How much are we willing to forgive our politicians?
How much forgiveness are you willing to give to our politicians? Where do you draw the line in terms of the time frame in which you can forgive them?
Kuo Yong Kooi
There are numerous examples we can draw from overseas on the degree of the peoples’ forgiveness of the wrong doings of their nation’s politicians. The extreme ones are from Libya and Iraq and the kinder and gentler ones from South Africa and East Timor. It varies from culture to culture and the extremes of the peoples’ reaction also depends on the degree of sufferings their leaders have inflicted upon them in their time of rule.
These contemporary international political lessons should be a guide to our current leaders who are keen to hang on to power at all costs, for their personal interest rather than for the national interest. It’s easy enough to conclude that the harder you suppress the people the stronger the reaction will be. Take an example; the current Syrian political development will undoubtedly make us conclude that this is a point of no return for Bashar Al-Assad. If he is to survive after the fall of his regime he needs to be flown off to a safe haven somewhere or else his fate will be the same as General Muamar Al-Gadaafi.
So how far are we willing to forgive our nation’s leaders for the case of Malaysia? I think we have a very high degree of tolerance and forgiveness to our leaders’ wrong doings and miscalculations, given the complexity of our mixed cultures that have different interpretations on forgiveness.
We are doing well because post Bersih 3.0 tells us that we are not as unforgiving as Libya and Egypt. Our anger seemed to be not that intense compared to the Arab Spring, where people continuously had days and weeks of street confrontation with the police or the military. The time gap between Bersih 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 indicated to us that there was ample time given to the UMNO administration, the Election Commission and the Police to rectify their mistakes. Unfortunately time and time again they failed us and yet the Rakyat is not raging mad occupying the streets disrupting the daily commerce activities.
If the Bersih steering committee wants to disrupt the day to day running of the government, all they need is to formally urge the Rakyat to occupy Dataran Merdeka tomorrow through the alternative new media and you can guarantee that tens of thousands of people will be out there before the police have a chance to barricade the area. The Najib/UMNO administration must count their lucky stars because this possible scenario has not happened yet. Are they still oblivian to this fact? or are they taking the advantage of the Rakyat’s kindness for granted? Or are they just plain arrogant, behaving like in the old days of UMNO not realizing that technological development in the virtual world has changed the game play.
The other indicator that Malaysians are a very forgiving bunch is that the number of “frog” politicians that hopped in and out of the opposition’s camp is phenomenal. There were no signs of public disgruntle on this phenomenon through street protests or other activities like setting up burger stalls or doing butt exercises in front of the houses of those “frog” politicians. This is an indication that the bulk of Malaysians are very civilized in their behavior and very forgiving. The “frog” politicians are easily accepted and welcomed into the opposition camp without any requirement of proof on their sincerity and ideological compatibility with the opposition parties policies.
One may wonder whether the whole political posturing in Malaysia has any ideological foundations at all. PAS is considered to be an ideological party, they even accept “frog” politicians readily. Is it just opportunistic politicians at play or is it a case that Malaysian voters are very forgiving? or maybe racial politics is still at large here?, as for the case of our “King of frogs” Ibrahim Ali got elected into the parliament hopping from UMNO to PAS, then to PKR and then Independent.
For those who have made their great leap from UMNO to the opposition, there were ample time given to them to prove their sincerity during their time in the opposition parties. RPK has interestingly dug out some cases of wrong doings of Anwar and Azmin back in the times when they were in UMNO in his article “MACC deep throat comes out of the closet” and “Anti-deception buster” and a few more. I can’t help but to conclude that most Malaysians are happy to forgive their past misdeeds as long as they stay on course to change the present government.
I believe it is in the nature of the human mind that when we are presented with a revelation or a fact, we evaluate the facts together with the present predicament we are in. We then make a wise calculation but sometimes emotional reaction over the fact with the hope that our conclusion or position can get us out of that present predicament. This act do fit the label of “in denial” or being “double standard”. It could also possibly mean that we are desperately wishing for our present suffering to past or we rather turn the page and start again so to speak.
The current Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen was a former Khmer Rouge commander. When he became the Prime Minister of Cambodia, alarm bells were ringing on the people’s mind, it did initially reminded them of the days of the Killing fields under the Khmer Rouge. That fear of returning to the days of the killing fields did not eventuate. Cambodia took that chance and had moved on compared to Malaysia which is still stuck. Malaysia do not have Noble Laurette quality leaders like Aung Sang Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela or the Dalai Lama. We will be stuck if we wait for one and not stay focus in just getting the first hurdle of changing the current government first. Once the government is first changed then all other aspirations will follow.
There was ample time given to Najib to proof that he is Malaysia’s FW De Klerk or Goberchev. Time and time again he has shown us that he rather defend Putrajaya till the last drop of UMNO’s blood, so we have to turn our hope to the opposition. The first hurdle of a peaceful transition of government precedes all other possibilities because without that dreaming of a possible non Malay Prime Minister is purely academic and a only a dream. It is very clear that only after the change of government then there is hope that the judiciary, MACC, PDRM and many other public institutions will evolve into a more independent institution free from influence of politicians.
How much forgiveness are you willing to give to our politicians? Where do you draw the line in terms of the time frame in which you can forgive them?
