Category: Politics & government

Categories
Politics & government Society

[2288] Of ridiculously supernatural by too much

As long as there are those who believe in supernatural explanations to rationalize the completely natural world and as long as there are public choices that require collective decisions, religion will be relevant in our society. The relevance of religion, however, is not a ticket to be used with impunity in the public arena.

In The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World, author Matthew Stewart described how the religious of 17th-century Europe were anxious about the advancement of science. As the explanatory power of science grew, the room for supernatural explanation shrank. Four hundred years on, the room for the supernatural continues to shrink as we continue to understand more about the world around us. We have become more rational than ever.

Unlike in the days of old, this is an era when many assertions relating to the secular world require rational reasoning as its thrust. Many individuals no longer accept an assertion as true simply because someone invokes the name of god, or any being of similar status.

While the relevance of religion in society is not denied, it is easy to see how its relevance has been overestimated by some. That overestimation invites ridicule, especially so when the invocation of god’s name is based on self-interest.

When Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan swore on the Quran that Anwar Ibrahim violated him, it was quite clear that his purpose was to strengthen his case, regardless of the truth behind his allegation. While the truth in his case was at best uncertain, he tried to use religion to pre-empt the civil justice system. One can take comfort that the supernatural bows to rationality in the justice system for else, truth would be so cheap that it would be worthless.

A starker example involves former Selangor state assemblyman Lee Hwa Beng of the MCA. When he wrote that the Christian god commands Christians to oppose the concept of an Islamic state, he was using religion for his own political purpose. He linked the DAP with an Islamic state as promoted by PAS to cultivate the fear of Christians towards PAS so that they would vote for BN instead.

Of interest here is the use of supernatural-based rationale against another supernatural-based position. Even in the realm of the supernatural, supernatural rationale is problematic. It was so problematic that criticisms came in fast and harsh. What was supposed to be an insignificant statement on Twitter became a considerable embarrassment for Lee and he was forced to retract his statement and apologize.

Lee’s was a case where a person spoke on behalf of a god. He is, of course, not unique. Many members of PAS have taken the tone where the Islamic god wants this and that. Still, they are more or less Islamists and it is only expected of them to use religion to justify their political ambition. Nevertheless, they do struggle to justify the goal of an Islamic state while trying to widen their appeal and achieve their national ambition of wrestling Putrajaya from Barisan Nasional. Rather than appealing to supernatural reasoning, PAS has in the past tried to promote some of its ideal by stressing universal concepts like justice instead. If the 2008 general election is any indication, then secular methods are more successful than ones inspired by divine diktat.

And recently, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, president of PKR, said that her husband Anwar Ibrahim is a person granted by god to Malaysians to become our leader. As if the obvious needs pointing out, it is not hard to see how the fortune of Anwar is closely related to PKR. Maybe after criticism regarding PKR’s recent direct election, she thought that the outdated concept of divine right might justify Anwar’s position. Well, it did not work. She burnt her fingers. The wolves of Barisan Nasional pounced on her and she deserved it.

In each case, if they had resorted to the more rational path, they would have been less susceptible to ridicule. Saiful’s legal counsel could have presented convincing evidence in court. Lee could argue that an Islamic state may discriminate individuals based on creed. Wan Azizah could instead say that Anwar Ibrahim’s leadership is indispensible, for instance.

But no. They had to tickle the pink unicorn. Whether the unicorn has been entertained, we will never know. What we do know is that if they had chosen the more rational path, they would have been less susceptible to ridicule.

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 December 13 2010.

Categories
Economics Politics & government Society

[2286] Of underestimation in Transparency International’s report

While I am at the issue of bribery, I would like to touch on the recently released Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer 2010 report that the chart from the Daily Chart blog is based on.

After reading it, or rather, skimming through it, I suspect some of the results underestimate what are actually happening on the ground. Of a particular interest in one question where it asks whether the questionnaire participant has bribed a public official within the past 12 months. According to the report, in Malaysia the survey was done through face to face method.[1]

Now ask this question. If some stranger asked, ”Have you bribed a public official before?”, what would be your answer?

Given that you do not know who the stranger is, and if you have bribed a public official before, would you actually say yes?

What if the stranger is a police officer and he or she is trying to trap you? What if the stranger recognizes you and reports you to the police after the interview? What if the stranger shares the information with the public, thus ruining your reputation?

Would it not be safer to say no?

I would think there is an incentive to be dishonest and say no. It is the most rational action to take given the uncertainty caused by the face to face method.

Thus, the aggregate answer to the question is likely to underestimate the true occurrence of this specific kind of bribery.

The further implication arising from this problem is this: the report indicates that 9% of members of the Malaysian sample have bribed a public official before in the last 12 months. Assuming good faith that the survey is representative, one could generalize that 9% of Malaysians have bribed a public official before. Due to the concern of underestimation however, the best one could say about the result is that at least 9% of Malaysians have bribed public official before in the same period.

If one wants to take the implication to the extreme, notice that there is no qualification about the maximum limit. Scary, is it not?

