A friend emailed me Khoo Kay Peng's article Perak: A failed democracy click here http://dinmerican.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/khoo-kay-peng-on-perak-it-is-a-failed-democracy/
Here is an alternative viewpoint
Many make the mistake and think that democracy is the only way to manage a society.
In fact, scores of people have somehow embraced democracy as religion. People follow what works. Push to the corner, I have strong convictions that a large section of the Malays will relook the so call social contract, democracy, etc and decide a different platform to run this country.
I have already heard news of would be defections from PAS to UMNO. Either PAS will play out PKR (read Anwar) or the other way round, is perhaps already be in the making. They may go back to the Parliament and overturn what Tun Mahathir did in 1993 and return back immunity to the Royalty – then improper members of the Royalty can go screw all of us as they pleased. (Personally, I do not think Tun made the amendments to 'curb' the powers of the Sultans, but to deter improper members of the royalty from acting wantonly).That’s what you get when you push a cat to the corner. Short sighted politicians within our opposition... Oh! How I miss the Tan Chee Koon’s of Malaysia.
Many years ago my ‘democratic’ acquaintances and friends in the NGOs were not happy coz I suggested the Chinese in China should not fight the Chinese government with a western approach when I disagreed with the ‘democratic’ and ‘peaceful’ assembly and ‘tunjuk perasaan’ at Tianamen Square (at that time the Lech Walesa movement were hot and thriving in Poland).
Two days later the Chinese Government gunned down those students, thousands were killed. Anyone who have read Chinese history and understood Chinese culture would have been able to see what was coming. Historically, you screw the Emperor, the Emperor will not only chop your head off but also your family’s heads too... nay your entire village.
Similarly, democracy is not the only platform to deal with the Malay society. But, most ‘smart’ political scientist and opposition leaders in DAP and PKR are either confused ‘bananas’ or ‘ Malays who lost their souls to Anwar in a hurry to make him the PM’ ; who are middle class or upwards Malaysians who spends time sipping coffee at bangsar, live an almost western life, intellectually debate using western eyes to a predominantly eastern/Malay skewed dilemma.
Read here for a quick socio-cultural outlook of the Malays
1) http://letusaddvalue.blogspot.com/2009/02/anwars-second-major-blunder.html
2) http://letusaddvalue.blogspot.com/2009/02/biadap-tetap-biadap.html
May God Bless This Country!
6 comments:
The problem with Malaysia,is that it was never a democratic country in the first place, albeit we would like to think it is. It's more of a Kleptocracy actually. Malaysia could never be a failed democratic country, because how can democracy fails, when it was never even a there in the first place?
Ya..May God Bless This Country!
May God lead us back to the Right Intention!
May God guide us to perform the Right cause of Actions!
(1) It is correct to say Democratic is not the only system to govern a nation. It has flaws and not perfect. But it offers the best choice so far to practice, provided you can suit it to society need and offers an alternative policy where it seems fit.
(2) Election is not a waste of time. What has been a waste is when you base your campaign on trivial matters, when you choose to talk about nude pictures instead of the billions TNB paid to IPP and what action must be done. You talk about what is the potential policy to counter unemployment. What is potential policy to promote private investment. You just cannot ask govt to solve economic woes, you have to decide which govt is capable to lead towards that.
(3) In a “defection” or “frogging” climate we are living in, election will make more sense. If you force an election after a fall of a govt (due to frogging), having an election will demolish whatever aspiration from the frog-about activity (hi hi .. is this a term?). Election will give back to people the mandate to decide whether they still want this person or back to which party they had chosen before. Once you frog, and you have to go through election, it would cause you more trouble (unless if you are Tengku Razaleigh or Shahrir A Samad or Anwar). In the long run politician would be discouraged from frogging. Politician is being made more accountable.
(4) Election will also increase business confident. If you are about to spend 1 million in Perak; you have met its councilors, you have read the rules, and you are confident the state policy would favours you .. and suddenly a govt change. So now you are not sure of the stability of the govt and its policy, would you proceed to spend? But what if there is a fresh election and people give their mandate clearly now, no matter to which party, wouldn’t that restore the confidence?
why tan chee koon??
Rizzal, we can agree to disagree. Do read the following post on why elections should not be ongoing - especially the constant wanting to extrapolate a by-election to the nation's political leaning. That will drag the general elections indefinitely. The reason PRU is once every 5 years is that the business of managing the country can take place after a general election.
Vanguard, here's a good link abt Tan chee Khoon http://www.viweb.freehosting.net/TanCK.htm. Pah Nur and Iris, thanks for comment!
peace, anas
Malaysian political system is neither here nor there. It falls between the semi democratic category to partially authoritarian system.
It is true that it is not a full democracy as there are restrictions on many items associated with full democracy such as freedom of speech, a working non suppressive opposition etc. However to brand Malaysian government as tyrants would be too taking things too far. Malaysia is too multicultural for full authoritarian regime to prosper.
Furthermore, there is always the misconception that democracy is the best way to go. However, for a developing country, it is best to take democracy ideals with a pinch of salt - they could not afford to have any stalemate or instability that democracies might bring unlike the developed nations. Sometimes people forget that democracy does not feed the people!!
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