Categories
Politics & government

[2750] Malaysia is bigger than Malaysia Airlines

Until AirAsia and the liberalization of the airline sector in the past decade or so, Malaysia Airlines was the only real option for most of us when it came to flying. It is easy to argue that for us Malaysians, flying meant Malaysia Airlines.

My first flight was with them. The feeling of sitting by the window floating among the clouds for the first time is unforgettable. The carrier was part of my growing up story as I found myself crossing the Pacific and back around the other side of the world, travelling to places that as a kid I thought would be impossible.

So, Malaysia Airlines does mean something to me. I feel there is a personal connection between me and the brand.

When disasters struck the airline, part of me felt lost. I was not alone in feeling so. I looked around and I saw an outpouring sympathy for the airline from many. On the internet, on television, over the radio and even at bus stops and shopping malls for weeks after the Ukraine crash, there were signs and images imploring us to keep Flight MH17 in mind.

But now that the rituals are mostly done and the intense emotional reactions have subsided, I think this is the best time to write what I have been thinking for some time: We are taking the sentimentality too far.

I feel so because I see people equating the well-being of Malaysia Airlines to Malaysia the country and expressing it so strongly. While this may suit the narrow intention of those who want to save the carrier, I think it demotes the idea of Malaysia the country to that of a petty commercial entity.

The equation sets a limit by necessarily defining Malaysia as a business, instead of an ideal society, whatever that may be. After a while, I no longer know what we Malaysians collectively want the country to be with all of our competing dreams and contradictions.

But I am certain the country would be a depressingly sad, meaningless place if the idea of Malaysia is confined to us measuring our worth with the profits we make, gauging our performance with self-limiting unimaginative indexes. Such culture would turn us into drones, ever chasing benchmarks which are meaningless outside of business. ”1 Malaysia” might be that, but Malaysia is more than that. There is much more to life than business.

An example of equating the airline to Malaysia comes from the prime minister himself when he delivered the Merdeka Day address. He used patriotism to justify the need to financially aid the troubled commercial airline, yet again. The platform he used is enough to prove the exploitation of patriotism as a persuasion device. He tried to build up a case to save the carrier. He said there was no other choice.

But he did not need to try very hard. On the ground, I feel the idea presents itself more blatantly and organically, implying that the carrier is a national icon, that it is Malaysia itself.

The crashes made it politically easy for the government to bail the airline out. There is little political opposition to the corporate exercise since to oppose meant irreverence to the victims of the crashes. Nobody with a heart wanted to be seen to be that insensitive. Those who did were shouted down.

So, Khazanah Nasional as the government’s agent gets all the support it needs to privatize Malaysia Airlines. The public is chattering about the details but the idea of saving the carrier itself is taken as necessary without much question. The majority seems to agree with the prime minister that there is no other choice.

Here is the other impact of the unfortunate equation. The idea that Malaysia Airlines is Malaysia automatically kills off the other choice: It is unthinkable not to save Malaysia Airlines, it is unthinkable not to save Malaysia. It limits the grasp of the mind. The loss of our faculties is the cost of the equation.

The equation is also an example of the merging of government and commercial interests. There have been other examples in the past but I find this one particularly disappointing because just several years ago, the prime minister promised to let the private sector drive the economy and reduce the government’s stake in various Malaysian corporations.

This is not the only broken promise around judging from the government’s recent enthusiastic use of the old Sedition Act.

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 Malay Mail on September 5 2014.

Categories
Politics & government

[2749] For separation, we need a consensus

Because of my politics — the libertarian kind — I always find representing the collective will as something hard to do. I would think of voting as a way of settling such matter but there is always something to disagree with and I am mindful of the times when I might find myself in the opposition camp. It is tough accepting the result that one disagrees with. Even in a democratic system we use to decide on things — at least a liberal democracy, the one I like — the power of the majority is always limited to secure the rights of the minority.

In a mature democratic society, we must accept the results of an election under normal circumstances. Win or lose, we need to respect the results for if we only respect it whenever we win, why would others respect it whenever they lose? Trust in democratic institutions would quickly evaporate into thin air that way.

But I think acceptance is conditional on the understanding that the winner would not change anything significant, or effectively changing the institutional structure of the country, after winning the election. We are not playing a modified Calvinball. We are deciding the direction of our society. The winner does not take all.

