Unspun

Malaysian blogger and old friend Rocky of Rocky’s Bru has posted a comment on this blog saying he likes the new look (thanks) and what are my thoughts, as a fomer Malaysian journalist, on the political broughaha between Mahathir and Badawi.

Well Rocky, I think if you’re not living in the country it all looks a bit pathetic. On one side you have a real leader who refuses to go gently into the quiet night, and therefore threatens to undo whatever good he has done for the country; and other side you have courtiers and court jugglers who are good only in palace intrigue and little else. They are particularly pathetic because in their obsession with palace intrigues they have failed to realize that the world flattened in the meantime and what they hold dear has now been overtaken by technology and the times.

First the real leader. For all his faults, Mahathir is a leader of men. He had vision and he could execute against this vision successfully. The cost, however, of realizing this vision was an emasculation of the Press and much of the next generation of political leaders.

Mahathir, however, fails to have a sense of irony, as I pointed out in an earlier posting, and of grace. He’s done what he could for Malaysia. Is what he’s doing now for the country or, as suggested by P Ramasamy in his article What Lies Beneath Mahathir’s Attacks that was first published in Malaysiakini. because he and his friends are being snubbed by the current elite. I’m beginning to think that it’s the latter, with spite being the motivator.

Then there are the courtiers and court jugglers. Here some would include Badawi since, they say, he rose to his position essentially as Mahathir’s courtier whose main claim to fame is that he walked the tightrope of UMNO politics without falling. Include also as court jugglers the various ministers and editors who made, and still make, their living being channels for their master’s voice and knowing which side their bread is buttered.

These are the people who owe their existence to patronage, not intellectual vigor. It is therefore not surprising that the arguments advanced against Mahathir are so lame, for example: Mahathir is questioning the government and asking it to account for four incidents. The response was to brand it as bad for the nation’s stability ask for Mahathir to resign from Umno. As a friend used to say: what’s that got anything to do with the price of fish.

There is a saying that if all you have is a hammer then you tend to want to solve all problems with a hammer. The courtiers and court jugglers have only their palace intrigue skills such as bullying, cajoling, innuendo, vilification, press censorship, appointments and mud slinging. We therefore see them employing these tactics, even though the world has passed them by.

Censorship and appointments is a case in point. You, Rockybru, is no longer editor of a major paper because you weren’t tame and trained enough to reflect only His Master’s Voice. Others are blacked out, censored their letters and reports withheld. Blogs such as yours and Jeff Ooi’s Screenshots are vilified and blocked.

But to what end? Technology has moved so far that these courtiers and jugglers would make a Luddite seem progressive. Try to muzzle Mahathir? He goes on Malaysiakini and within minutes of the interview’s posting you have e-mails criss crossing the globe with a verbatim account of the posting. Censor or withhold someone’s letter? It pops up in the blogs and other websites. From there it is a matter of viral e-mails, fax and photocopy machines to defeat the intent of the censorship in the first place. Block a blog? His friend has an e-mail and he has broadband connection at home.

What the courtiers and jugglers do not get is that technology has made the world not only flat; it has made it transparent too. In such a world you need to persuade with rational arguments and by demonstrating your transparency and openness. The old methods do not work anymore. Moreover the transparency that new technology renders onto societies make their traditional tactics seem crude, cumbersome and archaic.

If the courtiers and jugglers are to have any hope of taking on Mahathir, then they need to realize this fast, accept responsibility for their actions and begin communicating with the nation in a open, non-defensive manner. It is not difficult to engage Mahathir if they have the proper communications skills. But will they learn or continue on their march of folly?