Categories
Politics & government

[2841] Mahathir, reformed

The crowd shouted “Reformasi!” last night as they gathered on the edge of Dataran Merdeka to demand the release of Maria Chin.

About 20 years ago, the term was so full of anti-Mahathir context. “Not today however,” History said, smirking as she played a joke on all of us.

Having the crowd crying out reformasi on Monday evening made the atmosphere surreal. Surreal because sitting at the front facing the crowd was the former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Reformasi! Reformasi! Reformasi!” the crowd roared.

He managed a smile and raised his hand together with the rest. I had to assess my own sanity and senses whether I actually saw or heard him shout reformasi along the protesters, possibly numbering between 500 and 1,000 people.

Hishamuddin Rais with his hat and ill-fitted clothing — released from police lock-up just a few hours earlier — joked he could hardly believe Mahathir had attended Bersih and on this night, Mahathir was sitting close to him. Hishamuddin made a mocking impression of Mahathir. Yet, he, one of Mahathir’s harshest critics from the streets from the very beginning, is convinced of the need to work with Mahathir and put the past behind. Mahathir understands the compromise Hishammuddin has made, and took the jab with a open, humbled heart.

On Saturday, when Mahathir gave a speech to a much bigger crowd under the Petronas Towers, it was evident many were still distrustful of the old man. I could see it in their faces. They looked on and listened incredulously to Mahathir as he spoke of free speech, free press and freedom of assembly. “Malaysians have short memory,” remarked a friend to me as the clouds threatened to unleash a tropical rainstorm on us.

What was a clear blue sky had turned gloomy by four or five o’clock, when Mahathir arrived to give the speech. The rain god understood the popular sentiment on Jalan Ampang.

It is hard for anybody, me included, to stomach having Mahathir pontificating about free speech, free press and freedom of assembly. This is the man along with Lee Kuan Yew who believed in the so-called Asian values, the belief that the well-being of the whole trumps individual rights. I wonder how Lee would think of his former sparring partner.

To many liberals, I can see, Mahathir simply does not have the moral authority to say things he said on that Saturday afternoon and on that Monday night. Many liberals and others who opposed Mahathir during the 1980s and the 1990s yearn for pure heroes.

I hate to break it to you but those pure heroes do not exist in these desperate hours of ours. Anwar Ibrahim is in jail and Anwar himself is imperfect. Yet, we follow him, believing the injustice brought down upon him reformed him for the better for us all.

What we have now, ironically, is Mahathir.

At this stage, those who believe Najib Razak needs to resign and be brought to justice need to invest in coalition building. That is the only way realistically available to correct the wrong the corrupt have done. It is the only way to get Malaysia to move on. Without a coalition, Najib will continue to be in power plundering public wealth and undermining public institutions that we need to get to the next level of development.

Muhyiddin Yassin on Saturday is right. We need to forget our differences for a moment, just for this moment, and work together towards a common goal for the greater good. The urban and the liberal folks need their heartland cousins to push Malaysia forward and this is where Mahathir comes in.

Muhyiddin Yassin at Bersih 5

We have done it before. We saw that in 2008 and 2013. We just need to do it again. Yes, things crumbled afterwards but you know, if at first you do not succeed, try and try again. Nobody said it would be easy.

A defeatist would not even try. He would want to read a 100-year plan before starting anything.

I would say we should cross the bridge when and if we get there. It is premature to think about all permutations and worry about the downside as if the bad outcomes are guaranteed. There is no guarantee. None. And that is why attempts at building a coalition matter. We need to try instead of resigning ourselves to certain damnation.

And to the cynics who still distrust Mahathir, I think we can safely bet that Mahathir cannot be the dictator he used to be. As I stood at the back staring at him judgmentally, somehow I felt pity for him. There was a statesman, the former strongman of Southeast Asia, sitting upfront, shrunken, old, tired, small and humbled.

Yet, he was there on Monday night.

The question should not be why he was there, or whether he should to be there?

The question instead should be, where were you?

Mahathir ate his ego for something greater. Yet, here are the liberals, worried about some kind of ideological purity, trying to parade your moral superiority while more injustice is being committed by others.

Mahathir is not the authoritarian leader we have now. The monster is in Putrajaya.

Get on the program, fucking please.

Categories
Politics & government

[2691] Soon, Reformasi will fade

The wisdom of our age has it that young adults are more likely than not to vote against Barisan Nasional. A survey carried out by the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research backs this up. In a report it published on May 3, the poll agency found out that Malaysians in their twenties and thirties preferred Pakatan Rakyat to BN by a significant margin. In contrast, support for BN was the strongest among those aged 50 or older. In a country where the median age is younger than 30 years old, that offers some hints about the political future of the country.

While that is so, nothing guarantees that wisdom will last for too long.

The generational divergence Malaysia is witnessing now has a lot to do with the political turmoil of the late 1990s. The sacking of Anwar Ibrahim as the deputy prime minister and the subsequent events that followed made a lasting impression on the minds of these young Malaysians who then were still in school, in university or new to the labor market. Whether it was about Anwar or about a larger sense of justice — that something was extremely wrong — they were moved by the event.

These Malaysians are also the largest age cohorts that Malaysia has ever seen yet. It is not merely a coincident that BN comes under intense political pressure exactly when these generations are maturing and exercising their political muscles.

Each generation has an episode which defines their political belief and partly, their worldview. Those above 50 years old now remember the old Umno and hold dearly onto those nostalgias. Future young Malaysians, those in their teenage years and even younger, will no doubt have their very own episode.

Unlike the others however, these new young Malaysians have their book wide opened and its pages unwritten yet. There has not been any big wake-me-up moment for them so far.

One thing is certain though. Time has the power to make society forget the past. The old old generation will disappear into the background, hopefully bringing with them the ghost of May 13, among others. The old new generation — the young adults of today — will have their political views at the new bedrock of Malaysian society. The new new generations will challenge the prevailing views, as youth always do all around the world.

These new young Malaysians will not remember the events of 1998 because they will never experience it. It is much like how young adults today do not remember the events of 1988 when the old Umno was disbanded and the judiciary came under assault by the Mahathir administration. It is the exact reason why many young Malaysians today are not swayed by May 13 and scaremongering opportunists who fuel their sad career on racist politics.

History books alone are insufficient to influence a whole generation so comprehensively. No matter how moving words in the archives can be, reading them in a dark library room up in the stacks or deep in the basement is a passive, cold action. Words of history may work for a minority with true appreciation of history who read heavily but for the majority, they have to be in the dizzying mist of action before the essence of the era seeps into his or her being.

So the new new generation will forget. Society will forget. Slowly but surely, the what-we-call Reformasi era will take a bow, come down off the stage and be relegated to the pages of history.

That may be a comfort to BN. It is a second chance for them in what seems to be a contest between BN the rock and PR the water.

Nevertheless, BN will have to suffer the demographics and the momentum of time for now.

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 May 31 2013.