Come Again. What is Democracy?
By batsman
If people do not understand or refuse to understand what democracy is, then such UMNO controlled TV stations will have succeeded in fooling the people to go along with dirty election practices that distort the true will of the people.
Looks like confusion reigns again. After 3 years of struggle together for democracy, reforms, justice, transparency, accountability and fairness, after 3 years of struggling together against abuse of power, victimization, injustice, corruption, nepotism and arrogance in government, after marching together hand in hand in the Bersih 2.0 rally facing tear gas, water cannon and police baton charges, some people wake up and are shocked to see who or what their friends in struggle are. The person one admired so much for being such a resolute fighter for reforms turns out to be intolerant of beer drinking, gambling and girls giggling their breasts in public.
At least that is what it looks like. However, to be fair, perhaps it is not those who brave tear gas, water cannons, police baton charges, victimization, dirty tricks or arbitrary arrests who are shocked but those who never faced any of these things at all. It is very similar to the phenomenon that those who complain the most about food are those who cannot cook for nuts or those who scold and scream at football players the loudest are those who cannot play football for nuts.
These are the critics and commenters of web blogs as well as shallow politicians sucking up to the constituents who scream the most. I suppose these things are a fact of life and part and parcel of the democratic process, but in order to shield those in the front lines from demoralizing screams, perhaps an even better understanding of democracy is needed anew.
According to UMNO controlled TV stations, the Arab countries do not have democracy, therefore it is right for the Arabs to rebel and overthrow their governments. However in the case of Malaysia, democracy already exists, so Malaysians have no right to even protest, even if such protests are peaceful and call for free and fair elections to ensure that clean elections represent the will of the people most accurately (i.e. best practice democracy) and are not manipulated to reflect the will of a minority of power brokers playing dirty tricks.
If people do not understand or refuse to understand what democracy is, then such UMNO controlled TV stations will have succeeded in fooling the people to go along with dirty election practices that distort the true will of the people.
Similarly if people in the front lines of reform as well as their backers and critics do not understand what they are fighting for i.e. democracy, quite a few will become demoralized and drop out of the struggle.
Modern democracy does not just mean the rule of the majority. This inadequate definition has fooled quite a lot of weak minded inadequate simpletons into making the wrong political decisions. Modern democracy also includes protecting the legitimate rights of the minority – not just legitimate human, property and civil rights of racial or religious minorities, but also minorities in terms of ideas and opinions. The rule of the majority that tramples on the legitimate rights of minorities especially minority opinions is not considered a properly functioning democracy and can lead to a situation such as majority Serbs trampling on the rights of minority Bosnians or majority Hutus committing genocide on minority Tutsis.
Where it pertains to majorities or minorities of humans, a majority cannot adequately protect the rights of minorities who are their intractable “to the death” enemies. Fortunately such situations rarely occur. Humans are basically the same whatever skin colour they have.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for ideas and ideologies. Conflicting ideas and ideologies can be intractable “to the death” bitter enemies because ideas do not bleed, die or suffer like humans do. Conflicting ideas can remain pure and bitter enemies even if humans die by the millions because of them. This is the greatest danger to democracies.
In Malaysia’s case, even if PAS sincerely fights for democracy and reforms. Even if PAS is the most consistent in the fight against abuse of power, corruption, discrimination and injustice, can it be expected to protect intractable “to the death” Islamophobes?
Fortunately if humans treat each other with respect and are willing to negotiate and discuss conflicting ideas and values in a civilized and peaceful manner, there is a form of control over dangerous extreme conflicting ideas. In Malaysia, people have to learn to respect each other as humans first before trying to talk about race and religion, not the other way round. I think this has in the main been achieved. No one can say for sure, but I believe PAS prefers to consider the human being first rather than his Islamophobic ideas.
UMNO, on the other hand places its political agenda of Ketuanan Melayu in the forefront in an intractable manner. Even if this tactic is just to cover up the corruption and abuse of a small minority of crooks and cronies, it is an extremely dangerous political position to take because Ketuanan Melayu takes no prisoners, has no respect for minorities and brooks no dissent.
PAS even if places Islam foremost in its political agenda, Islam is a merciful and tolerant religion that places justice, fairness and consultation in an extremely high place and demands categorically that Muslims protect the rights of minorities. There is no intractable “to the death” conflict between democracy and Islam.
Unfortunately, when the global situation is considered, the west often implies that there is an intractable conflict between democracy and Islam such that it picks on Malaysia as a rare and precious role model of “moderate Islam” that it can live with.
I do not know how Ketuanan Melayu and UMNO’s “moderate Islam” can jive together harmoniously for ordinary Malaysians unless the west chooses to close both eyes on Ketuanan Melayu. At any rate UMNO’s “moderate Islam or civilized Islam” is just a fancy term for secular and westernised in content and Islamic only in form. This is the only type of Islam the west can accept and choose to live with while closing both eyes to Ketuanan Melayu.
Malaysians, both Muslims and non-Muslims on the other hand have no such choice and have to live with Islam whether it is of the UMNO Hadhari type or PAS type. Trying to escape this fact would be the greatest and most pathetic self-denial ever.
Unfortunately, some Malaysian non-Muslims (I suspect those who are not in the front line of the fight for democracy and reforms) prefer to accept western ways and ideologies blindly and turn into western type Islamophobes. This is taking a political position that will most likely result in their complete isolation.
Some chose the easy (or hard) way out and migrate to the western countries that they admire so much while others quietly wait their turn. That is their decision. Those who choose to stay and become full blooded Malaysians have to face reality and come to terms with the Malaysian context or risk complete political isolation.
This is not a death sentence as you might think. The choice is a simple one between working under UMNO which practices a western secular lifestyle but retains a veneer of Islamic authority to keep both Muslims and non-Muslims under control while UMNO milks the country as a cash cow in its capacity as Ketuanan type lord and master;
OR
working with PAS which rejects western decadence and corruption but in justice and fairness, accepts progress, reforms and democracy (including democratic protests and dissent) under Islamic principles, at the same time is intolerant of abuse of minorities, corruption, robbery, rape, theft or murder as an influential member of the PR coalition.
Democracy is not just the hypocritical US type that is meant to serve US interests. Any home grown democracy has to take local conditions into account. Otherwise it is just dangerous self-denial that blocks any realistic solutions to problems. Malaysians have to work together seriously to create a Malaysian democracy that Malaysians can live with, not blindly and obsessively insist on the US type of democracy. Shallow politicians have to stop acting like hysterical young girls and control their screams every time something looks uncomfortable or strange or act out their visions based only on ideas without consideration for human beings..
Of course the above positions are purposely described to be stark in-your-face choices. In reality, there are a lot more choices yet undescribed. There is also a lot of room to maneuver still and the choice need not be made for some time yet – perhaps not even at all. I don’t claim to be a prophet who can predict what the future holds. Still, the choices presented are worth thinking about in terms of the type of democracy possible in Malaysia and what your preferred choice is as well as what course of action you may decide to take, don’t you think?
