Category: Society

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Liberty Society

[1348] Of formation of Malaysian identity

Malaysia is experiencing something similar to multiple personality disorder. She wears different caps at different times, being described differently by different people. Many of us are convinced who she is but Malaysia herself is confused of who she is. After so many years, the debate on Malaysian identity still rages. This by itself however is not a reason for worry because 50 years, or rather 44, for any country is a rather short time length. We, Malaysians, as a society are still searching and forming our identity.

Evidences that we as a society, like a teenager, are still looking for our own unique identity are aplenty. The debate whether Malaysia is an Islamic or a secular state is one clear indication of such searching. The unconvincing answer given by the Prime Minister on the same issue, perhaps flip-flopping along the way, only strengthens such perception. Then there is the matter surrounding the age of Malaysia; are we 50 or 44 years old? And no less but forgotten, the issue surrounding Malacca and Srivijaya.

Our goals themselves are unclear. Are we striving to be a monocultural or a multicultural society? Are we working toward a color blind community or a society extremely conscious of our difference in skin color, belief or simply background? Are we looking for an assimilationist or diverse society?

There are people, many in fact, that feel strongly about one thing or another. I myself preferring a liberal society but the truth is, there are approximately 27 million Malaysians and none are able to completely convince the others, enough of the others of their own vision. There are competing perceptions of current state and visions among the society and the debate on it is alive; emotional, even.

Those in power are worried at the ferocity of very public debates and tried to shut it down. The Prime Minister has given out order for the public not to discuss the issues anymore but he is powerless as civil society eagerly tries to claim a role in the society, testing the waters for larger liberty.

Some shrugged off these debates as cosmetics, irrelevant and unimportant. The issue of the age of Malaysia for instance has far larger consequence than mere cosmetics and semantics however. The question on the age of Malaysia so deeply entrenched inside down so many pressing issues that too many people fail to see how greatly this question ranks in importance. Who are we? Malaya or Malaysia? Issues on the surface alas receive greater attention than items so fundamental such as Malaysian identity, if one subscribes to the idea of nation state. If such fundamental question left unanswered, shrugged off as something of unimportance, trivial, I say dream not of coherent Malaysian identity, be it Malaysian nation or anything else. The concept of Malaysian nation requires justification and at the moment, it is left unjustified to a certain extent, unless it answers the question of who are we.

I personally do not envy the idea of nation state or national identity. I fear of a national identity being forced down my throat. Besides, a national identity grossly generalizes the population. I however do concern myself with it due to pragmatism, purely due to the fact that I live in one and at the moment and in the foreseeable future, unfairly, there is no alternative other than in a nation state. This identity shapes various institution of the state. So, I fight for the least intrusive national identity. I have to care because it is so deeply connected to my own life. I have a stake in this state and that is why I participate in these debates to create Malaysian identity.

But one thing we should not worry is this: the confusion of Malaysian identity. Fifty years, or rather, 44, may be a long time for an individual but for a society, it is barely a dot in on timeline. Malaysia is still a teenager compared to far older states such as Japan, Britain, France and the United States. Unlike those states which have firmly formed their identities, be it based on liberty, or equality, or anything after years, decades or even centuries of struggle, we, the Malaysian society, are still young. These debates are supposed to happen for it is a process of identity formation. It is a process that all must endure, if one cares for Malaysia.

This is why free speech is important. Without free speech, without the liberty to discuss our visions, the process of identity formation cannot occur. If one seeks to relatively end the debate, eliminating free speech is not an advisable act.

On this August 31, in remembrance of a free Malaya, a free North Borneo and even a free Singapore[1], we Malaysians should reaffirm our rights to free speech for it is the crucial tool to the formation of our identity, Malaysian identity, whatever that may be.

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

[1] Note — Sarawak is the only Malaysian member state that has little to do with the August 31 date. Malaya gained independence on August 31 1957. North Borneo and Singapore declared independence from Britain on August 31 1963. Internal politics prevented Sarawak from declaring freedom on August 31. The formation of Malaysia occurred only later on September 16 1963.

