Categories
Politics & government Society

[2153] Of republicanism in Malaysia? Meh

Prince William visited Redfern in Sydney yesterday. He is still in Sydney today.

I walked to Redfern just to see what it was all about. By the time I got there however, he has already left. Still, there were many people around. Police officers were everywhere. So were reporters. Those there seemed excited about having the Prince in their neighborhood. Somebody had a poster professing her love for Queen Elizabeth II. I suppose, somebody — like what somebody did at the Malay College in Kuala Kangsar to commemorate the visit of the Queen to the school — would erect a small memorial to remember the occasion, effectively saying ‘Prince William was here’ in a manner more refined than that of a graffiti artist.

The premier of New South Wales, Kristina Keneally, a proponent of republicanism in Australia said that the Prince is a “very charming” and “a young man of great character.” That however does little to reverse her republicanism. The Australian Labor Party, the party which Keneally belongs to as well as the party of the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, advocates republicanism.

I myself am a republican, though not quite a fan of the Labor Party. This stems from my distrust of institutions which claim authority from above rather from the bottom. I reject the idea of divine rights outrightly. Granted, these days the monarchy institution does not explicitly claim as such but its origin firmly belongs to that tradition. My egalitarianism mops up any spot that such distrust fails to sweep clean.

In that sense, to have an Australian republic is good. To have a Malaysian republic is ideal.

Yet, republicanism is never a priority for me, given a myriad of burning issues deserving more attention. It is down there somewhere in the priority list. To fight for republicanism appears to be indulging in an unwise battle where energy can better be used to issues that are more concrete.

This is especially so when the monarchy in Malaysia — a total of 9 houses and the Agong as the head of the 13-state federation — has limited power although from time to time, its influence has national repercussions, as observed in the aftermath of the 2008 general election, especially so in Perak. All this is thanks to the former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed. He may have overdone it but his maneuver ensures restriction to royal powers.

Besides, while I am reluctant to give ground to monarchists, the monarchy does in a way play a balancing role in Malaysia. The highly flawed Malaysian system of governance, due to damages done to it by Mahathir, ironically, enhances the space for the monarchy.

Until the issue of separation of powers between the three arms of government is addressed, and until the empowerment of states as proper member states of the federation rather than just units of a practically unitary state, republicanism in Malaysia, will remain bottom out of pile of concerns and even unlooked.

Despite considering myself a republican, I just could not care less about republicanism at the moment. I want my liberal democracy first.

Categories
ASEAN Conflict & disaster

[2083] Of reaction to the death of Noordin Mohammed Top

Death is always unpleasant for life is always too precious to waste. Hence, I greet the death of Noordin Mohammed Top with a kind of bitter sweet feeling. Part of me regretted it while the other half is happy to learn that regional terrorist network has lost an important figurehead.[1]

His ideal is disagreeable and the mean to his end is even more disagreeable. His death is a testament of the idiom those who live by the sword will die by the sword. Noordin chose that path and he knew it. He violated the non-aggression axiom and by doing so, he legitimized effort taken on his life by others hurt by his actions.

I do not know how this may affect terrorist activity in the region but hopefully, it means reduced probability of attacks in Indonesia. I have mentioned that I have high hope for Indonesia to spearhead democratic change in Southeast Asia and become the symbol of aspiration for all liberal democrats in the region. If indeed the death of Noordin leads to a more stable Indonesia on average, then the development of a democratic Southeast Asia — and really, I am first and foremost concerned with democracy in Malaysia — comes one step closer to fruition.

Apart from that, I do hope the death of Noordin would build a new bridge between Malaysia and Indonesia. It is in this sense that I am most glad that Noordin is now dead. The recent spat between Malaysia and Indonesia has been damaging to regionalism in Southeast Asia. His destructive action has been raised by angry Indonesians as a Malaysian product. Malaysia exports terrorism, as some Indonesians accuse Malaysia.

This is most unfair because the Malaysian government and a majority of Malaysians, as I believe, do not support him. Yet, he was a Malaysian and that is undeniable and that is an embarrassing fact for me to admit, especially to foreigners and to my Indonesian friends.

Nevertheless, a torn is now gone.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] — ASIAN terrorist mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top, the man responsible for plotting the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings, has been killed during an Indonesian police raid against suspected Islamist militants in Central Java.

Top was one of four people who died during the raid yesterday on a militant hideout near Solo, Indonesia’s police chief, Bambang Hendarso Danuri, confirmed last night.. [Bali mastermind Noordin Top killed in Indonesian raid. The Australian. September 18 2009]

Categories
ASEAN Conflict & disaster Liberty

[2044] Of a liberal democratic Domino Theory

Indonesia can be an important factor in the creation of a liberal democratic Malaysia.

