Aliran must live on!

The news that the NGO publication Aliran Monthly may soon have to cease publication has struck some of us as an unwelcomed surprise, though 'surprise' may not be the apt word to describe how we really feel.

For many younger Malaysians Aliran Monthly was perhaps the first taste of the other side of Malaysian politics, and a useful antidote to the steady stream of consensual, effacing and puerile nonsense that passes itself as news in this country. The demise of Aliran Monthly would mean a great loss to Malaysia and Malaysians as a whole, if only they knew it.

Speaking of my own experience I first encountered Aliran Monthly in a smoky coffee-room of a student union's club in London. This was in 1987, the year of the infamous 'Operation Lalang' which saw the arrest and detention of more than a 100 Malaysian academics, activists, unionists and members of the opposition.

What began as an internal squabble among the ruling Barisan Nasional parties over the thorny issue of communal-based education eventually spilled over into a national crisis, with the political temperature in the country being raised by hot-headed politicians from movements like Umno Youth. (1) (Whose leader then, if we care to remember, was none other than the present DPM). The equally infamous incident of the 'amok' of Private Adam (that was beautifully chronicled in Amir Muhammad's film 'The Big Durian' recently) provided another catalyst for the nation-wide sweep that was soon to follow. (2)

Chance encounter

At this time I was a student in England, reading Philosophy at the University of Sussex. (A 'useless' disciple, argued my parents, who wanted me to take up merchant banking instead.) When news of the arrests and detentions in Malaysia hit the BBC, I was desperate for information. I went up to London to talk to student groups and NGOs who might have an inkling of what was going on.

It was during this time that I found myself in the student union offices in London, and by chance I fell upon a copy of Aliran Monthly that was lying amidst cigarette buds and soiled mugs of cold tasteless English tea on a table in the coffee-room. It was not my copy and I didn't know how it got there or who left it there. I really wanted to keep it for myself, but thought against it out of courtesy for others who may want to read it later. So I photocopied the whole copy, read it again on the train back to Brighton, and that marked my initiation into the world of Malaysian NGO activism.

The views and opinions that have been expressed in Aliran Monthly may not suit the taste of everyone. For those among the political elite in the country, many of the criticisms of the manifold abuses of the law and democratic practice in the country must come with a bitter aftertaste. But there lies the value of a publication like Aliran Monthly: it props up a mirror to the Malaysian collective conscience, forcing us to ask ourselves crucial questions about where the country is heading and what is being done in the name of national security, development and Malaysian nationalism. It goes without saying that publications like it are in many cases the last check against the expansionist ambitions of an unfettered executive that may want to impose its will and exercise its power on the populace as a whole.

In so many cases we have seen how a free press is often the last bastion of democratic practice and culture in a state slipping towards totalitarianism and dictatorial rule. For all these reasons, we need publications like Aliran Monthly to remain on the scene.

The Malaysian public, however, is slow to act and when it does its actions are often cosmetic, piecemeal and motivated by narrow communitarian interests. Ours is a typical late-capitalist post-modern society where images and simulacra make up the substance of daily life and where popular understanding of politics stops at the level of surface phenomena. Gossip, slander, conspiracy theories and witch-hunts make up the rituals of political life in this country of ours. Despite our elites talking about the need to cultivate a 'first world mentality' among Malaysians, they too are guilty of the predicament we find ourselves in as they and the parties they lead are up to their necks in the morass of communitarian and exclusivist politics (be it in the form of racial/ethnic or religious sectarianism).

Aliran Monthly remains as a vital pivot within this seamless world of prattle and gossip for it at least attempts to provide political analysis served cold and tempered with reason and balanced judgement. Though the Malaysian public seems to prefer the staple fare of tabloid hullabaloo or, worse still, novels like Shit (for once a book whose contents merits the title) that cloak themselves with the garb of 'political satire'.

For magazines and journals like Aliran Monthly to survive it needs a public that will serve as its readers and patrons. The very act of buying and subscribing to such publications provides them with the breath of life they so badly need, but what is more by virtue of their existing they also breath life (and reason) back into Malaysian politics in turn.

