Tag: politics

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On The State of the Union

For as long as I can remember, I have been an Americophile (yes, apparently it’s a real word!) No surprises there, I suppose – having been born in the United States (both my parents were studying in Louisiana at the time), I have always had sentimental attachment to the USA, even if my own personal memories of my time there as a child was limited to a handful of photographs of my being a toddler.

Growing up in the Reagan era of the 1980s, it was very difficult not to look at America with a sense of admiration. Coca Cola and McDonald’s and Superman were icons that loomed large in our childhood, and the idea of the American Dream was not yet besmirched by the grime of cynicism and disappointment that has been the American legacy of the post-9/11 era.

I grew up reading Spiderman, watching Batman and Superman on the silver screen, and I remember spending my mornings doing my homework while CNN was playing on the morning television broadcast, watching the entire might of the mighty American military being brought down like a sledgehammer onto Saddam Hussein’s Iraq after the latter’s invasion of Kuwait. America was the almighty behemoth of the world, and once the Berlin Wall had fallen, the USA bestrode the globe as an unchallenged colossus – the one and only superpower of the late 20th century.

Going to college, I fell into student politics, and political biographies became my preferred vein of reading material ever since. I came to know FDR and Truman and Eisenhower and Kennedy through McCullough and Schlesinger and many other scholars of American politics. And when Barack Obama ran for the presidency, my abiding interest for American politics kicked up another notch: I started watching Meet The Press on the weekends, trawled through RealClearPolitics and the New York Times and other news portals to read the tea leaves of the unfolding campaign. Obama becoming President will probably be the high watermark of American esteem and prestige in my lifetime, and I soaked every moment of his time in office. His speeches at Selma and Berlin and Egypt. His announcement of the capture of Osama bin Laden. Those speeches at the White House Correspondents’ Dinners.

And, of course, the State of the Union – that spectacle of American power and pageantry. Ostensibly a report card to be laid open for the American people, but really an annual statement of intent – a manifesto of a president in office and in power.

Biden might not have that same soaring oratory that marked Obama’s time as President. But for this State of the Union address, you will find me eager as always, watching and learning, basking in the theatre of American politics – still, so far, the hub and core of global power in my lifetime.

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Today’s 3 Things II – Population Decline, Slow Productivity, and Political Financing

  1. China’s population on the decline! India might overtake China as most populous country! – one could worry about implications of declining populations on national productivity, pension liabilities, and whatnot. But maybe, just maybe, it might simply be a lagging indicator to show that things are… good?
  2. “Slow productivity” is a thing, now. The past 20 years have been a whirlwind of emails and SMS and BBM pings and Slack and Whatsapp and Zoom calls – and it’s all getting a bit too much. The revolution is nigh.
  3. For as long as we don’t solve the problem of political financing and lobbying transparency in Malaysia, we will never truly fix the dysfunctionality of our contemporary politics. Some might say, eleh US pun sama je. Yes, lobbying and jockeying for influence will always be there – indeed, it is a core function of the political process! But the American approach of making political financing more transparent has its benefits – it makes public policy-making more transparent and more accountable, and reduces the likelihood of corrupt behaviour in doing under-the-table deals for private advantage.
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Today’s 3 Things – SingTel, Nurul Izzah, Zahid Hamidi

  1. I was reading this news report about SingTel being recently majority-controlled by private equity firms, and thought, oh wow, a positive piece on PE ownership that does not demonise private equity ownership as heartless asset-stripping capitalists! Then I realised – oh, it’s a news report from a stock investing app. Figures hahah.
  2. So, prominent economist Jomo Kwame Sundaram says, on the issue of Anwar’s daughter being appointed as an advisor to the Finance Minister: “I am also not keen on the prime minister being the finance minister. I am also not keen on this (Nurul Izzah’s) appointment. But all things considered the reaction to her appointment is unwarranted.” And then goes on to enumerate the ways in which appointed the PM’s daughter as an advisor might bring advantages. Fair enough. Nuanced, right? But then, you will notice that the headline simply says: “Jomo: Nurul Izzah’s new appointment not a liability”. Nice.
  3. “Saya mesti berusaha bukan saya benci, tidak ada satu zarah, satu molekul rasa benci kepada mana-mana individu, tetapi parti mesti diselamatkan,” kata seorang Presiden parti politik yang memalitkan najis rasuah pada wajah partinya sendiri, mencantas pemimpin tempatan yang membawa kepada kekalahan partinya dalam negeri-negeri yang sebelum ini menjadi kubu kuat partinya, menjadi bebanan utama bagi para pemimpin muda parti beliau sendiri, membelakangkan keputusan partinya sendiri untuk tidak bersama pemimpin dan parti lawan tertentu, dan menyanggupi parti tunjang negara menjadi pelakon tambahan dalam pentas politik tanahair. Siapa yang perlu diselamatkan, ya?