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Politics & government Society

[1346] Of sad pragmatism for communal lines-cutting criticisms

An honest criticism is the first step towards identifying and subsequently, rectifying mistakes. In a society sensitive to ethnic issues such as in Malaysia, such honest criticism may be hard to make when it crosses ethnic lines. By crossing, I mean to say the critic and the criticized belong to different communities. Too often, innocent criticisms that cut communal boundaries are taken as acts close to racism if not racism itself, with the concept of non-interference is applied thoroughly.

That is an unfortunate tendency which may show that how far a person is from a racialist worldview. I suspect the misperception of an honest criticism as something racial in nature is closely related to a person’s inability to take criticism as well as personal bias.

When criticized, instead accepting the criticism attributing as directed towards his own mistake, he seeks to attribute such criticism to something unrelated to the mistake, thus putting the criticism in a way that it might be unjustified. In doing so, he changes the subject from honest criticism to something else. For a criticism that cuts communal barriers, if the criticized person views his world through communal lens, race or other communal-identifying factors become the obvious candidate for the purpose of diversion.

Sometimes, honest misunderstanding may occur but even then, there must be a basis for such misunderstanding. I am inclined to believe that certain misunderstanding is based on a person’s consciousness of communal-identifying factors, possibly placing too much emphasize on race, etc rather than the criticism on the mistake itself. In this case, when such criticism is made, the first thing that comes to his mind is skin color, etc — which is irrelevant to honest criticism — instead of the beef of the criticism itself.

In many cases, the concept of non-interference is held with utmost jealousy by communities. Any criticism coming from outside a community would be deemed as interference and only criticism coming from inside the community could be taken as sometimes legitimate. I could offer a few instances as examples to illustrate my point. Religious conservative Muslims in Malaysia do have problems having non-Muslims to criticize the status of religious freedom within Muslim Malaysian community. Another is the example was when EU ambassador to Malaysia, Thierry Rommel criticized Malaysian discriminatory economic policies. Malaysian political leaders in turn told the EU to stop meddling in Malaysian affairs.

These two possible causes do not make an exhaustive list but they are particularly important to recognize in politics. For a society that places too much political correctness rather than truth, along with one’s the ability to divert attention as mentioned earlier, any poor critic would find himself being unfairly accused of being a racist by too many people whom are particularly adept at coming up with conclusions only after piercing any issue only skin deep. In the end, if the critic does not have the stomach to fight on active or passive misconception, the mistake which the critic had pointed out would be drowned, forgotten and left uncorrected.

For this reason, in a society as diverse as Malaysia, it is perhaps desirable for any legitimate criticism to be kept inside a community, where the critics and the criticized belong to the same community. Through this, at least, communal issues could not be used to divert attention. More importantly, pragmatically speaking, is that any for legitimate politically-related criticism is to be made, it is good to have partners with different background. When there is communal difference between the would-be critic and the would-be criticized, the critic would be better off to find a partner to eliminate the communal difference and have the partner to criticize would-be criticized.

This is a sad conclusion that appeals to pragmatism, if the assumptions are true. It is sad because the art of criticism itself becomes the victim of racism, trying to avoid the diversion the non-interference policy grants. It is sad for the highest moral demands honest criticisms against all wrongs, regardless whether if it cuts communal lines.

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Liberty Politics & government Society

[1344] Of fret not of Abdullah Gul

Abdullah Gul is almost certain to be the next President of Turkey. Gul’s Islamist past however is causing great consternation among Turkish secularists. They had rallied impressive public dissent that ultimately failed in the face of democracy. The defeat has further caused the secularists distress. I however believe Turkish secularists are worrying too much and harping on ridiculous issues. They are several reasons why that is so.

First and foremost is Turkey’s eagerness to join the European Union. While there are opposition to Turkey’s accession into the regional grouping, there are those that would look forward to sit together with Turkey as equal in the EU. The fact that Turkey is a secular country is one of few factors that enable such support to exist. As long as Turkey aspires to become part of EU, there is a strong reason to believe that Gul, a firm EU supporter, will work to keep Turkey secular.