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

[1] — Global Corruption Barometer 2010. Page 35 and 39. Transparency International. December 2010

Categories
Economics Politics & government Society

[2285] Of why is bribery wrong?

Bribery is wrong. That is a given. Yet surprisingly, I am struggling to explain why it is wrong.

The best I can come up with without referring to other sources is that bribery undermines a system of rules and it gives those involved in the transaction unfair advantage against those who adhere to the rules.

This casts too wide a net however, hence an imperfect reasoning. Not all rules are good and bad rules should be broken. Without looking into what separates the good rules from the bad, the breaking of good rules is a necessary condition in making bribery wrong but it is not a sufficient condition. The determination of wrongness depends on the kind of rules being broken.

Unfairness is also only a necessary condition but the concern for unfairness is only secondary because it arises from the breaking of rules. If a rule is broken, then it is immediately unfair because there are those who follow the rules, with an exception that I will go into below near the end of this entry.

The collective necessary conditions can be construed as the sufficient condition.

Is there any other sufficient condition?

I can at least define a minimum why bribery is wrong, which I propose as another sufficient condition. This goes back to the rationale of establishment of a third party or the state to protect individual rights. If a person bribes the authority to erode the rights of others to the briber’s benefit, then the briber has committed a wrong. When the rules involve individual rights, then the breaking of these specific rules becomes the sufficient condition for bribery to be wrong.

This minimum or sufficient condition is highly unsatisfactory however. Bribery can be wrong even when it does not involve the protection of individual rights. Consider a person who wants a document be kept confidential and there is a company offering safekeeping service, much like a bank. The person engages the company. And then, a third party becomes interested in the document and bribes the company in order to access the document. Quite clearly, a wrong has been committed. Or, maybe the wrong is not due to bribery but due to a breach of trust? I do not know. It requires more thinking.

In any case, if the idea that bribery is wrong is dependent on the idea of rule-breaking, then what if there is no rule? Would bribery be wrong under that situation? Under this situation, bribery ceases to be a concern anymore because the idea of bribery ceases to exist. Any action that can be construed as bribery under rule-based environment suddenly becomes just another mundane transaction in the marketplace under no-rule environment. Bribery simply becomes a purchase of service.

Now comes to the original question that piqued my interest in the idea of bribery in the first place, that subsequently made me to question my basic understanding of why bribery is wrong. What if there are rules but everybody breaks it? The Daily Chart blog at The Economist has a chart reproducing the findings on corruption from Transparency International.[1]

It shows that in Liberia, nearly 90% member of the public had bribed an official. Nearly ninety percent is nearly everybody. I am highlighting this because if everybody does it, it effectively takes the necessary condition of fairness out of the equation. Since nobody follows the rules, then the person who engages in bribery is not being unfair to anybody. Without the fulfilment of the necessary condition of unfairness, does bribery cease to become a wrong?

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

[1] — ONE in four people paid a bribe during the past year, according to the latest Global Corruption Barometer, which is published annually by Transparency International, an anti-corruption campaign group… Among the countries surveyed, this kind of everyday corruption was most prevalent in Liberia. Britain was the cleanest. [Something for your troubles. Daily Chart. December 9 2010]

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

p/s — I have found two very good short pieces by Richard Posner on corruption in general. They are:

  1. Economics of Corruption
  2. Corruption

I especially like Posner’s distinction between corruption in the public and private spheres. In retrospect, this blog post of mine involves bribery in the public sphere, i.e. public institutions.

Categories
Economics Politics & government

[2280] Of centrists lose with a viable “third force”

There is talk of a third force in Malaysia. Lawyer and activist Haris Ibrahim has stated that the third force is a bunch of independents ready to co-operate with Pakatan Rakyat. Zaid Ibrahim wants to form a third political party. If in the end, it comes to a third competitive and national political grouping capable of affecting national elections, then I do not think it is the wisest of all moves.

A third party will adversely affect Pakatan Rakyat more than Barisan Nasional, given that members of the so-called third force seem to be those disillusioned liberals. They sided with Pakatan Rakyat in the last general election but that alliance is unraveling. They are disappointed with Pakatan Rakyat due to various reasons.

While liberals, they are liberal in superlative terms instead of being proper liberals who adopt a comprehensive liberal worldview like the classical liberals. Some may even be social liberals, however, noting how Kua Kia Soong has written that the third force has to stand on the left of Pakatan Rakyat, assuming he is part of the so-called third force. But never mind whether they are proper liberals or not. What matters is that these groups disagree with the status quo in the country.

Furthermore, Barisan Nasional, the beneficiary of the status quo, does not have too many liberals within its ranks. The liberals are closer to Pakatan Rakyat than Barisan Nasional, hence any competitive third grouping will compete more against the former rather than the latter. I would be in agreement with Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad about the effect of a third force as defined earlier in encouraging the status quo, i.e. having Barisan Nasional continue to be in power, for better or for worse.

Pakatan Rakyat, however, will not be the only side to lose because of a third force. A system of one-party dominance is bad for centrists because it provides only one choice to centrists. Instead of Sophie’s choice, one faces Hobson’s. In fact, it is worse than that. Regardless of choices, there is only one outcome: more of the same.

