Lessons from the Rais Twitter experience

They say that a man is entitled to one mistake. When he makes one it can't be helped for he is only human. But he must learn from it and make sure not to commit the same mistake again. He would be utterly foolish and even stupid if he did so.

A couple of weeks or so ago Rais Yatim made one mistake. He might not have thought so, but the whole world did. His mistake was that apparently he cautioned Malaysians not to be too involved with Twitter for this gadget is a western import and using it would impair our culture.

A quick analysis of his statement would reveal the following features while also pinpointing his 'mistake':

• He made the unilateral claim that Twitter is an undesirable communication tool. A claim such as this is surely not a fact but a subjective value-judgment.

• He assumes Malaysian culture as something pure and holy, virtually perfect, and must be defended and protected from any form of erosion, filth and pollution.

• He probably meant that our culture being perfect we must protect and preserve its state of perfection; especially against the corrupt and immoral western culture. He was saying our culture must not change at all.

• His perception and understanding of western culture is presumably one featured by immorality, corruption, oppression, suppression; and assumed filled by wife-swapping, same-gender marrying, adulterous and war-mongering tendencies.
  

Rais is an experienced politician, holder of a university doctorate, and the current Minister of Information. How could he make such an audacious statement in the first place?

Just look at the reality of the situation:

• Twitter is one of the latest and most convenient tools of the modern day knowledge-based and borderless human civilisation. It is also incredibly cheap to use. By telling us not to use it is tantamount in him telling us not to use other modern and useful tools of life available to the modern human civilisation, like the telephone, television, plane or even the fax machine! When everyone else the whole world over is using it, it is suicidal if we alone do not. Rais' words of caution of its use is simply incredulous, mind-boggling.
  

• Culture, any culture, is a reflection of the pattern of behaviour a society or community lives. Meaning, it is constantly changing. And here we have Rais telling the people not to change.
  

• Western civilisation is not all corruption and immorality. These are the negative aspects of a society, any society. The overriding record, history and evidence say that the modern human civilisation had started from the age of reason, the scientific revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the modern knowledge-based civilization with enormous contribution from individuals and societies emanating from the western world. Even democracy, the most enduring system of government ever devised by man, is largely the product of this western experience.

Rais paid the price for his frivolousness when Twitters and bloggers from around the world made him the butt of their jokes, each more embarrassing than the next. I shall not dishonour Rais by repeating some of them here.

But let me presume he does have some grey matter up there and can feel the pain of the wound created by the shockwave of his incredulous statement. And, judging from his silence on this subject ever since this faux pas, I hope he has learned his lesson, become wiser, and not repeat this same mistake anymore.

Rais' thinking is Malay thinking

I should now explain why I am making this revelation by writing this article. It is Rais too easily and unilaterally dismissing Twitter and contending that western culture as bad. These remind me too much of the generic Malay thinking. My belief is that Rais' thinking is Malay thinking in microcosm.

Let me put it this way. If we substitute Rais' initial statement appropriately thus: 'Rais' with 'Ketuanan Melayu,' 'Twitter' with 'change' and 'the west' as described as a rotten human institution, then we have the following statement: "The Ketuanan Melayu polity advises Malaysians not to change for this will erode our morality and we might fall into the filth and immorality of the west".

This line of thinking like the Rais-Twitter claim is a mistake. Even so, let me use concrete examples to illustrate my point by using the prevailing case of the Malay understanding of the word 'Allah'.

The way I understand it, this word 'Allah' literally means 'the God' in Arabic, and has been used by Abraham or Nabi Ibrahim (c. 20th-19th century BCE) to refer to the conceptual monotheistic God of transcendence, over and above the other gods of historically polytheistic Arabia.

So far as I know, in reality well nigh everyone in the world had been using 'Allah' to mean the generic 'God'. There is a clear line of demarcation between concept and reality.

So the Arabs of whatever faith and belief, for example, use this term in this way, even if the individual can be Christian, Jewish, or whatever faith he may choose to profess.

Christians in Indonesia also use this term Allah to refer to their God, as do our own Malay-speaking Christians in Sabah and Sarawak. Similarly the Sikhs in Malaysia and elsewhere in the world often refer to their God as 'Allah' echoing perhaps that Sikhism was formed when Islamic influence was strong in India.

In any case I learned in my religion school that God or Allah has 99 names, like 'Al-Rahman' 'Al-Rahim' but none of them being 'Al-Lah'. If 'Allah' is indeed one additional God's name as claimed by the Malay, then He will have 100!

The moot problem is that the Malay-Muslim in this country have been having the presumption, illusion, delusion, mistake (take your pick) that the concept 'Allah' is not only God of transcendence in his sphere of understanding, it is the very name of the God per se!

In other words he assumes the conceptual term 'al-Lah' to also mean His name in reality - the Malay mind doesn't separate concept with reality. Herein lies his mistake in this case.

From this initial error, he seems to have registered and copyrighted, even patented this word. He says that his community and culture have been using Allah as the name of their God, why must the Christians use this very same name to call their God?

He claims he has a monopoly on truth, and is not about to share it with other people. That's one unilateral declaration for you! In short the Malay concept-is-reality view is the only one sole view of its kind in the world! This again is his mistake.

Never mind if the rest of the world disagrees with the Malay view-point, the Malay still insist vehemently at that 'Allah' is the name of the Muslim God and to be used only in this context in this country.

Finally I do contend that yes, a man has every right to make a mistake, but he must never ever make the same mistake again. In the Twitter case Rais has made one and hopefully he atones for it.

In the case of Ketuanan Melayu polity, it has erred in many of its public policies. The results are all over the place. Inter-alia, internally there has been the breakdown of the judiciary, race relations and education.

Internationally we have been roundly condemned for persistent high level and high volume corruption, poor absolute and relative economic productivity and performance, and poor human rights records.

As the collective and generic Malay mind does not seem to realise its mistakes, the worsening of the social and economic indicators are bound to get worst still. I shudder when thinking at the rate we are going what will happen to us next?

Perhaps Rais can whisper to the collective Malay psychology to take the cue from his erring Twitter experience - begin realising your mistakes and let's begin anew.

AB SULAIMAN is an observer of human traits and foibles, especially within the context of religion and culture. As a liberal, he marvels at the way orthodoxy fights to maintain its credibility in a devilishly fast-changing world. He hopes to provide some understanding to the issues at hand and wherever possible, suggest some solutions. He holds a Bachelor in Social Sciences (1967) Leicester, UK and a Diploma in Public Administration (1971) University of Malaya.