The situation we face in Malaysia is not unique: Throughout the world and through the course of human history, freedom of speech and the right to think aloud is a precious thing that has always been under threat. During the time of the French Revolution, the free press was the only bulwark against the excesses of the state-imposed terror that consumed the lives of thousands of innocents. The same was the case for the rest of Western Europe and North America. The American revolution, which led to that colony becoming free from the shackles of British rule, was sparked by revolutionary ideas that were kept alive by a free press.

The present debacle in Iran, where moderate progressive Islamists are battling for the very soul and future of progressive Islam itself, is also being spearheaded by independent journalist and writers of the free media. In countries like Pakistan journalists and writers suffered years of imprisonment, harassment, torture and even extra-judicial killings to maintain the flame of personal liberty and freedom of thought. How can these ideals be kept alive without a press to sustain and disseminate them?

Yet we in Malaysia seem to think that the values of democracy, human rights and civil society simply fall out of the sky and can survive on their own. Malaysians complain time and again about their loss of rights and privileges, but cannot make that simple yet vital effort to dig into their pockets to fork out that penny for the press. If only our lofty ideals can be matched with deeds!

Malaysia needs a free press even more so today, in fact more than ever before. Over the past two and a half decades Malaysian politics has been twisted and perverted beyond recognition, our Constitution that pivotal document that defines what Malaysia is, and what Malaysians are by extension has been trampled, re-written and modified to the point where we can scarcely recognise its original. What is more the incessant attempt to up the ante in the Islamisation race between Umno and PAS has added another dimension of authoritarianism to Malaysian socio-political life, with a host of new 'religiously inspired' laws and regulations to control the lives of Muslims even more.

In the midst of all this, where are the Malaysians and the Muslims specifically? Among Islamist circles it has become oh-so-trendy to talk about 'democracy' and 'human rights' these days- Even religio-political movements with a decidedly fascistic tendency parrot the same litany of human rights and civil society concerns, claiming that they believe in democracy (though their actions and the legislation they propose point to the contrary).

What is more Muslims in general and Islamists in particular bemoan the demonisation of the image of Islam and Muslims in the global media, and pine for the days when there will be a genuine Muslim alternative media they can call their own. But can an independent Muslim media develop in a Muslim country today, under the present circumstances we face? Unless you believe that pigs can develop a means to take to the air, don't bet on it.

Writing about the fate of Aliran Monthly prompts me to highlight another case of an independent magazine that is also facing the threat of closure: Impact International. I will not hide the fact that I happen to be one of the contributors to that magazine (In fact I am its features editor for the Southeast Asian desk). Impact, like Aliran Monthly, has been in dire straights for some time now. As with the case of Aliran Monthly, those of us who write for Impact do so on a purely voluntary basis. None of the staff of Impact have ever accepted any payment for our work and we have been publishing since 1971. Impact was the first magazine in the world to predict the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini, the first to highlight the growing threat to the Bosniak community in Bosnia, the first to raise the issue of the killing of Chechnyans in Chechnya.

Yet despite these achievements, Impact has been a thorn in the side of most Muslim governments for the simple reason that it is an independent magazine, like Aliran Monthly. Our issues have been stopped at borders, 'lost' by customs officers, banned and barred. Yet we continue writing in order to highlight issues and concerns relevant to Muslim countries the world over and to raise awareness of issues that would have otherwise been sidelined or marginalised by the mainstream global press.

The leaders of the Muslim world continue to bore us senseless with their pathetic complaints of media bias and prejudice against Islam and Muslims. Time and again they call for the creation of an alternative Muslim media oblivious to the fact that one was actually created under the auspices of the OIC, called the International Islamic News Association (IINA) in the early 1970s. IINA was, in fact the brainchild of the late Tunku Abdul Rahman when he was the first secretary-general of the OIC between 1971-1973. But the IINA ultimately failed because Muslim governments were unprepared to allow a truly independent media service to operate in their countries.

The predicament that Malaysia, as both a developing country and a predominantly-Muslim country faces today is typical of the third world: The ruling elite talks about the need for openness and liberalism, but fail to see that its own despotic and authoritarian laws are primarily responsible for the death of civic debate and mature politics in the country. The urban middle-classes are in turn equally responsible for their failure to support civil society NGOs and a free press; proof, if any was needed, that we do not really have an independent middle-class in Malaysia, but more a 'statist-bourgeoisie' (to borrow the term used by the economist Jomo K Sundaram) that is really beholden to the state and unable to divorce itself from its political masters and patrons.

