Honorable Prime Minister, perception is not reality for you?
By J. D. Lovrenciear
If you say perception is not reality, are you then suggesting that it is an illusion?
What the Prime Minister certainly misses very grossly is that perception is not plucked from the thin air. Neither is it a blinded vision inflicted by others. Perception is not all about what people just think about an issue. It is a precipitate of experiences stretching over periods of time. It is all about one’s experiences about what you say, do, do not say and do not do. In short, the rakyat’s perceptions about you and/or BN are a result of your thoughts, words and deeds over time.
Further, his and his BN coalition’s numerous attempts to re-orientate the public perception that is not favorable to the BN parties, as owed up by the PM himself, appears to hinge on propaganda instead of educating the rakyat.
As Everett Martin (1929) points out, education aims at independence of judgment whereas propaganda offers ready-made opinions for the unthinking masses.
Of course it is clearly understandable why the PM is taking this option. Educating the masses takes time as it is a slow process involving human development and thinking. The government cannot afford this given the imminent General Elections. So rather than teach or tell people how to think, the only option is to tell people what to think. In short, it is all about ‘mass effects’.
Now that is not perception management. It is pure propaganda. The symptoms that are cascading like a deluge from the BN quarters clearly affirm that propaganda is the preferred modus operandi.
As pointed out by Jay Black (2001): One, we are witnessing an undue reliance on authority figures and spokespersons to affect people’s thinking rather than using empirical validation to establish truths and conclusions.
Two, is the fixed view of people, institutions and situations into broad, all inclusive categories of friends of BN and enemies of BN that is often held by BN and its leaders.
And three, a greater emphasis on conflict rather than on cooperation among people, institutions and situations. The ongoing anti-Bersih 2.0 stances are fine examples here.
Rather than take the propaganda highway, the Prime Minster should have been better advised by his hired public relations bandwagon that persuasion would have been a more justifiable route.
Why persuasion and not propaganda? As Thomas H. Bivens (2004) explains, “persuasion is not unethical by nature. Instead, it is time-honored, democratic tradition based on guidelines formulated by the Greeks over 2,000 years.”
But that persuasive communication must be anchored on solid evidence that is transparent and can withstand the test of time. In other words truth, nothing but the truth matters if persuasive communication is to succeed within the perimeters of ethics.
The TARES Test, i.e. the five principles of ethical persuasion (Sherry Baker and David L. Martinson; 2001) must be fully subscribed by the PM and his BN.
For the benefit of the Honorable PM and his team-mates, here are the five principles: to be truthful at all times; the spokesperson or mouthpiece must be authentic; the persuader must respect the rakyat whom he or she intends to influence; there must be equity in the persuasive appeal; and social responsibility must be exercised for the common good.
Hence, perhaps the Honorable instead of lambasting that perception is not reality, he should have humbly borrowed a leaf from Barack Obama who wrote in his “A more perfect Union”:
I believe that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our (political) union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for (you and me), our children and our grandchildren.
And with that, join the rakyat in its Bersih 2.0 rally. Or at the least, give the rakyat your full assurance that you will guarantee their safety.