Its sheer size, its proximity to Malaysia and deep ties that bind both countries prevent any pretension that our developmental path is independently of each other. It is for this reason that recent liberal, democratic, and economic advancements in Indonesia are a cause for celebration among liberals and democrats in Malaysia. For the same reason, the latest bombing in Jakarta should be a source of concern for them.

Indonesia’s transition from an authoritarian state to the most democratic one in the region has been nothing less than impressive. The violent manner of the transition is less than ideal but it was a transition for the better nevertheless. With all else being equal, Indonesians are potentially set to reap the dividend of democratic peace and progress. Already its economy has been growing consistently above 4 per cent since 2000. Furthermore, the archipelagic country is still growing despite the ongoing crisis that has forced many others, including Malaysia, to go into recession.

I celebrate the much talked about progress in Indonesia, first and foremost, because of the ideal of a liberal democracy. That is the only form of government that is supportive of individual liberty. Only that system is capable of balancing individual liberty against state power as well as any majority power. It guards individual liberty tightly against the ugly side of gross majoritarianism: tyranny of the majority.

To have one more state — in the case of Indonesia, a major state — embracing liberal democracy as a system, and having it working, enhances the influence of the idea all over the world. To have one more state as a liberal democracy further gives credence to the statement that the most successful countries in modern times, by and large, have been liberal democracies.

A point that is more relevant is the effect of Indonesian progress on Malaysia. Its success as a liberal democracy is important to Malaysian democrats and liberals because if Indonesia, during this period of its liberal democracy, can achieve unprecedented socioeconomic progress to catch up with Malaysia, it can provide Malaysia with a liberal democratic model to follow.

This is an important point that demands stressing. It provides a strong alternative to the development model preferred by the government of the People’s Republic of China. For Malaysian democrats and liberals, between deep statism as practised in mainland China and democracy, the answer does not demand too much mental manoeuvring.

This idea may in a way parallel the Domino Theory in a restricted sense. The Domino Theory in its original form postulates that if one country fell to communism, others in the region would fall to communism too, just as a domino piece in a well-arranged deck only waits toppling after the fall of the first piece. Except this time around, the force that pushes the first piece sits on the opposite side of communism, and decades after communism was ideologically defeated.

The liberal democratic Domino Theory could even affect Singapore. Any big change in Malaysia will affect Singapore, just as a big change in Indonesia will affect Malaysia. A liberal democratic Malaysia will present unwanted pressure for the Singapore establishment to be more flexible in matters concerning democracy and liberty.

For Singapore, in times when it is surrounded by illiberal states — Malaysia and Indonesia that from time to time presented a cold front to it — it can find allies in other liberal democracies in the West, even when Singapore itself is an illiberal state. When, and if, it is surrounded by liberal democracies, Singapore’s ties to Western liberal democracies would somewhat diminish as attention would shift from Malaysia and Indonesia’s record to Singapore’s.

On top of that, liberal democracies tend to be noisy about illiberal conducts. If the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia are unwilling to do so, then the civil society in both countries would. Consequently, the domino deck would exert strong pressure on Singapore to democratise and liberalise.

Before that can happen, Indonesia must make significant progress. Without that, Indonesia will not have a significant role in democratising and liberalising Malaysia and give currency to the theory. One barrier to that progress was exemplified by the recent bombing in its capital.

What happened in Jakarta is disheartening because it can adversely affect confidence in the country. Confidence is a precious commodity in the making of a successful economy. Without it, Indonesian economy can falter to undo the progress made on the political front. Without a healthy economy, a liberal democratic Indonesia will not command respect from others. That will easily cancel out the possibility of the Domino Theory.

Thankfully, the bombing so far has not significantly impacted the Indonesian economy. It may be that the momentum of progress there is so big compared to the negative impact of the bombing. If that is so, that is great. Yet, one may never know what is in store next.

An Indonesia in chaos will not only remove an external factor that catalyses the realisation of a liberal democratic Malaysia, it can also contribute to a setback. Indonesia after all is not so far away and it has been pointed out that the network of terrorism consists also of Malaysians. These Malaysians may target Malaysia some day.

If ever that happens, it is likely that individual liberty in the country will suffer further erosion. In the United States, with its strong tradition in liberty and credible institutions, a strong challenge against the transgression of liberty can be mounted by its civil society. In Malaysia with smaller cache as far as the idea of liberty is concerned, the same challenge will be hard to mount. After all, laws irreverent to liberal democratic values introduced during the Emergency era are still in place. For instance, when was the last time Malaysia held a local election?

For Malaysian democrats and liberals, it is in their interest to ensure that what is in store for Indonesia is peace instead of chaos. They can do this by requiring their own government to cooperate earnestly with the Indonesian government on the matter of anti-terrorism. Successful cooperation will lessen the possibility of Malaysia facing such attacks at home and avoid the oft-mentioned dilemma between liberty and security.

