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.
