By S Thayaparan,
"Politicians and diapers should be changed frequently, and for the same reason." - Eça de Queirós
COMMENT
Well, it seems blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK) is in the news again.
I have no idea how the "he said, he said" game between private eye P
Balasubramaniam and him is newsworthy, except that it proves my point
that online journalism has that unmistakable tinge of yellow in it.
I still can't help but be amazed at the vitriol spewed RPK's way by the
former faithful. I've written about RPK before and have no interest in
pointing out the hypocrisy of his former evangelical admirers or the
nature of his shit-stirring posts.
When
he is not feeding a certain section of the wired Malaysian public with
his salacious but entertaining concoctions of the seedy underbelly of
the powers-that-be, which now include Pakatan Rakyat, he's digging
around in the racial muck beneath the muhibbah spirit, slaying sacred
cows of the Chinese and Indians (well, mostly Chinese) much as he did in
his glory days with the Malays with blog posts such as
'The art of silat' and
'On that sahabat karib thing again'.
Then there is something like
'It is not about government, it is about us',
which is another in a long line of attempts to repudiate his extremely
partisan former position and place himself firmly in the centre of the
Malaysian body politic.
Educated readers would have always viewed
what RPK said in his messiah days with a healthy dose of skepticism and
I believe it is they who still regularly visit his blog and form the
majority of his readers, now that he has managed to piss off both sides
of the political divide.
Near religious showdown So although I have no interest in his feud with Balasubramaniam, I did find his blog post
'An adversary impossible to beat' meandering
but ultimately interesting if flawed. No doubt for most Pakatan
supporters whatever he writes (now) is verboten by their alliance
groupthink, but I think he raises some interesting points about the
nature of the BN-Pakatan conflict although he misses far too many along
the way.
The central thesis of his argument is that the Najib
Razak regime's primary adversaries are the faith and belief that Pakatan
has managed to harness for their political benefit.
He
characterises the extremely partisan nature of this conflict as a near
religious showdown between those who have faith that their belief in
Pakatan would result in changes for the better (even though they have no
real evidence of this) if Pakatan ever came into federal power and
those who wish to maintain the status quo, believing the devil you know
is better than the one you don't.
In his
'It is not about government, it is about us' post,
he articulates certain contradictions of the lack of ‘idealism' (which
ironically is the main propaganda tool of the Pakatan machine) with
regards to certain fundamental issues and policies in Pakatan supporters
and their realpolitik belief that the only way for ‘change' is kicking
out BN and then working out a basic framework with the belief that any
problems would be handled by Pakatan in an egalitarian manner.
In other words, they (Pakatan supporters) don't want to put in the
effort for fighting for collective principles or policies which
differentiate them from BN, all the while coasting on the corruption
scandals that feed the need for ‘change'. Any attempt to point this out
is perceived as either the Machiavellian workings of pro-BN trolls or
contrarian opinions that hamper the progress to Putrajaya.
While
I do believe that faith and belief are adversaries of the Najib regime,
I believe they are secondary in nature. I think the primary adversary
is hate. There is a certain section, perhaps a sizeable section of the
voting public who hates BN and has no real interest in questioning the
ideological foundations or lack thereof of their preferred political
alliance, except as a vehicle to replace BN on the Putrajaya throne.
Ironically it is RPK that brought to boil this hate with his
shit-stirring posts in his messianic heyday. By slaying Malay sacred
cows and exposing in the most polemical of manner the malfeasances of BN
and positioning Pakatan as the white knight that would banish the BN
evil from the land, he set up the playing board that he finds so
frustrating now.
As Helen Ang (
left),
the bête noire of most DAP supporters, points out in her various
contrarian posts (which is a good thing), Pakatan supporters have no
problem pointing out the ‘hate' spewing forth from BN, but have no
qualms about engaging in hate of their own.
Indeed cruise the comments section of
Malaysiakini
and you would be surprised (or maybe you won't be) of the hateful
speech which passes most often without notice since it's either directed
at BN or at ideas that don't sit comfortably with Pakatan supporters.
Her
'Haram sokong DAP not mirror image of ABU, meh?' and
'Kafir rating downgraded' posts
are in my opinion problematic (seeing as how I am partisan in nature)
but nonetheless illuminating on the hypocritical nature of oppositional
politics but also for old timers like me with more than a passing
familiarity with opposition parties before their revamped image,
extremely perceptive.
Seething resentment Before
there was ‘PAS for all', I used to hang out with the "bad old" PAS boys
who had no problem calling for the fall of the "maha firaun" and his
despicable silencing of opponents using the ISA and his regime's
systemic corruption, but had no problem imposing Islam regardless of the
objections of the non-Muslims.
These same loyal (sic) Muslims
are part of the ‘new' PAS, alternating between seething resentment at
being accused of being pro-BN lackeys if they voice their consent for
hudud or any other Islamic preoccupations and rabid obsession of
ejecting Umno by any means necessary even if it means having an
undeclared ceasefire with the heathens until the time is ripe for a
religious revival.
Ang's Pakatan baiting
'Logo Hari Merdeka Pakatan ada elemen-elemen Kristian'
post was a much needed master class in Internet trolling if only
because it brought out the vicious undercurrents of Pakatan (DAP
specifically) hate mongers who view any Chinese not supportive of the
aims of DAP (or Pakatan) as self-loathing cretins - the usual murder
fantasies were spewed her way - and the popular canard that only
non-Umno Malay/Muslims were acceptable in this new Malaysia.
Indeed any Malay ‘intellectual' who engages in public self-flagellation
all the while partaking in broadsides against Umno is welcomed as an
enlightened Malay but woe to the Malay who points out the fact that the
so-called systemic racism goes hand in hand with the general racism that
afflicts this country or makes a defence of Umno ideology, which is not
far off from Pakatan's own dogma except without the decades of abuse.
This last part is an important point, which would explain the ‘faith"
aspect in RPK's argument.
This is why we have the "why can't
they get on with the programme" attitude when it comes to status quo
agitators like Hindraf. This is why these groups are demonised by the
zealots secure in their multiracial/cultural camouflage but displaying
no real commitment to the ideal.
Of course, there will always be
those who self-righteously shout down those who draw attention to this
fact as having done nothing for 55 years (how absurd), but don't seem to
have a problem with the inmates running the asylum in their new found
role as liberators. Frogs not only leap, they breed.
Umno, of
course, has already proven that it is incompetent in these
power/perception games. So long being used to locking up those who
disagree with them and relying solely on their propaganda tools has left
them unable to form a coherent strategy of dealing with Pakatan and the
wild west frontier of the new media. "Blunder after blunder and still
standing by dodgy means" should be their Merdeka Day slogan.
So,
in my opinion RPK has got it somewhat wrong. I think both our arguments
paint a bleak picture of the political landscape of Malaysia. Each side
is peddling a different thing, playing on our sentiments. Umno is
peddling fear, while Pakatan hope.
There are many who would blame
Umno for this, and rightly a large portion of the blame should go to
them, but this piece really isn't about Umno or BN. And this may be the
reason why many would find it unpalatable.
S THAYAPARAN is Commander (rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy.
