The Malaysian Politic of “Unstoppable Forces against Immovable Object”

“Batman: The Dark Knight” make its remarkable debut recently and threaten to rewrite some of those blockbuster records. Besides adoring the battle actions and Batman’s high technology gargets, the Malaysian audience could seriously ponder the Joker’s metaphor about his battle with Batman, mentioned towards the end of the movie: “unstoppable forces against immovable object”. Well, it is similar with the battle between the Pakatan Rakyat’s “unstoppable” forces of Makkal Sakhti (People Power) against the “immovable” dominance of the Barisan Nasional (BN)? Who shall prevail? The People Power Revolution of 1986 against Ferdinand Marcos in Philippine resulted in the “unstoppable” beating the “immovable”. In the Philippine scenario, its citizens raised against years of “unmovable” authoritarian regime of Marcos that suppressed their dissatisfactions through repressive laws and political assassinations. The assassination of opposition leader Ninoy Aquino on 21 August 1983 sparked off the “unstoppable” forces of people power. Nevertheless, the same success never shared in Myanmar where the “unstoppable” forces of people power failed to free Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.

Anwar Ibrahim, the de facto leader of the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition continuously insists that the currently “immovable” BN-lead government will fall by August or latest September 2008. He seem building up on the “unstoppable” forces of Makkal Sakhti that denied BN a two-third majority in Parliament for the first times in Malaysian election history. In that election, few top leaders and Ministers of the BN have been defeated include Samy Vellu (MIC president), Shahrizat Jalil, Koh Tsu Koon (Gerakan party acting President) and S. Kayveas (PPP President). The opposition coalition also won control of five states, namely Kedah, Penang, Perak, Kelantan and Selangor. Anwar “win” in his public debate with the Information Minister over the issue of oil price hike foster the forces of “unstoppable”. Yet, the BN still managed to form the federal government, giving them the invaluable chance to fortify their “immovable” defense.

Since the general election, everything remains status quo abide some non-Parliamentarians crossover between both coalitions. Anwar’s claims that Member of Parliament from the BN will be joining the PR never materialized thus far nor the BN’s claims of PAS members will cross over to UMNO and they will be taking back the Perak state. The battle remains evenly fought but will it still even few weeks or months down the road? How will the battle possibly unfold?

This battle game is simple. The BN just need to fade out the PR’s strength. Hence, time is on the BN side. The longer this battle drag on, the higher chance of victory for the BN. PR need speed and agility. Therefore, the sodomy case against Anwar is directly or indirectly a “time-buying” advantage for the BN. Perhaps, the same applies to the Prime Minister’s claim on “high level” talk between UMNO and PAS. Anwar Ibrahim is the PR’s greatest strength and also theirs greatest weakness as the whole hope of the coalition seem put on the shoulder of this man. Well, common investment lesson tells us that putting all egg in one basket is very risky but yet Warren Buffet has a different perspective – better to put all your egg in one basket (or very few baskets) and watch that basket very well to reap better return. PR seems follow the later advise that may be the reason to this phenomenon called “Anwar bashings”. Personal attacks on Anwar are obvious during and after the election campaigns and in the mentioned public debate, perhaps having the idea that if Anwar is defeated, so does the whole PR.

An interesting question here is whether the Malaysian can differentiate between logic and personal attacks? The answer to this question is a very difficult task, as it needs understanding of philosophy of logic versus rhetoric. Logic reasoning rooted back to Socrates who seeks the truth through questioning (known as “Socrates questioning”). Nowadays, his teaching hardly found not only in Malaysian but global academia, thus weakening the critical reasoning part of human mind. Of course, in Malaysian context, any critical mind is further subjected to government’s suppression, particularly causing the death of dialectics since schooling era (see Burniske 1998). There are some 47 pieces of legislation and ordinances affected mass media operations in the country. Some dated to the colonial era, such as the Printing Presses and Periodicals Act (1948) (Atkins 2002: 22). Specifically to education sector, there are various restrictions imposed on members of the academia through laws such as the Universities and Universities Colleges Act (UUCA) and Statutory Bodies Act (Manan 2005). All these instil fear for Malaysian to speak up, thus thwarting constructive support to the PR. In the absent of support from all layers of the society due to fear factor, the PR’s “unstoppable” could be running out of steam soon. Nevertheless, Malaysian praise the BN-led government’s effort to relax the control of media and freedom of speech recently, which among resulted in live telecast of Parliament preceding and agreeing to the live telecast of the public debate on oil price. On the other hand, all these freedom of speech and press are no good to the BN defence and may shaken its “immovable” dominance. Well, it is a hard decision for the BN to ponder but certainly Malaysian public do appreciate those efforts.

So, is that all their got in this historical battle of the Malaysian politic? Malaysian could expect more “unstoppable” forces from the blog; most celebrated one goes to Raja Petra Kamaruddin and perhaps the academic arena too. Anwar’s various ceramah on explaining the sodomy case ensure the “unstoppable” forces remain unfazed. There could be much more surprises from both sides as result from the on going high profile court cases. Whatever happens, this battle of “unstoppable forces against immovable object” is real, not movie and tends to have lasting impact to Malaysia’s politic, economy and social.

Reference

Atkins, William. (2002). The politics of Southeast Asia’s new media. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press.

Burniske, R. W. (1998). The shadow play: How the integration of technology annihilates debate in our schools. Phi Delta Kappan. Vol. 80 (2). Source: http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kbur9810.htm. Access date: 7 January 2008.

Manan, Adriana Nordin. (2005). Chandra: Neo-feudal culture stifles academic freedom. 27 May. Source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/36511. Access date: 28 May 2005.