So if not the elite and the middle-class, who? That is, in the end, the question that really matters.

Political scientists and sociologists of the Structural-Functionalist school have a somewhat simplistic idea of how societies evolve, and their grand theory is often based on the linear teleological framework that as a society becomes more developed and prosperous, there will emerge a middle-class that will ultimately become more cohesive and form a class of their own.

This enlightened middle-class, they claim, will become the vanguard of democratic reform and will ultimately serve as the patrons and engineers of civil society and the democratisation process. Obviously this theory is based on the historically specific model of Western Europe, but has little relevance in many other parts of the developing world.

Look around you in the Asean region and you can see that the Middle-classes, apart from being an idle, lazy, spoilt and overweight lot, also tend to be conservative and supportive of the statist quo. This is thanks in part to their own dependency on the state apparatus that serves as the patron and master to the local economy, ensuring that patron-client bonds between the ruling elite and the middle-class are consolidated and further entrenched. Under such circumstances we cannot expect any change from the elite, who will always selfishly guard their own invested interests.

The change therefore has to come from every ordinary member of Malaysian society him/herself. Supporting the independent media is a simple yet effective step to ensure that the space of public discourse remains in the hands of the public, and to ensure that alternative views will always be present to provide a counterpoint to official dogma or conservative religious orthodoxy. You may not realise it, but what little freedom you still possess and enjoy is actually being kept alive by this free and open public space.

Malaysians may appear apolitical at a glance, and they are less inclined to involve themselves in politics as long as the cash is flowing into their gilded troughs and their helpings of rice are aplenty. But our fundamental freedoms are delicate things that can be trampled upon and destroyed with a stroke of a pen, and we should not wait until they are gone to realise how important they are to us.

So for the sake of maintaining this relatively free civic space that we can call our own, dig into your pockets and make that little sacrifice to keep publications like Aliran Monthly going. You are, in fact, investing into your own future and that of your children's. It may not rank as highly as climbing a mountain or sailing around the world with the national flag in hand, but it is, ultimately, the act of a true patriot who cares about his country and where it is heading.

(1) On Oct 17 1987, while ex-premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad was attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Vancouver, Canada, the Umno Youth held a rally in Kuala Lumpur to demonstrate their anger against Chinese community leaders who had openly

attacked the government's new policy initiatives. During the rally, Umno Youth members carried banners with slogans like 'Revoke the citizenship of those who oppose the Malay rulers', 'May 13 has begun' (a reference to the May 13, 1969 race riots), etc. They also called for another rally to be held

on 1 November, asking an estimated half a million Malays to attend. (The rally was to be held in a stadium that could seat only 60,000 people.)

(2) As soon as he returned from Vancouver, the prime minister (who was also home affairs minister and justice minister) imposed a comprehensive ban on all political rallies and ordered a nation-wide security crackdown against dissident elements threatening national security and racial harmony.

Codenamed 'Operasi Lalang', the security operation that began on Oct 27, 1987 led to the arrest and detention of 119 people under the ISA. The day after the launch of Operasi Lalang, several mainstream newspapers were also banned. These included English-language papers The Star and The Sunday Star, Chinese-language daily Sin Chew Jit Poh and Malay-language biweekly Watan. Harakah, PAS's paper, was not banned though some of its printers initially refused to print the paper for fear of the consequences.

As well as several MCA and Umno members (including Ibrahim Ali, Tajuddin Abdul Rahman and Fahmi Ibrahim), many other non-BN political activists, academics and NGO workers were detained in the operation. These included DAP leaders Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh, PSRM leaders, a number of Christian evangelists, environmentalists from the Malaysian Friends of the Earth (SAM), activists from the Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) and Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, a Malaysian academic and president of Aliran, a human rights NGO. PAS was not spared, either a number of its leaders and activists were also arrested. Of the 119 people arrested and detained, 49 were finally sent to the Kamunting detention centre, 70 were released within the 60-day investigation period (when technically under police investigation, but not detained under the ISA). The rest were released under restriction orders and banished from their previous place of residence.