country will right itself - and as such there doesn’t exist a real need for constructive criticism/commentary. The problem is, *how* do we end corruption and racism? We know where we want to go, but how do we get there? We cannot simply take to the streets or form a policy manifesto without first knowing the specifics of what we want to accomplish. It’s one thing to say “let’s stop corruption”. It’s another to think about how we are going to stop it. How do we change the culture of our civil service? How do we wean our thousands of contractors off the government teat? You cannot simply do this by saying “stop being corrupt”.

What we need are ideas - and constructive commentary contributes these ideas. Malaysian commentary is predominantly focused on complaining and blaming - we don’t have much in the way of solutions. Activists are trying to solve our problems, but they don’t have a roadmap for implementing solutions. That’s where constructive commentary comes in - and that’s a niche I would hope to focus on:

http://www.infernalramblings.com/articles/Malaysian_Socio-Politics/136/

Comment published by johnleemk on 17 February 2007.
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I have all the faith in the world for Malaysian politics, but I have no faith whatsoever in the current lineup of politicians.

Comment published by Aput on 17 February 2007.
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I have read both articles and I found both very contrasting but interesting. In my opinion, Malaysia is on its right track on becoming a prosperous nation, yet I may never be able to predict how or when. I believe that this 50-year-old government-opposition problem should be traced way back before Malaysia (or should I say Malaya) even got its independence.
We are actually on a straight road into becoming a well-developed country. However, how the road is paved depends on our politicians. The country’s policy is actually being reconstructed for several times to actually meet the demands of globalization. And I believe that that is the problem that the politicians are facing. You see, our nation is actually developing too fast that we, as Malaysian, are not able to keep up with all the drastic changes that are pressuring us. When we talk about ‘ideas’, yes the government has ideas, however we must remember that there must be reasons and consequences when we try to apply the ideas. We often look at the reasons, but we fail to look at the consequences. Most of the things that are done in our nation has never been attempted in other countries in the world –at one point yes we can be proud of it, but remember it may also badly affect our society in future. In my opinion we are not prepared with such development. Development and reconstruction take a lot of time and effort, but we always try to constrain time and not to consider the effort put in the process. When we start to realise that things are getting worse, then we start to put an effort into it –for a certain period of time. Things like developing moral values are an “on-going process�? (as how the education philosophy says) and you cannot achieve high moral value society within just 30 years without continuous and effective efforts. T
Meanwhile, when I said that we need to trace back to the pre-independence situation, you can see that Malaya political movement (Before Perikatan or PAS were even born) was divided into Kaum Muda and Kaum Tua. And now I think it’s time for people of our generation to take control of the politic in Malaysia. We actually need “new fresh ideas�? which comes from “good actions and reasoning�?. Give the new generation a chance. They are more aware about what is going on outside and how to keep up with it. If we just talk about the same thing over and over again, it can get us nowhere. And I can see that the political climate in Malaysia is slowly changing, as new positions in both government and opposition parties are taken by youths. They come up with ways to influence people into joining their parties. I can say that they are a bit open-minded than before. So it gives a positive effect to the political development of the nation. Maybe when all the new generations take control of the politic, we might as well be as joyful as the old people when they first celebrate independence.

Comment published by concerned on 17 February 2007.
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Nathaniel Tan, you tell us that you are against “racism” and “corruption” and if these two are no more Malaysia will be a better country. Also, can you define what do you mean by “racism” and “corruption” ? Would you agree with me, Muslims are a race and non Muslims another race and we have a problem of supremacy of Muslim race and inferiority of non Muslim race for 49 years.

In the mean time, I am sure you are aware that the root cause of discrimination towards Chinese and Indians stem not because of their skin colour but because first of all, they are non Muslims and secondly, perhaps due to language they speak.

I do know that if a Chinese or Indian converts to Islam, he is considered “masuk Melayu” and fully Bangsa Malaysia and qualifies for the special priveledges accorded to Malays.

Tun Dr Mahathir is an Indian Muslim (ie Pakistani) yet he is considered one of the 4 Malay fathers. Pak Lah’s late wife is a Japanese and so too is his daughter Nori Abdullah, a Japanese but they are still considered Malays.

