Restoring sanity

Last Saturday 30 November 2010, American television host Jon Stewart held a “Rally to Restore Sanity” at Washington’s National Mall.

Fed up with the constant bickering by the partisan politicians and the media in America, Stewart organised a rally that was driven by the need for moderation and could be best described by these two phrases – “Why do we have to fight?” and “Taking it down a notch for America”.

The alarmist reaction from the American right-wing towards the building of the Islamic cultural centre and mosque called the Cordoba House near the site of the fallen World Trade Centre in New York is just an example of why Stewart rallied and took to the streets.

At the height of the controversy over the location of Cordoba House, Stewart pointed out on The Daily Show that the issue was not an issue at all because for example, there in fact already was a mosque close to Ground Zero which had been around for 40 years and in fact pre-dated the World Trade Centre.

In a recent interview with Oprah, Stewart says “I do feel like in this country 70% to 80% of the people are reasonable, nice individuals who may disagree on principal and things but could come up with rational compromises, could accomplish things, could live with the results… and the other 15% to 20% of the country, run the place. That is the issue.”

“The rest of us are busy. People are busy. People don’t have time to take sides and to shout. Crazy gets on television but normal has to make dinner. We want to have a rally on the mall to finally say it’s not the silent majority, it’s the busy majority and it’s the majority of people who say could you tone it down, take it down a notch and get things done and not worry so much about the ideology” said Stewart.

On the matter of the mosque near Ground Zero, Stewart told Oprah that “the difficulty is the conflation of terrorism with religion. It’s taking a group of people and slandering them based on the most extreme element in their group.”

Asked by Oprah why he was doing the rally, Stewart said: “We have real problems. People have very reasonable expectations that these problems should be solved but unfortunately, the conversation on how to solve them is dominated by again the most extreme elements, the loudest people … so the solution we get tend to be much more draconian than would be necessary.”

While following the rally online, I wondered if it was about time that a similar rally be held in Malaysia.
After all, we have, quite frankly, already gone insane.

A 100-storey tower in the heart of Kuala Lumpur costing RM5 billion when we cannot even do something about the fact that the cost of housing is beyond the reach of most first time house buyers.

And then we wonder why the young generation, who form the majority of first-time house buyers, find it so easy to up and leave the country.

One reason is that they cannot afford to buy decent property. They cannot afford to root themselves here so the decision to migrate becomes so much easier.

A 100-storey tower in the heart of Kuala Lumpur costing RM5 billion when we cannot even come up with a minimum wage policy despite the fact that approximately 35% of the Malaysian workforce earns less than RM700 a month. Insane.

A 100-storey tower in the heart of Kuala Lumpur costing RM5 billion when we could not even ensure that the Malaysian Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo was properly built without a leaky roof.

Speaking of leaky roofs, have we even sorted out the leaky roof and wiring problems at our Parliament House?

The Tourism Minister was reported to have said as follows “There is no end because everybody wants a tallest tower. Shanghai and Taiwan wants more, so why should we hold back?”

How nice the world would be if we could all have what everyone else has. Singapore’s fantastic public transportation system comes to mind. So does my neighbour’s Porsche actually.

Quite apart from the 100-storey tower, there is the issue of race relations in the country which has been blown up to insane proportions by the partisan politicians and media. Not a month passes without some racist tinged remark being made.

Alarmist statements like the Chinese are taking over the country have become the norm rather than the exception.

Each time a political party general assembly comes around, there inevitably will be chest thumping speeches about defending the race and being wary about sneaky other races whose sole aim is apparently to wipe out others.

I don’t remember sitting in a coffeeshop with Malay and Chinese friends being all suspicious of whether or not they were hatching a devious plan to kick me out of the country while at the same time being nice to me.

Reading the newspapers and listening to politicians, one would sometimes wonder if we were fighting some sort of war. Defending Islam. Defending the Rulers. Defending Chinese schools. Defending scholarships for Indians. Defending Article 153 of the Federal Constitution.

Each time there is a debate about racial rights, the race riots of 1969 is bandied about like an index finger to the mouth signalling “shut up”.

All these are fear mongering.

Race-based political parties in Malaysia can survive only if they keep dividing us up and creating a fear in us that Malaysians of different races are trying to outfox and outmuscle each other.

Sure there are some Chinese that are racist and care only for their race. Same goes for Indians.

And we have all seen Ibrahim Ali and Perkasa representing the extreme Malay side.

But these are the extremists. They are also the minority.

The rest of us are busy working hard and helping each other in our daily lives despite our racial and ideological differences. On the ground we find a way to work it out. We compromise, give and take and move on.

In the run-up to the next general election, let us take it down a notch. Let us force politicians to deal with real issues like our broken education system or shoddy transportation system.

Let us ask our politicians why each time there is a horrific bus accident, it is almost always a fact that the driver either had no insurance or licence or adequate sleep, and the bus company had about 50,000 unpaid summonses.

Let us ask our politicians why despite so many complaints of police misconduct, there still does not exist a powerful enough body to police the police.

Let us make our politicians responsible for the fact that despite asking us to tighten our belts, year after year the Auditor-General’s report reveals acute wastage of public funds.

Let us steer our politicians away from the usual nonsensical race rhetoric that at the end of the day only serves their selfish purposes.

Let us restore some sanity, remove the fear and start worrying about the real issues.