For instance, in Malaysia, if you want to abolish the office of the Agong, I think winning a general election alone is insufficient to do so, especially if the election is a divisive one. Or if the winner suddenly decides to do away with elections to become a pure dictatorship, then it is hard to respect the authority granted by the election to the aspiring dictator. You would need a strong consensus to do so.

I think the need for a strong consensus is especially important where there is no opportunity to undo a policy that fundamentally changes the structure of a country. Winning the simple majority vote is not enough a backing. A strong consensus does.

I am writing this because I am thinking of Scotland. Scotland tomorrow will vote on whether they would stay within the United Kingdom, or become independent. I think it is safe to say that there is little chance for a u-turn if Scotland becomes independent, and opinion polls show voters are divided right in the middle. There is no consensus among the stakeholders, the Scots.

I do not know much about Scottish politics and while I think I prefer Scotland to stay in the United Kingdom, I do not have a strong opinion on the matter. I am not a citizen, I have never been too far north of London and it is quite an effort for me to think of ways which a Scottish independence would affect me directly. So, my opinion matters less than a Scot’s.

But clearly, the referendum is a template to further separatist agenda all around the world peacefully. This is the mature way of doing things, not by throwing those with separatist sentiment into prison or by going to war.

Here, I think of Sabah within the Malaysian context. But also on a more general level, within the context of a new country.

A country where the 50%+1 votes for independence and the rest opposing it sounds like a country that is  heading for a political disaster. There is little consensus to start with and the effort of building national institutions will be a big problem. How can you start when you disagree on the fundamentals at the very starting line?

If you had the consensus, then perhaps there would be a wide common ground to begin a new grand political project.

I wrote political disaster because I wonder, what would the 50%-1 resort to? Not everybody everywhere will conduct themselves in a peaceful way. At midnight Malaysian time, I am having trouble thinking and looking for examples. I wanted to use the Partition of India as one, but that might be stretching it since there was no voting. I looked through Wikipedia and I found the Partition of Bengal. While they voted in their legislative hall, I am too tired to read and make sense of it. I am so tired, I think I am making a lot of typos and grammatical mistakes more than usual. But in both cases, there were violence and even ugly population exchanges.

But I think the point I am making is that with such a large fraction of society, almost a majority even, disagreeing, you as a country will have recurring existential issues. It might not be violence but politically, I think there will be hostile exchanges and that will set you back.

Besides, would it not be utterly unfair for the 50%-1 to suddenly find themselves living in a different country that they do not want to be in? Such a new country will not begin with a clean slate. They will have a very large almost a majority fraction to appease. Again, it is not a case of winner takes all. The losers will form an important component of the new country.

I do not know what the “consensus benchmark” should be. All I know is that it has to be considerably higher than 50% but not too high as to make the referendum a joke. If 100% is a practical sign of consensus, then why bother have one? The 100% level risks a referendum its credibility, dishonestly tilting the results toward the status quo.

Two-thirds benchmark sounds reasonable to me only because it is the usual ratio used to amend the constitution in Malaysia. But I do not know. Finding a benchmark seems like an arbitrary exercise to me.

What I know is that in my ideal world, there need to be a strong consensus. In the context of Scotland, the need for a strong Yes before the Yes is actually implemented, and not merely a simple majority. But Scotland has agreed to their referendum and their benchmark. So they will have to live with it and I sincerely wish them all the best.

But for us Malaysians, if it ever comes to that somewhere in our federation, I think we need a higher benchmark. It has to be higher that 50%, beating some higher level signifying consensus. I think this is for the well-being of the almost majority in that state, and for the good of the Malaysian citizens, too.

Categories
Books, essays and others Society

[2748] Edward Said on distortion and inaccuracy

My two fears are distortion and inaccuracy, or rather the kind of inaccuracy produced by too dogmatic a generality and too positivistic a localized focus. In trying to deal with these problems I have tried to deal with three main aspects of my own contemporary reality that seem to me to point the way out of the methodological or perspectival difficulties I have been discussing, difficulties that might force one, in the first instance, into writing a coarse polemic on so unacceptable general a level of description as not to be worth the effort, or in the second instance, into writing so detailed and atomistic a series of analyses as to lose track of the general lines of forces informing the field, giving it it’s special cogency. How then to recognize individuality and to reconcile it with its intelligent, and by no means passive or merely dictatorial, general and hegemonic context? [Edward Said. Orientalism. 1978]

Categories
Society

[2747] Food racism: It still stinks!