Comment published by K. T. Ong on 18 February 2007.
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A Malaysian Malaysia could exist only if the government (particularly, Kelantan) stops discriminating against Chinese religiously and lingustically. The government has to declare total language equality, where Mandarin, English, Tamil and Bahasa Melayu shall be the 4 official languages (a.k.a. bahasa kebangsaan) of Malaysia, just as Singapore.

On top of that, we should have 4 official religions, Confucianism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam with full equality among religions.

Comment published by K. T. Ong on 18 February 2007.
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The rural Malays, the rural Malays, the rural Malays. This segment of the voters is the only one that matters for winning elections. Nothing else.

Urban Chinese and Malays? Gerrymandering has rendered it to becoming a nuisance if the Opposition manages to win them over, but not a threat to power.

Best example of this was how easily PAS overtook DAP in the 1999 elections when the rural Malays gave it their votes at both the federal and state level. The result? PAS winning 27 federal seats and 2 states.

Therefore, PKR and DAP should broaden their voter base by targeting for those rural Malay’s votes quick.

Comment published by sigma on 18 February 2007.
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concerned:

I’m a bit puzzled as to just what constitutes the government’s ideas. I cannot discern any overarching idea driving them and their policies. Their development plans flail all over the place without knowing what they precisely want to accomplish. The government doesn’t even set benchmarks by which it can judge how successful its policies have been. Even the NEP had some sort of benchmark - 30% of equity for the Bumis within 20 years. What benchmarks do we have for government policy? What goals do we have?

The government is very good when it comes to writing fancy “mission statements” and the like, but it can’t boil these down into concrete goals. It says “we want to build X number of schools within five years”, but it seems to think this in itself is a worthy benchmark. There is no thought as to what we want to accomplish - no thought as to what these schools are supposed to produce. How can we get anywhere with these so-called goals? The country is being run on an ad hoc basis - and that, combined with the fact that we will not be able to afford to dally and waste our resources for much longer (see the debate in the comments section of my artilce), makes me fear for the future.

Comment published by johnleemk on 20 February 2007.
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thanks for the responses, all, and a belated GXFC!

sigma:

- good point. for the time being, this is one of the clearest indicators as to how there can be no alternative government without PAS. The question is whether the DAP can live with that kind of situation. I hope so, because their goals are a lot less different than some may think. I like your blog, btw

john:

- please feel free to reproduce any of our e-mail conversations

- no need for constructive criticism/commentary? nonsense, of course there is!

re: ideas

- i think the difference of opinion between me and John is this: I believe that what makes corruption rampant is not a dearth of intelligent ideas for combatting it, but rather the utter lack of real political will to do so.

- Is it oversimplifying to say that what you need to eradicate corruption is painfully obvious: persecute the corrupt. It’s not like we don’t know who they are (see: The Untouchables), it’s just that no one in the government *really* wants to get them(selves). Basically, I feel it’s not rocket science.

- This reasoning is a little less applicable with regards to policy on racism and such. In this arena, there is space for better thought out policies that can nurture real unity in Malaysia. That said, it is also not (to me) rocket science to see that structural racial segregation in politics - as so primordially embodied by BN - is clearly the wrong way to go.

- So while my own experiences suggests a different scenario than John’s (ie, I believe that our shortage is still crucially on activists, rather than ideas or critics), debating how to divide the proverbial pie (ie, the efforts of people interested in change) should be much less the issue than discussing how to make the pie bigger.

So join up! Get involved! Would love to see more of you guys out there

Comment published by nat on 20 February 2007.
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Mydeen’s concern about the country’s political future is mired in the lack of real issues and the points of conflict. We, establishment, opposition and independent, seem to be mired in political flashpoints of toll protests, religious situations and brownie points instead of debating over economic or foreign policy.

Part of this malaise lies with the electorate when they run to their MP for clogged drains or assesment rates, when in SiPM’s view, these issues are better addressed by state assemblymen or local councils. Parliament should be concerned with larger national issues instead of petty domestic grievances.

Comment published by Mydeen Aboo Backer on 21 February 2007.
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Sdr Mydeen, you’re exactly right - clogged drains or assesment rates are not technically the purview of a MP or even an ADUN. But the painful fact remains that a rakyat has absolutely no say over the choice of his/her councillor They can neither punish nor reward them for not/doing their jobs

It is essential that local elections be reinstated. Having appointed councillors tends to promote cronyism and a sense of impunity (see Dtk Zakaria et al).