The dilemma between the two is a false one, since liberty requires protection to remain firm. That, after all, is the purpose of a liberal democracy. But convincing the masses of that reasoning will be a difficult task during dangerous times. With an illiberal government at the helm, the government will certainly make use of that opportunity to rob liberty from individuals, either consciously or indirectly.

The cause of terrorism is clearly multifold but I am convinced that poor economic conditions — which in turn affects other factors like good education that are crucial in sustaining a liberal democracy — play a large role in it. A developing Indonesian economy can address that, and that makes the progress in Indonesia all the more important; economic success is the real anti-terrorism measure.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

First published in The Malaysian Insider on July 27 2009.

Categories
Liberty

[1329] Of bicameralism to moderate crass democracy

Democracy in its purest form is a mere majoritarianism and a society built on mere majoritarianism is a society built on pure populism. There is nothing in populism and by extension democracy that guarantees liberty. Yet, democracy has proven to be an effective decision making tool, allowing differences to be ironed out peacefully instead of by force. For this reason, libertarians — for the sake of simplicity, liberals — prefer moderated democracy and a tool that offers that possibility is a liberal constitution which guarantees negative rights. The merging of the two tools results in a system known as liberal democracy. Unfortunately, any constitution may fail under heavy populist pressure for a constitution itself is not free from revision. Here is where another moderator of populist sentiment comes into play: bicameralism.

How is that so?

Bicameralism is simply a system of two legislatives chambers divided into the lower house and the upper house.

In the name of democracy, the lower house is sensitive to popular opinion. Representatives elected into the house have only one interest at heart and that is the people. Whenever popular opinion sways for better or for worse, so does the opinion of the lower house.

There are moments when public opinion exhibits excessive instant gratification quality with little regard to future outcomes. More often than not, such moments are filled with emotion or are made possible with limited information. It goes without saying that opinion or decisions made with incomplete information may not produce the best of all possible outcomes. Worse, in times of great distrust, some groups may try to oppress the weaker communities and the weakest of all communities are the individuals. Those are the moments when democracy looms menacingly, when tyranny of the majority is most relevant. This is why liberals are distrustful of democracy.

If placed on a two-axes graph which the horizon axis represents time and the vertical axis represents public opinion through some numeral values, short term-based public opinion sways wildly as time progresses. Extreme values toward one side or another — for instance, authoritarianism or anarchy — that prevail for only a short time frame may have destabilizing effect and undo years of progress. When emotion subsides and rationality dominates, the mob, and the society in general, may regret its actions as complete information becomes available only later.

The upper house functions to smooth out the crests and troughs of public opinion. In order words, it is less sensitive to crass democracy with farther perspective in temporal horizon. For liberals, the upper house is more interested in protecting the liberal constitution rather than kowtowing to the mob.

This however does not mean the members of the house — senators — are not elected into their seats. Democracy still plays a role in the makeup of the house but its effect is far moderated than that in the lower house. This alignment of interest is achieved by granting senators longer term compared to the members of the lower house. Through this itself, the atmosphere in the upper house is calmer, where rationality overcomes emotion, emotion that appeals to the mob. In this environment, discussion could be carried in a more productive manner.

The insensitivity to public opinion however creates another problem. Due to the longer term, upper house members — or senators — do have considerable power compared to their counterparts. This is where one must tread carefully since senators are less responsive to the people. Conferring the senators with too much power may create powerful oligarchy relatively unanswerable to the people. To reasonably eliminate such possibility, a upper house of a liberal democracy practicing bicameralism has only the power accept or reject law proposed by the lower house. The upper house itself cannot introduce or amend any law. It is not an agenda setter.

It has to be noted bicameralism itself suffers from status quo bias. Whatever the status quo, bicameralism in the form expressed here is still a moderator of democracy. Like democracy, it is a tool and it is not an end. For liberals, the only end is liberty.

Categories
Liberty Society

[1277] Of defining a liberal Malaysian nation

A nation is not a state but a nation-state is both a nation and a state. There are stark differences between nation and state but not many differentiate the two concepts. Worse, at times, the two terms are used interchangeably. Comprehension of the two terms is required if one is to grasp the impetus for Bangsa Malaysia — transliterally, the Malaysian race; more accurately, the Malaysian nation — and further, why the traditional nation-state concept based on ethnicity and religion is outdated.

A nation is a community whereas its members, individuals, share a common identity. That identity in turn is derived from history, through similarities in languages, ethnicities, religions, or in the broadest sense, culture. It is through this shared identity which nationalism arises. A nation is therefore fluid with no concrete border by itself. As the community expands or shrinks, so does the nation.

A state is more solid in nature and changes to its borders usually involve macro-events such as wars or referendum which individuals agree to come together or part ways. It is an institution that governs a set of territories with the monopoly of legitimate use of physical force within that territories.