I think a lot of us Malaysians have engaged in those long never-ending debates about racism before. The problem with these debates is that they are framed within the context of Malaysian citizenry and more often than not, they ignore the universal value of equality across the human race. This gives rise to hypocrisy among those who believe in equality among Malaysians. They disapprove of racism against Malaysians, but have no problem practicing it against foreigners.

I write this as a reaction to the proposal in Penang to ban foreigners from becoming cooks in that state. I find the rationale behind the proposal extremely flimsy: the state government wants to preserve food authenticity. It is about protecting Penang heritage.

This assumes cooking styles and recipes cannot be learned, with cooking being an innate special ability. It assumes there is something special about Penang people cooking Penang cuisine.

But the reasoning should be deconstructed to its logical end, right up to its building blocks. If we are worried about food heritage, then perhaps some Malaysians should be banned from making some Malaysian food.  Chinese cooks should not be allowed to make Malay food. Malay cooks should not be allowed to prepare Indian food. Run the logic of innate cooking ability for every single ethnic group and see if you like the results.

The differentiation between Malaysian and foreign cooks is just a pretty veneer hiding the ugly prejudice. One might argue there is a difference between racism and anti-immigrant sentiment: we are not discriminating against a race but against immigrants in general. But deep down there beyond artificial categorizations, is there really a difference between racism and xenophobia? Both definitions have more than a tinge of prejudice in it. Xenophobia is just racism by another name, it smells just as stink.

Besides, the proposed ban will likely affect foreign workers from poor countries. What if the cooks are of European origin? Would we worship them as gods instead? That line separating racism from xenophobia looks thin and blurry, if there is even a line in the first place.

Additionally, around the internet, the question of hygiene has been raised to suggest foreign workers are dirty people and of poor health, supporting the proposed ban and more importantly, revealing a crasser form of racism. The counterpoint on hygiene is that if you have gone to any of the stalls in Penang manned by the locals, you would conclude hygiene is not a priority of those hawkers. I definitely concluded so when I ate my noodles and cendol on Macalister Road in George Town recently.

I am not a good cook myself but I did try cooking when I was away as a student abroad. It appears to me that you can learn cooking and what makes it good is practice. I do not practice my cooking but I am quite certain if you learn and practice something, you will be good at it. If you intend to work as a cook, then you will need to go the extra mile to be good at it.

After all, we have Chinese Malaysian cooks making relatively good roti canai on Goulburn Street in Sydney. Does that make it less authentic? I ate the roti canai anyway and ordered another. I am sure there are more examples of that in Malaysia and all around the world. If we truly bought into the point about food authenticity and heritage, then these Malaysians should be condemned for cooking something belonging not to their ethnic heritage. But we do not.

In fact, a lot of us are proud of them for spreading Malaysian culture abroad. And for those of us who travel, sometimes we miss the food from home and we are thankful we can find Penang food just around the corner in Chicago, for instance. Some of us cannot eat anything else but Malaysian food even after years of living abroad, mixing only in Kampung Malaysia in London and elsewhere, which is a bit worrying but let us not go there for now.

So, why would it be okay for Malaysians to cook Malaysian food but not foreigners? Simple. We advocate equality among Malaysians, but to hell with others. In my books that prejudice comes close to racism.

At the end of the day, the judge is the customers. If they like you, they will patronize your stalls or restaurants, paying you good money for a good meal. If you are a bad cook, whoever you are, Malaysian or not, the photo-snapping hungry crowd will not visit your establishment all too often. We do not need the government to tell us we cannot buy food from certain parties. We can decide that ourselves.

The Penang proposal is not the only example of that kind of racism. When the Federal Territory Minister wanted to ban the homeless and soup kitchens from the Kuala Lumpur city center, civil society stood up against him and all the state machineries under his control. In defending the proposal, among others, the minister said most of the homeless and beggars were foreigners anyway (not true because based on news reports, City Hall ”relocated” 965 homeless persons in 2013, with about 13 per cent of them foreigners). In his imagination, that makes the proposal more palatable. Since the homeless were foreigners, he thought he could do whatever he wanted, forgetting that foreigners are human beings too.

