Are we happily enslaved?
In the autumn of 1997, I undertook a one-month language course in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, a small city on the German border with Poland. It was a conscious choice from the very beginning. While most students of the German language would opt for legendary or glamorous places such as Munich, Freiburg or Heidelberg, I was keen to find out how the people in the former East Germany coped with life after reunification.
In the autumn of 1997, I undertook a one-month language course in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, a small city on the German border with Poland. It was a conscious choice from the very beginning. While most students of the German language would opt for legendary or glamorous places such as Munich, Freiburg or Heidelberg, I was keen to find out how the people in the former East Germany coped with life after reunification.
We did not just learn German. To help us immerse in the language (albeit with a unique accent that I was yet to get used to), the teachers would take us to the marketplace to talk to the vendors and farmers, and to also sit in a traditional coffeehouse to listen to the daily conversations that were going on.
One day, I found myself in the Stasi Museum in Berlin. The assignment was simple: select an exhibit of interest and write a review on it afterwards.
An opinion piece entitled Friedliche Versammlung oder Chaos? (Peaceful Assembly or Chaos?) in the Berliner Zeitung (BZ) caught my eyes. It was written in the eventful October of 1989, when the communist regime was being shaken to its core by the daily demonstrations in Leipzig and Dresden that were attended by hundreds of thousands of pent-up citizens.
The argument in the piece would not be alien to Malaysians of today - that rallies are politically motivated and the masses are out to create havoc and sabotage the government’s effort at economic development, inconveniencing the general public.
Comically, the writer urged the protesters to apply for a permit before they gathered en masse. Yes, it was as good as telling a turkey to vote for Christmas.
Having turned in my review, I asked a local teacher how she felt about articles of this nature.
“By then, nobody in East Germany really trusted the press. The BZ was owned by the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SUP) anyway. The patronising attitude of West Germans is definitely undesirable, but state propaganda - hard or soft - by the communists cannot be blamed on the West. That is the reason why writings like this ended up in the Stasi Museum!” And she grinned!
Clean break with the past
Years later, when I finally had a chance to visit the BZ head office in Berlin, the team were proud to state that the newspaper was now under a completely new management with a clean break with the past.
“Unlike before, BZ is now a centre-left daily that is truly popular with a segment of eastern German society. Its past now belongs in the museum.” So said an editor.
As the Bersih rally draws near, signs of the Barisan Nasional panicking are becoming conspicuous and ubiquitous. Day in day out, we are fed with propaganda masquerading as “opinions” in Utusan Malaysia and the New Straits Times, the two chief mouthpieces of the powers-that-be.
The pseudonymous Awang Selamat is concerned about Malaysia’s image as he always is, while Zainul Arifin tells the organisers to “spare me the traffic jam and the righteousness”.
Reading these lines gives me a sense of déjà vu, for either of them would be deserving of a good pat from the now defunct SUP.
But what really amuses me is a piece by Lim Sue Goan. A deputy editor-in-chief of Sin Chew Daily, Lim called on Malaysians to take a leaf from other democracies by striking a balance between rallies and public order.
And what are these democracies? The United States, Britain, Germany, Hong Kong and Japan, where the general public are required to apply for a permit before a rally can take place.
In other words, Lim is saying even if the opposition parties and civil society are to protest, they must first and foremost ensure this is done within the law.
Very fine and well. Apply for a permit to rally in Hong Kong, and you are guaranteed to get one. To save yourself the legal hassle, you may choose to gather in Hyde Park Corner in Central London on Sunday to champion peacefully whatever causes that are dear to your heart. I once saw a group of young Englishmen openly calling for the abolition of the monarchy, only to find themselves being rigorously challenged by several onlookers.
It was a real democracy in action, but trying the same in our Dataran Merdeka will no doubt land you in a police station nearby.
Curiously enough, Lim has conveniently forgotten to tell his readers what kind of a government we have in Malaysia.
We have an apprentice prime minister who shamelessly gather tens of thousands of youths to “defend” Putrajaya as if the administrative capital is his private abode, while his wife is enjoying all the limelight that a celebrity can only dream of. He certainly did not apply for a police permit for it.
And we had a government who issued identity cards at its whim and fancy to undocumented persons in Sabah throughout the 1990s just to boost its electoral chances, but the very same government has been refusing to restore the citizenship to the late Lim Lian Geok, an educationist and a patriot in every sense.
Ruling by law
Lim of Sin Chew Daily may want his readers to adhere to the rule of law, but it obviously does not occur to him that the BN government has been ruling by law, and arbitrarily so!
Confronted with the harsh realities and cruelty of Spanish colonial rule, Jose Rizal, the Filipino nationalist, famously said, “Where there are no tyrants, there are no slaves”. He actually meant it is the people who allow themselves to become subjugated to authoritarianism.
And fear, which in the eyes of American revolutionary Patrick Henry is nothing less than the passion of slaves, is keeping the enslaved mind from seeking liberation.
Many are outraged by Ibrahim Ali’s (right) remark that Chinese Malaysians are only interested in business and will therefore shun public rallies that may affect their daily life. With Lim’s timely advice, the Perkasa leader is now vindicated to some extent.
There are indeed Chinese Malaysians who are wary over inconveniences and frightened of chaos. Given that the media are tightly controlled by the BN, they are least likely to know that it is the government’s intransigence that prevents Malaysia from becoming a mature and peaceful democracy.
As Chet Huntley, the late anchor newscaster at the NBC, once told the American authorities point-blank: “Journalists were never intended to be the cheerleaders of a society, the conductors of applause, the sycophants. Tragically, that is their assigned role in authoritarian societies, but not here - not yet.”
Such journalists are however aplenty in Malaysia.
Lim ends his writing by lamenting that, should the Malaysian public “resist learning”, peaceful assembly may remain a sensitive issue a century from now.
I am however rather optimistic, for I do believe dubious writings by pseudo-journalists will one day become a thing of the past, to be studied or laughed at in the museum just like the erstwhile East German press.
Then again, liberation is a non-issue for those who are happily enslaved.
Are you?
JOSH HONG studied politics at London Metropolitan University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. A keen watcher of domestic and international politics, he longs for a day when Malaysians will learn and master the art of self-mockery, and enjoy life to the full in spite of politicians.