At some points in history, nations started to demand their own states. The demands later introduced the concept known as nation-state. In such concept, a nation has sovereignty over a set of territories. This has been the basis for the foundation of a number of countries in the world including but not limited to, at its inception at least, many European states, the Arab states, China and Japan.

For a multicultural state, the concept of nation-state is hard to apply; the central question is what is the shared identity?

This could be a very divisive question. Needless to say, members of a multicultural society come from diverse background and more likely than not, identities are not shared. Differences may be more pronounced than any commonality exists among communities that a nation-state depends on.

When there is little or no shared identity and with greater differences instead, there may be an urge to create an artificial nation to justify a nation-state. For those that favor a multicultural state, this is a natural reaction to such absence because the lack of common identity coupled with the ideals of nationalism of various groups tend to divide a state into smaller states, sometimes violently.

Nationalism calls for one land for one nation. Balkanization may be the manifestation of nationalism within a multicultural state in its worst form. Events of the 1990s and early 2000s continuously broke up the multicultural, or within our context, multinational, Yugoslavia. Indeed, Yugoslavia is not a special case. The Astro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire were other victims of nationalism. If I may say so, the breaking up of the Ottoman Empire, the former political center of the Muslim world is the reason why Islam is hostile to a certain kind of nationalism, fuming at how religious nationalism was undone by ethnic nationalism.

Malaysia is another example of a multinational state. Nationalism may have done to Malaysia to what it had done to the Ottoman Empire though never closer to the latter’s magnitude. At its inception in 1963, 14 states came together to form a new federation. The question of shared identity, of nationalism, quickly forced the expulsion of one of its states, Singapore, out of the federation short of two years later. Four years after that, the worst racial riot — May 13 incident — in Malaysian history erupted. The riot could have further broken up the new federation. Wary of repeating the same incident, the state, the federation, requires a common identity to create a sense of oneness. With absence of a shared identity, it becomes necessary to create a common identity. It becomes absolutely necessary to synthesize existing nations into a one or altogether create a new nation.

Indonesia in the past created a common identity which was imposed from the top to the bottom. To a lesser degree, Malaysia is pursuing similar path. This is apparent through the National Language Act of 1967, the National Culture Policy of 1970s and more nakedly, the introduction of Bangsa Malaysia during the Mahathir administration.

Despite years of cliche, Bangsa Malaysia has not been properly defined and its definition differs across individuals and groups. At the moment, the result of Bangsa Malaysia is mixed, probably because it is a work in progress but one thing is clear — Rome was not built in a day.

In a new world where free flow of capital and labor is becoming common and necessary, a nation will eventually come into frequent contact with other nations. These interactions will inevitably change the composition of the nation as well as the society. The more liberal a society is, the faster a state turns into a multicultural society from a monocultural one as liberty attracts; from uninational, it becomes multinational. These interactions do offer unprecedented challenges toward effort of building a nation-state and society becomes more diverse.

A common identity is a crux of a nation-state. The identity more often than not demands assimilation instead of co-existence and that tends to create a tension among groups that feel the chosen common identity is sidelining theirs. Assimilation is an inescapable issue from the mainstream consciousness if there are large minorities within a multicultural state. In Malaysia, the debate on language and vernacular education signify this tension.

The forces of globalization are rocking the ground which nation-states sit on. The Netherlands for instance is fast becoming a multinational state where the meaning of the word Dutch, in term of citizenship, encompasses emigrants from all over the world. An Algerian could be a Frenchman while a Turk could well be a German. The line between member of nation and citizenship of state has been blurred that some often do away with the distinction altogether. Perhaps, this is a new nation of nations but it could not have been possible without the tolerance required for co-existence and not forced assimilation. In other word, a liberal nation. Lately however, a surge of nationalism and xenophobia are undermining the creation of a liberal nation.

For Malaysia, the Malaysian nation concept is an effort by force towards a new nation; an artificial shared identity. For it to succeed, it cannot be a nation based on ethnicity or religion. Dependence on such nationalism is detrimental to the state where it encourages development of very different nations which in the end, only balkanization is the logical solution. For the Malaysian nation to stand the test of time, it has to be a nation based on an universal idea, a philosophy — liberalism — where differences are tolerated or even cherished.

With a liberal nation, a liberal Malaysia practicing liberal democracy, one does not need to artificially create a shared identity. All one has to do is observe the non-aggression axiom — every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man. Through interactions in liberal settings, a shared identity will be grown organically, spontaneously.

All one needs to do is to respect the smallest unit of the society or nation — the individuals. A nation, after all, cannot exist without individuals. If the sovereignty of the individuals is disrespected, individuals would come together to form groups to demand sovereignty for nation-state for each group, breaking apart a multicultural state.