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Today’s Reads XIV – Layoffs, Manchester United, UMNO

  1. Termination via email is yet another reminder that good leadership is really just about being a good human being. Look people in the eye, answer questions fairly, and show sympathy for the travails of others. Is that really so hard to do?
  2. Erik Ten Hag’s Manchester United is a salutary lesson in the inimitable power of good leadership. After the disappointments of Moyes, Van Gaal and Mourinho, the fleeting mirage of the Solskjaer years, the failed experiment with Rangnick, we finally have a manager with the grit and dedication to put together a winning team!
  3. UMNO gaya Orwell: bila Presiden yang terpalit rasuah menuduh orang lain yang menjadi punca “sabotaj” – bila prestasi parti merudum dan kepimpinan enggan mengambil tanggungjawab – bila Presiden sendiri melanggar konsensus “No Anwar No DAP” tapi orang lain dituduh pengkhianat – bila “pembersihan” dijadikan label untuk mencantas lawan!
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Grieve

  1. It is a strange thing to grieve for. A herd of like-minded people. A vehicle for pursuing, seeking, maintaining political power and domination. A collective of similarly-faced, similarly-named, similarly-garbed humanity, named and marked and made intelligible with insignia and flag and song and creed. 
  2. But also a community of people who understand one another. Who band together to yoke the human powers of a young nation, its sinews and hopes and grit, into sprawling roads and gleaming spires. 
  3. “Keramat”. Hallowed. Noble. Dignified. A rather pompous word to describe a seething mass of ambition and belief and camaraderie and struggle. But deeply felt. More than just a name on a card or an official form. Not merely an annual general meeting of the believers and the strivers and the schemers. A movement. A people within a people. 
  4. To remember a glorious past. Demonstration. Mobilisation. Negotiation.  Declamation. A young people claiming their right to exist. To govern themselves. To give deed to promises made. To forge a nation out of the disparate and messy strands of migration and immigration – the grime of lives made and remade. Deeds now hallowed in history books.
  5. Deeds now made into shallow and mocking echos, mouthed by a mongrel mob. Thin and hollow and blasted – these are the calling cards of an army of pygmies, claiming the mantle of past glories with which to cloak their cowardice. 
  6. The emperor is clothed in lies and deceit and self-deception, but the imperium marches on, wilfully blind and mute and dumb. Ever onwards, ever loyal, ever grieving. 

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Today’s Reads XI – Income Levels and Stress, Old Politicians, and Cats Purring

  1. “Higher income amounts to lower stress.” No shit, HBS. But yeah, it’s a good reminder, that money can’t buy happiness necessarily, but it can smoothen away a lot of the wrinkles that crop up in life from time to time. It’s not always good to be rich, but it’s very very helpful to not be poor.
  2. American gerontocracy! I haven’t seen similar analyses for Malaysia, but if we have a 90+ year old former PM still hankering for the top job, I’m willing to guess that Malaysia probably has similar problems!
  3. Why and how cats purr. What a wonderful thing it is to make another creature happy, for no other reason than love and mutual care.
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Today’s Reads V – The Benefits of Monarchies, the Responsiveness of Democracies, and the So-called Price of Success

  1. “Constitutional monarchies, like established churches, tend to be theoretically conservative but progressive in practice.” – an interesting, and (to me) surprisingly cogent argument for why monarchies (especially constitutional monarchies) are actually helpful in staving off extremist tendencies in polities.
  2. On the other hand, recent developments such as US gun control reform demonstrate that Democracy (yes, with a capital D) is still the most robust and responsive of all political systems out there. Anyone (be it religious mullahs, or fascist white nationalists) who tells you that “the common people cannot be trusted to govern themselves” are clearly self-interested wannabe-tyrants that ought to be kept away from polite company.
  3. Those of us who are less successful in life tend to imagine – as a means for palliative self-soothing – that those at the top are paying a price in terms of psychological stress, broken relationships, etc. “Wrecked by success” is a popular trope, but it seems that it might just simply not be true!
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Poem I – Perplexed

I hold myself in state perplexed, 
Wherefore these so-called friends have flexed
their blind obeisance to a thief
Who gladly lends this nation grief. 

Affrightened, shocked, we then did gasp
at tales of nation’s riches grasp’d,
In revelations of ill gain 
and debts of billions now retained
at cost of our own public purse 
And echoes of our children’s curse. 

And herein lies my ill content 
My queried mind in bafflement 
What makes these fools of certain grief
to take up cudgels for a thief,
To make false claims of justice bent 
When Justice was what God had sent? 

Perhaps our own minds were athwart 
Too bubbled up to see the art? 

Or mayhaps those who know facts well 
were flummoxed at the blatant spell 
T’was cast by Power’s heavy wand 
That Great and Good would dumbly stand
aside as thieves ruled in their prime
with robes of gold to hide their grime, 
and riches piled for those with might
to plunder all in broad daylight. 

And in minority we stand 
The few and frazzled of the land 
Accused of being “out of touch”
We’re told that politics is such:
That “Bossku”’s cause is of the right,
That white is black and black is white!

Then destined are we for the fall
a nation that would not stand tall 
to judge a thief a criminal,
but rather praise a convict’s gall.







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Three Things I am Thinking about Today #10

  1. We should not be surprised when autocrats abuse their powers to pursue their own personal agenda, even if it includes the illegal surveillance of an ex-wife. Looks like the backlash against Big Tech is gaining even further momentum now. 
  2. I wonder why some folks would rather risk their lives than submit to vaccinations – a mode of treatment that has been proven to subdue the most virulent diseases known to mankind. It is as if some of us are insistent on erasing themselves from the human gene pool. Very odd.
  3. The rise of petroleum in our energy mix has led to more than a century of geopolitics being driven by the politics of the Middle East. Now that we are confronting a future where renewable energy technology will become an increasingly significant part of the future of global energy, the security of supply of battery manufacturing – amongst many other potential flashpoints – will begin to feature prominently in the evolution of global politics. Will US-China trade tensions escalate into a Cold War-style balkanization of global supply chains? Will countries like Korea and Japan (and of course, China) be tempted toward military escalation in order to guarantee the uninterrupted supply of raw materials? For mineral-rich, small countries like Malaysia, how do we navigate this new, more treacherous future?