To ‘celaka’, or not to ‘celaka’

James Chai, Malay Mail Online

As of now, RSN Rayer’s failure to withdraw his infamous “Umno Celaka!” statement is disappointing. The Seri Delima assemblyman’s failure to recognise the importance to do so, and what it had meant in terms of political overtures is even staggering.

Instead, Rayer chose to resort to contest the actual meaning of the word or try to determine the magnitude of harm, and attribute similar derogatory statements that were uttered by Barisan Nasional (BN) members in the past – “BN did it too, so why is this a big deal” or something to that effect.

Tug of War

It does not move the debate like that, as no matter how valid and convincing the claims by Pakatan Rakyat’s leaders on the gross disproportionality (amounting to “hooliganism”) of the reactions by UMNO Youth Federal Territories members to burn down the DAP HQ and incident of the “storming of the Penang Assembly” (a much less heroic “storming of the Bastille” in France 1789), BN politicians will still justify their acts to the initial provocation by Rayer.

This is harmful to Pakatan, as they will not be able to gain a distinct political capital as they would easily have, had the apology been made promptly after. Wary citizens will still be drawn to the fact that it was, in fact, provoked in the first place, and always place that justified reservation on why there was such a difficulty to apologise.

All efforts of condemning the “hooliganism” – that are extremely detrimental to racial harmony – will be wasted because of it.

While it is certainly ingenious in political strategy to avoid talking about your own shortcomings and amplify the opponents’, it is nonetheless dishonest to do so. We cannot condemn the reaction without addressing the impropriety of the initial provocation.

It is not a matter of what “celaka” means, and how an ordinary and reasonable Malaysian would take it to mean. As long as Rayer is aware that it might contain insulting or provoking tendencies, it must be regrettable that such languages are used.

This is additionally problematic when Rayer is a lawyer in his own right, that he should have realised this more than anyone else.

Pakatan Agenda

Facing BN is an unprecedented challenge, as no other coalition in the modern world had sustained for that many years undefeated. In theory, this meant that BN had built a longstanding political bulwark of support and there is a need to deal with the entrenched reality of traditional powers and familiarity.

Vote choices for many were almost never premised on which would provide a reasonably better alternative – as a healthy democracy would require – but a vote for BN is almost “natural” or merely a routine every General Election.

The people had also waited too long for an alternative government that is not only slightly better than BN – it would not be worth the change in that case – but a drastically better one.

The logic also follows that if we can concede that the damage to our country’s economic competitiveness, societal welfare, intellectual discourse, institutional integrity had all been perverted by BN drastically, then nothing short of a drastic change and betterment of governance can restore it.

I say this because Pakatan needs to recognise the higher benchmark that they have compared to BN. Pakatan cannot afford imperfect ways of carrying themselves – and this goes to administrative competency and the manner of carrying themselves. Or else, fence- sitters (also “deciders”) will fall back on the “comfort” that they have with BN.

We do not want lesser of the two incompetents, but the best group that can hold themselves to world standards of exemplary politicians who are skillful, persuasive and first-class.

Westminster convention

In the UK, there is a constitutional convention for individual ministers for competency and morality. The debates in UK Parliament are frequently on intellectual substance of policy, and parliamentarians hold themselves in such elegant regard when presenting a speech.

I believe that Pakatan would want their Member of Parliament (MP) and assemblypersons to hold themselves to those conventions as long as they are in the august house, even without being a minister. Leaders of each component party in Pakatan should therefore ensure that their carefully selected candidates are held into account even upon a carelessly enunciated remark. And “celaka” is, sadly, not moral.

Moving to respect our politicians, finally

Pursuant to this is the need to create a new form of respect we have towards our politicians. From the salary hike controversy of MPs and assemblypersons last year, it had painted a picture on how these politicians are perceived as “undeserving” of such salary increases (which they actually do), as rakyat had lost faith in our politicians and would only view the salary hike as another opportunity to further exhaust nation’s resources for personal gains, thanks for scandalous BN politicians of past and present.

After participating in some MP/ADUN’s work, I daresay that the expectations and workloads are disproportionate to the salary they are remunerated for. Hence and either way, they should be afforded respect that they currently do not have.

We have to constantly remind ourselves that they are servicemen that we owe a debt to if our country succeeds. And for the time and opportunities they forego for this service, nothing short of respect should be returned to their choice of occupation.

Nonetheless, it is a two-way interaction, and it is therefore imperative that politicians carry out their services with the conduct and manner that deserves such respect in order to change the impression towards politicians.

It is not an easy task, and the uphill battle is made harder especially when BN leaders are consistent violators of the ideals that we hold true since the time the Pakatan candidate pledged to take that sacrificial decision to serve the nation in such turmoil.

But failing to apologise is silly, and Rayer’s response had been nothing short of unsatisfactory and unhelpful to the cause thus far.

I recall how Karpal Singh had to persuade Jelutong MP Jeff Ooi’s “kucing kurap” remark last year.

From this, I believe that a leader of Karpal Singh’s stature, though unjustly persecuted and baselessly humiliated throughout his political life (as with Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Kit Siang), would recognise the importance of this battle against BN and on creating a new form of respect towards politicians, to hold politicians to good conduct and mannerism.

“Celaka” is plain silly.