Gul himself has been instrumental in booting fundamentalists and attracting moderates, as mentioned by an article at The Economist:

Mr Gul says that, as president, he will reach out to all Turks and that he will remain loyal to the secular tenets of the constitution. His four years as foreign minister leave little room for doubt. He was the driving force behind the many reforms that persuaded European Union leaders to open long delayed membership talks with Turkey in 2005. And it was Mr Gul who engineered the defection of fellow moderates from the overtly Islamist Welfare Party which was bullied out of office by the generals in 1997. [Ready to take office. The Economist. August 21 2007]

This shows that Gul is flexible and accommodating. Furthermore, Gul has promised his critics that he will adhere to the tenets of Turkish secularism:

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has pledged to protect and strengthen the country’s secular principles if he succeeds in a fresh presidential bid. [Turkey’s Gul vows secular agenda. BBC News. August 14 2007]

While I do not subscribe to Turkish secularism due to its statism as well as illiberalness, that should be of some value and comfort to local secularists.

And then, there is issue surrounding the attire of Abdullah Gul’s wife. Turkish secularists are harping at the fact the she wears Islamic headscarf but surely, such issue is too silly to be a major reason why Gul should not be the President of Turkey. While Turkey does have a law against the wearing of such headscarf at civic spaces, it is not Gul himself that is wearing that headscarf. What the secularists are doing is really a logical fallacy: guilt by association. Most of all, I fail to see how his wife’s attire could affect his ability to function as the President of Turkey.

What the secularists should do now is to fully support Turkey’s accession into the EU. Through this, the secularists could hold AKP, the party which Gul is a member, at ransom.

And for many liberals like me, Turkish accession into EU is the ticket to liberalize Turkey away from its narrow nationalistic sentiment. AKP, despite being cited as an Islamist party, is already embarking into that direction. On top of that, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has tried hard to throw away its Islamist image, favoring a more centrist one instead. Under him, AKP has been concentrating on democratic and economic reform rather than on suffocating Islamist agenda.

In any case, AKP has marched forward farther towards liberalism than any secularist party in Turkey had. Therefore, if I were a Turk, I would be happy with AKP; that is especially so with a healthly economy.

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Politics & government Society

[1341] Of BN’s false assumption of monolithic communities

I have lately begun to wonder how UMNO manages communal relationship within the Malaysian society at large. While the answer to the question may be obvious through casual observation, there is an intriguing piece of which I have yet to grasp; it is in the air and it eludes me. I have struggled for several days to describe that piece and the best arrangement of words I could muster is this: UMNO perceives various ethnic communities as monolithic group and it refuses or unable to accept the fact such communities are diverse and do not have one mind.

This idea sources its rationale from UMNO’s preference to discuss matters on ethnic relationship behind closed door between its own four walls with its political partners in Barisan Nasional. They would deliberate on the matter by themselves and then impose the outcome of the deliberation on the general public. From time to time, UMNO seems to force its partner to come to a conclusion favorable to UMNO at the expense of its partners. Once that is done, opinion originating from outside of BN would be dismissed as fringes and irrelevant for BN recognizes only themselves as exclusive representatives of all ethnic communities and these representatives have agreed to a conclusion or solution. Thus, UMNO and BN claim that its politics is inclusive. This is done to create the appearance that BN has the monopoly of support from all communities. In the process, the assumption of ethnic groups are monolithic in its point of view; the lack of political pluralism.

What they recognize however does not mean it is necessarily true. My disgust for such UMNO’s pretension of exclusive representation of the Malays prompted me to state that unelected representatives have no mandate to represent everybody.

Those in BN do represent some groups in the society but they certainly do not totally represent a whole community. For instance UMNO does not represent each and every Malay, just as how MCA does not represent each and every Chinese.

Despite that, perception is important. In a society of a majority with limited education level, the effect of groupthink could be substantial. Such members of the society have limited ability to think for themselves and are more than happy to let others do the thinking for them. For UMNO and BN themselves are happy to persuade that section of the society towards a communal cause via simplistic grand narrative.

While such tactics had worked in the past through tight control exerted over the mainstream media, disruptive technology has broken BN’s monopoly of information and hence, perception of monolithic society to BN and more important, to the general public. Greater proliferation of the internet along with the affordability of visual and audio recorders that disseminate information unvarnished from the bottom up, organically, instead of top down, inorganically is seriously challenging and dismantling that perception.

I wonder though whether this perception of exclusive representation is done unconsciously or on purpose by UMNO and BN.