In the meantime, if the rakyat choses to be more concerned with drains and roads as opposed to foreign or economic policy, I think that’s perfectly within their rights and it is the role of politicians to respond to those priorities and concerns. After all, don’t those of the rakyat come first?

Thanks for the comment!

Comment published by nat on 22 February 2007.
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“i think the difference of opinion between me and John is this: I believe that what makes corruption rampant is not a dearth of intelligent ideas for combatting it, but rather the utter lack of real political will to do so.”

Well, I think the differences stem from our different foci. You are thinking about catching the big fish; I am thinking about reforming the system. IMO, the problem with corruption is systemic, arising from the culture we have had inculcated in us through decades of governmental pillaging and money politics. This is especially true for the civil service. Disposing of the big fish is easy, but if the whole civil service is corrupt, you need to find ways to make the rank and file fall in line. If we take down the big Napoleons but there are plenty of little Napoleons still out there, not much good will have been done.

At the same time, you can’t simply sack all these little Napoleons and not expect societal problems. With over a million civil servants, it is impossible to wholly purge the civil service of ineffective and corrupt rank and file without creating some level of unrest. What has to be done is to find some way of fixing the system and incentive structures in place. Political will and firing people alone won’t do much, because you have to deal with the resulting unemployment - no small task when you have such a huge civil service (and thus a huge range of potential sackees). You need ideas for making these ex-little Napoleons productive members of society. One idea I like is that which was applied by an eastern European country not too long ago to downsize its civil service. They gave early retirements to hundreds of thousands of civil servants, with benefits, and guaranteed capital for those who became entrepreneurs.

It is not enough to simply toss out the old regime. You have to be prepared to deal with the unwanted side-effects - you need a plan. And a plan entails having ideas. Corruption can be eradicated by sacking the entire civil service, but when you have no civil service, that just creates a new problem. When you look at the big picture, you realise that simplistic solutions often aren’t enough.

“So while my own experiences suggests a different scenario than John’s (ie, I believe that our shortage is still crucially on activists, rather than ideas or critics), debating how to divide the proverbial pie (ie, the efforts of people interested in change) should be much less the issue than discussing how to make the pie bigger.”

Actually, I believe that we have a shortage of activists as well - it’s just that all their efforts will go to waste if they only have ideals to fight for. Without a roadmap to make these ideals a reality, what can the activists fight for? That’s where cosntructive commentary comes in - and unfortunately it’s far too lacking in our society, where most commentaries focus on blaming someone for our country’s problems instead of identifying the problems, or, better yet, identifying solutions.

mydeen:

Precisely. I agree with nat that it is imperative that we restore local council elections. The purpose of Parliament and state assemblies is to focus on *macro* solutions to these problems. There is no use in an MP who finds a solution to some individual’s problem with loan sharks, but can’t fight for legislation to tackle the problem at the macro level. I wrote about this before when I was musing about the dearth of decent political commentary:

http://www.infernalramblings.com/articles/Malaysian_Socio-Politics/93/

Comment published by johnleemk on 22 February 2007.
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[…] ces fighting for an ever-shrinking economic pie? Nathaniel Tan responded, arguing that first of all, John Lee’s piece fails to recognise the nuances between the different Opposition […]

Comment published by niknazmi.com » Blog Archive » Confounding Cynicism on 26 February 2007.
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john:

i guess we do share an understandable and fair difference of opinion regarding exactly how much intellectual finesse is required to combat things like corruption again, fair enough.

a point i do want to reiterate however, is the one about the effort pie. we can debate how to split the resources, or we can discuss how to enlarge it.

with regard to you, it’s quite simple: rather than arguing with old farts like us, why don’t you come up with all the roadmaps you like with regards to corruption or any other issue? if there’s a dearth of ideas such as you’ve describe, provide them!! i’m sure we’d be more than happy to co-opt any good idea out there.

Comment published by nat on 26 February 2007.
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[…] Nathaniel, a prominent political blogger and webmaster of Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s website, has been detained at the Bukit Aman police headquarters. He was a featured contributor for theCICAK. […]

Comment published by Why detain Nathaniel Tan? on 13 July 2007.
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[…] dulu, saya sering terpanggil untuk membalas pendapat sdr. John Lee […]

Comment published by Isu Perkauman: Sanggupkah Kita Mengambil Risiko? : Bolehland on 28 August 2007.
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