What are our leaders thinking?
Kim LeePublished: Apr 26, 2001 10:48 PM | Updated: Jan 29, 2008 10:21 AM
In the light of the events in Malaysia of the past few weeks, the question that plagues me most is - what the hell is our political leadership thinking?
Is the suppression of dissent in pursuit of any specific goal? If the reason why the Internal Security Act (ISA) has been employed is to secure stability, then it has failed because it has only stirred further unrest.
If the reason is to secure political order, it has also failed because it has only driven the seeds of dissatisfaction deeper and built thicker foundations of dissent.
And if Mahathir and his fellows seriously believe that what Malaysia now needs is a benevolent dictatorship, he should ask where this benevolence will come from. Which politician, which statesperson, which judge can stand up and claim the reins of power untainted by the pus of self-serving injustices that they have either perpetrated or allowed? Who, out of the current lot of vicious, amoral, and power-hungry savages, should we trust with these dictatorial powers?
By its acts of malice, the government has poisoned the ground of Malaysian politics for generations to come. By insulting the intelligence of ordinary citizens, it continues to encourage a profound cynicism that will eventually destroy us as a nation.
The roots of true patriotism and political legitimacy is in the moral realm. The dolts in power seem to think that they can sustain a nation by unclever intimidation and propaganda made to speak to the village idiots.
But what can you do when they have all the guns? What can you do when they have maintained an army of idiots who believe the low-brow hype because they've been intellectually crippled by a ludicrous and prejudiced worldview that envisions a divine entitlement to what amounts to racial superiority (can everyone spell 'Nazi', or 'apartheid'?)
It seems that we can only shame them by reminding them that equality is the only possible foundation for a justice.
It seems that we can only remind them that no fundamental difference exists between the races that allows one to despise another as something less than an equal being.
There is no genuine religious teaching that encourages political segregation on the basis of superior rights to earthly resources. If anything, all major religions preach exactly the opposite.
We must put simple humanity back into politics because the steady death of credibility we suffer now is the cancer that grows without it. If this too fails, then perhaps prayers and justice in the afterlife are all we will have left.
Is the suppression of dissent in pursuit of any specific goal? If the reason why the Internal Security Act (ISA) has been employed is to secure stability, then it has failed because it has only stirred further unrest.
If the reason is to secure political order, it has also failed because it has only driven the seeds of dissatisfaction deeper and built thicker foundations of dissent.
And if Mahathir and his fellows seriously believe that what Malaysia now needs is a benevolent dictatorship, he should ask where this benevolence will come from. Which politician, which statesperson, which judge can stand up and claim the reins of power untainted by the pus of self-serving injustices that they have either perpetrated or allowed? Who, out of the current lot of vicious, amoral, and power-hungry savages, should we trust with these dictatorial powers?
By its acts of malice, the government has poisoned the ground of Malaysian politics for generations to come. By insulting the intelligence of ordinary citizens, it continues to encourage a profound cynicism that will eventually destroy us as a nation.
The roots of true patriotism and political legitimacy is in the moral realm. The dolts in power seem to think that they can sustain a nation by unclever intimidation and propaganda made to speak to the village idiots.
But what can you do when they have all the guns? What can you do when they have maintained an army of idiots who believe the low-brow hype because they've been intellectually crippled by a ludicrous and prejudiced worldview that envisions a divine entitlement to what amounts to racial superiority (can everyone spell 'Nazi', or 'apartheid'?)
It seems that we can only shame them by reminding them that equality is the only possible foundation for a justice.
It seems that we can only remind them that no fundamental difference exists between the races that allows one to despise another as something less than an equal being.
There is no genuine religious teaching that encourages political segregation on the basis of superior rights to earthly resources. If anything, all major religions preach exactly the opposite.
We must put simple humanity back into politics because the steady death of credibility we suffer now is the cancer that grows without it. If this too fails, then perhaps prayers and justice in the afterlife are all we will have left.
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