Regardless, if UMNO and BN do not switch track, they would lose it aura of invincibility fast. The reason is ethnic communities are not monolithic entities that an official speaker could fully represent each community. There are many subgroups within each community and each has a mind of its own. The rich diversity in opinion in each community makes it impossible for the whole community to be represented by a speaker. This is especially so when UMNO tells such speakers what outcome is favorable before discussions even begin. If UMNO continues with its status quo, the representatives that BN recognizes as the exclusively representatives of a community would lose their relevance to the grassroots. Such representatives would have to represent UMNO’s wishes instead of the individuals in the communities. In the end, many subgroups in the community would be clearly not represented by BN representatives.

Similar scenario is observable in southern Thailand. The authority has tried to speak to the perceived leader of the rebellion in search for solution to the current conflict. While contacts have been made, rebel activities have yet to stop. This might due to the fact that these rebels work independently and unrepresented by any leaders the Thai authority is talking to. Like the ethnic communities in Malaysia, these rebels do not form a monolith organization which a leader or a limited circle could shape the direction of the rebellion.

In other words, the mind of the community is distributed far and wide. There is no hive with a queen that one could talk to. Furthermore, the queens recognized by UMNO and BN are not recognized by all members of the community.

In the past, BN had dealt with such plurality by overpowering it with the assumption of monolithic groups through suppression. New technology today has made such suppression less effective however. New physical and social technologies have allowed the idea of political pluralism to rule over the assumption of monolithic society.

UMNO and BN are struggling to deal with this. Judging by both’s incoherent assaults against blogs lately, it is possible that they are shaken by this new challenge of political pluralism amid the presumption of monolithic communities, among other things.

Categories
Economics Society

[1335] Of now, moving on to something more important than Negarakuku…

I find it amazing how too many people are preoccupied with Namewee’s Negarakuku, especially but those that want punishment to be brought upon him for whatever he did. The thing is, he did nothing but criticized the state of our society. His action affects nothing but a lot of people’s ego, being too sensitive to criticism. It’s okay to disagree with any criticism but demanding a person to be silence by force because we disagree with him?

So much for a matured society.

Islamists and nationalists, the Cabinet even, are harping on the issue so hard as if there is nothing else that is important, more deserving of their attention. To me, the issue surrounding fiasco surrounding the Port Klang Free Zone, is much more crucial to our society.

And here is something that affects a lot of people but receives too little attention as well. According to last week edition of HSBC Research, quoted by The Edge, total trade for June 2007 is 0.9% lower than a year ago. It is pretty much attributed to a 22% drop in export to the US.

From the Malaysian Department of Statistics:

In June 2007, external trade data posted a surplus of RM8.7 billion as compared with RM8.2 billion in the same month of 2006. A growth of 5.6% or RM458.1 million in the trade surplus was due to a lower decline in exports of 0.4% or RM186.8 million vis-a-vis a higher decline in imports of 1.6% or RM645.0 million. Total imports and exports for the month were valued at RM40.3 billion and RM49.0 billion respectively as against RM41.0 billion (imports) and RM49.2 billion (exports) a year ago. [Malaysian external trade statistics, June 2007. Malaysian Department of Statistics. August 9 2007]

On the surface, several factors could be attributed to the fall in export. One is the fall in demand for electronics in the US, which itself could be attributed to the current slowdown in the US economy. Second is the appreciating MYR against the USD.

I however unable to find a reason for a fall in import. It might be due to slowdown in consumption component of the GDP which could signal an economic slowdown. I have yet to see a data on consumption to strengthen the base of my suspicion.

Regardless, issue of subprime mortgage in the US brought the Fed to do a helicopter drop. Several others central banks went to do the same thing in hope to increase market liquidity. In fact, increasing number of people now believe a rate cut is coming.

A rate cut would signal this: a transfer of focus from inflation to economic slowdown; there are few that prefer to use the word recession instead. The FOMC convened earlier this month and decided to keep the federal fund rate untouched, apparently confused whether the economy was growing or shrinking.

Given how important the US economy is to the Malaysian economy, I expect a dent though government spending via the Ninth Malaysia Plan might take up the slack. Keynesians would love that possibility.

As for the election, well, suffice to say, I think the government of the day has missed the chance to dissolve the Parliament during a time of exuberance. From now onwards, only uncertainty remains.