And this does not stop there. Some of us think immigrants are lesser beings. That is why we abuse them. How many times have we heard of foreign maids abused in Malaysia? Some of us want them out completely, putting all kinds of blame on immigrants, regardless whether it is true or not. Low wages? Immigrants! No jobs? Immigrants! Rising crime rate? Immigrants! Low women labor participation rate? Immigrants!

Of course, really, they do not mean all immigrants and definitely not those under the Malaysia My Second Home program. Oh no, not the so-called high-skilled workers. Just immigrants from certain poor countries.

Citizenship grants us certain rights, but that does not make non-citizens less human. They bleed red too, like Malaysians.

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 Malay Mail on July 17 2014.

Categories
Politics & government

[2746] Pakatan Rakyat comes first, Selangor second

I am angry at pro-Kajang people. I firmly identify the maneurve as the source of the current political crisis in Selangor. But with everything moving at lighting speed, I find myself being angry at everybody.

I am angry at Khalid Ibrahim for going against democratic ideal, ruling without the majority support in the state assembly. I had supported him, but after all that happened, that support becomes untenable. I am angry at PKR for forcing him into a corner, leading him to do what he has done. I am angry at PAS for delaying their decision when there is an urgent need to decide whether it wants to be part of Pakatan or not. I am angry at DAP and PKR for declaring that they have the majority support in the state assembly before PAS came to a decision, risking breaking up PAS and Pakatan Rakyat even.

It was hard to focus with all that anger around. So, I took a step back, breathed in and out, and thought about what I ultimately wanted out of this mess.

I remember what I care the most is the sustainability of Malaysia’s two-party system. I want Pakatan to stick together and everything else is secondary, including the control over Selangor. I feel if keeping Selangor means the breaking up of Pakatan, I rather Pakatan lose the state.

Without PAS, Pakatan is not a viable challenger to  Barisan Nasional at the federal level. Let us gets real. Both DAP and PKR have no real presence in the rural areas. In Peninsular Malaysia, they depend on PAS to bring in the rural votes. In Sabah and Sarawak, while PAS is an insignificant force, DAP and PKR need to do a lot of work cracking those so-called BN fixed deposits. I see DAP making small progress. I do not see PKR doing anything other than making outrageous promises that appeal to naive Sabah nationalists. PKR is the master of outrageous promises. Yea, sue me.

I do not know whether PAS decision on Sunday will lead to it leaving Pakatan, but until it decides, I think both DAP and PKR leaders should not condemn PAS too much to the point poisonous accusations and curses are thrown. I maybe am naive in politics, but I somehow think if you want to appeal for somebody to join you, you do appeal to them, not curse them. Not by treating them in a way that creates a gulf between you and them.

This is not simply about Pakatan. This is about Malaysia. The country sorely needs a check-and-balance mechanism to work properly and achieve our potential. I have long believed that for us to grow further, we need to address the chink in our armor and that is our weak institutions. There is only so much physical infrastructure can do. To begin and further improve our institutions, we need the two-party system. We need Pakatan to stick together.

Just earlier this week, the Federal Court said the Penang state government could not run its own local election. We need federal powers for that. This is an example of a weak democratic institution that we have and the only way to address it to have the federal government reintroduce those local elections. We need to put strong pressure on the federal government to reinstate local elections into our lives. I want an elected mayor for Kuala Lumpur. I do not want Putrajaya to appoint a mandarin to run the city. Without pressure, there will be no local election. That pressure comes, realistically in the years to come, in the form of Pakatan Rakyat.

Do you think a third force is there out there? That what those Sabah activists thought in the last general election. They turned out to be more wrong than wrong, more hubris than actual knowledge on the ground, with independent candidates turned out losing to Pakatan candidates, even as Pakatan lost to BN.

Without the two-party system, with Pakatan breaking up, BN can do whatever it wants. I remember the Abdullah years. The abuse was so blatant. I remember a BN 4-by-4 vehicle with siren on top blaring, telling people to move aside. I always curse whenever police escort shoves us commuters aside for a VIP, be it ministers or some members of the royal house. To have a BN official with no position in the government at all to behave like they had the authority of the police, to behave like they were rajas?

I remember “Satu Lagi Projek Kerajaan Barisan Nasional.” Have you all forgotten? I have not. I remember the excesses very well.

I do not want to return to that time.

I want Pakatan to stick. I want the two-party system to stay.