Another point on the adverse effect of a third force can be demonstrated through the famed Hotelling-Downs model.

The model is a location game. In a two-party (or two coalition like in Malaysia; it does not matter as long as the parties within the respective group collude) democratic system, both political parties gravitate to the center. This happens because political parties want to win elections and they win it by garnering the most votes. Meanwhile, voters will vote for the party that is closest to them. As a result, a party that sits farther from the center with respect to the other party will get fewer votes than its rival. Both sides know this, sooner or later. Eventually, there is only one solution: sitting at the center is the best winning strategy.

Now, I do not think highly of centrists. More often than not, their positions are inconsistent. It is forged out of convenience rather than conviction. Their positions are a hodgepodge of points assimilated from everywhere, regardless of contradictions. Some centrists are centrists simply because they are apathetic.

Nonetheless, centrists do provide the stability required in a political system. They are the anchor in society. Given that many views are diametrical, centrists would process these views and hold compromised ones instead, if they care at all. Since the Hotelling-Downs model suggests centrist voters — more accurately the median voters — will win, the other side of the coin suggests that a competitive two-party system has the capability of preventing extremists from assuming power.

Unfortunately, this central tendency within the model is weak. The moment the system accommodates a third competitive third party or more, the central tendency weakens, or even disappears. It has been proven under the Hotelling-Downs assumption that there is no equilibrium with three competitive parties or more.

It will always be optimal for parties to change their positions, be it at the center or somewhere else. A party can always do better than the others can until the other parties respond by changing their positions. That in turn encourages the original party in question to change its position to outdo the others. The process will continue on forever.

There is no guarantee that the center position will be taken. There is really no reason why the center position is special anymore. The political centrists cease to be the anchor. Their influence on national politics decreases with respect to extremists. Thus, it is quite possible for extremists to hold power in the end, even if for a short while.

The lack of equilibrium is not necessarily bad, of course. It is an opportunity for diverse political views to prevail. There are many other benefits to having a third competitive party, but breaking the one-party dominant system is not it.

Even so, it is hard to see these liberals switching their positions too much in order to win elections. Their views are ones based on conviction and not convenience. The same cannot be said about Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat. If the Hotelling-Downs model can be used and if the competitive third party is strong enough to affect the election outcome, then this suggests that it will be optimal for Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat to move away from the third party and away from the center.

Again, centrists will lose out.

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 November 24 2010.

Categories
Liberty Politics & government Society

[2276] Of it requires an answer

At a recent public lecture in Sydney, Australia, Anwar Ibrahim said he avoids answering which he aspires to: a secular state or an Islamic state. He reasoned that the issue is contentious and unproductive to engage in. He believes what exists instead is a quasi-secular state, and a hypocritical one at that. He went on to state that the problem revolves around hypocrisy. I left the lecture dissatisfied with the message. Immediately after he ended his speech, I began to wonder about the kind of consistency he was looking for.

He argued that part of the reason why the issue is contentious is that both mean different things to different person. For instance, there are opponents of secularism who believe that secularism is anti-religion. That illiberal brand of secularism stifles religions in the public sphere, like what happened in Turkey before. And then there are proponents of secularism who assert that secularism is neutral of religion. Backed by liberal principles, a liberal secular state will treat all religions equally as long as those religions do not infringe on individual liberties. I myself subscribe to this idea.

Being the glue that holds Pakatan Rakyat together, it is completely understandable why he avoids the question. If anybody needs a reminder, DAP and the Islamist PAS are both the main component parties of Pakatan Rakyat. Both have rattled sabers over the matter within the Malaysian context. In Sydney, he stressed the need to build consensus. Fair enough.

The avoidance, however, is problematic when he is critical of the double standards in the implementation of Islamic law in Malaysia, where the rich and influential get away with what Islam frowns at while others get punished. That criticism relies on the idea of equality before the law. Such equality itself is a sound concept. Yet, not all equality ranks equally in terms of preference.

While the application of unequal weight of the law is distasteful, I shudder to think of a situation of equal implementation of Islamic law, especially in its current form in Malaysia. This is because it violates individual liberties — especially for those whom the state considers as Muslims — such as freedom of conscience. That translates into law that states whom a person can marry, what he or she can eat or drink, what a person can believe in, etc. It excessively dictates one’s personal life. An Islamic state that runs on Islamic law necessarily does that.

Religion has always been a personal, private matter for liberals. When religion is a private matter then the state has no say, freedom has more opportunities to flourish. This is why liberals prefer a secular state with respect to any religious state, while holding all other concerns constant. The opportunity for liberty to flourish doubles when there are guarantees for individual liberties within a liberal democratic framework, which addresses the problem of tyranny of the majority.

Criticism of hypocrisy and the existence of preferences in different kinds of equality essentially introduce back the question of secularism and Islamic state. The question does not need to be framed in such a stark contrast. Forget the labels. Ask instead, will religion, specifically Islam, be used to dictate a person’s lifestyle? More specifically, will it be used to dictate a Malay’s lifestyle?

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 November 18 2010.