Democracy or Gangsterism?

Imagine yourself walking along a dark alley with your girlfriend (maybe taking a shortcut to the car). Suddenly you are surrounded by a dozen menacing looking men wielding knives. You are about to be whacked by a dictatorship of the majority.

By batsman

This is my take on democracy. I suggest we need not be so ambitious as to think about grand things like philosophy, government, freedom, etc., yet.

Let us start from basics. Let us look at ordinary daily life examples. Imagine yourself walking along a dark alley with your girlfriend (maybe taking a shortcut to the car). Suddenly you are surrounded by a dozen menacing looking men wielding knives. You are about to be whacked by a dictatorship of the majority.

Most gangsters cannot get beyond this idea of democracy. They have the numbers; therefore they have the right to do whatever they like to you.

Unfortunately in Malaysia a few gangsters are cunning enough to go into politics. There is no future in petty crime or even in violent robbery, but there is a great future in politics. Part of the reason is that most Malaysians do not want to get mixed up with politics, so these cunning gangsters have a clear road to Putrajaya.

The problem is they bring their gangster attitudes to the supreme sovereign power of the land – Parliament. Their behaviour in this august body is proof enough that Malaysian politics is dominated by gangsters.

From the legislature, their influence seeps into the executive. As gangsters in the executive, they now have the power to ride roughshod over everybody. They appoint people of the same feathers into every conceivable nook and cranny of influence in the ministries, police, judiciary, MACC, SPM, NGOs, GLCs etc.

All the while they claim they have the democratic power given to them by the rakyat to do as they please. I ask you - is this democracy or gangsterism – actually just a dictatorship of the majority?

In a real democracy the most important principles are respect and sportsmanship. Unfortunately these are not material things, so to materialistic Malaysians, they do not seem as important. Things such as ethics, integrity and honour are just human passions and not as important as material things to materialistic Malaysians, so we all miss the point and never get to understand what real democracy is. Corruption, abuse of power and dirty tricks are something which can be conveniently ignored.

All the while, we think we are great and shout grand slogans such as Malaysia Boleh. We think we are world class, but in reality we are just vulgar materialists who are unable to understand the most important and purest things about humanity such as dignity, respect and decency. We actually place ourselves as vulgar low class humans. The real world class people are sniggering, amused by our egoistic antics, our self-deception and self-destruction. We have only ourselves to blame.