From across the yawning gap, the wide chasm Of irretrievable Time, I watched this Lion of a man hold his people in a Roaring trance: his eyes ablaze, his voice in Firm, unshakeable command: exhorting, Cajoling, pleading, teasing, commanding. Teaching his people, teasing out the facts Of a hostile environ in which their Red dot is ensconced: uneasy, wary. Informing them of glory, great heights scaled, Warning them of complacency, of ease. He growls, roars, thunders like an Asian Jove, Like a Confucian father to cowed sons. Tells them to buck up, work t'wards, fight against, March onwards and upwards, Sisyphean. He says, "Even from my sickbed, even If you are going to lower me into The grave and I feel that something is going Wrong, I will get up." As I watch him on Stage, from the corner of my eye, I keep Watch for the angry ghost of Lee Kuan Yew.
On The Greatest Politician
I have always been, and always will be Ev’rything and ev’ryone, ever and Always, to ev’rybody. My honeyed Words and grand declamations, they dazzle And confound, seduce and charm, soothe and burn You with the searing heat of wild desire And the roaring march of your heart’s fealty. You will love me, adore me, enthrone me, For I am your true love, your highest cause, Your life’s grandest anthem, your marching tune Your sheikh, your boss, your chief, your Tun, your Lord.
On Thieves and Heroes (or, Twenty-Five Years and Forty-Seven Lies)
For twenty-five years, brisk demands
For change, for moral politics -
A reborn nation, confident
That Justice can stand unafraid -
Now finally claim centre stage
Your avatar can claim his prize.
But look - what fateful compromise!
What cruel bargain - filth-stained hands!
With faithless smiles, with hands aclasp
These erstwhile foes declare their pact
Amidst blithe claims of kingly seal
Your "unity" swept all sins clean
And now you reap your poisoned fruit
A bitter harvest for your sham
And twenty-five years' promises
Are trumped by forty-seven lies
The deathly grin unmasked, unshamed
Bears witness to your blotted vows
The thieves you pledged to overthrow
Walk lockstep with your heroes now.
On Constancy and Treachery
Give us a man of Constancy
A man of iron principles
A man to lead us broody souls
To sunlit hills of Certainty
Not this, this faithless wavering
This double-dealing Treachery
The eager overthrow of Truth
In service of Ambition's ring
You think that we will soon forget
That public minds are changeable
Well our Trust, too, is mutable
Your perfidy you soon will fret!
On the Narcissism of the Career Politician
“I alone can save
this country,” is what they all
say/think to themselves.
On the Politics of Self-Preservation and Compromise and the Death of Reformasi
At long last, escape was engineered - a nation's uproar all for naught.
Tentang Busung
Siasah kamu
Penuh nanah dusta yang
Busuk membusung.
On the “Good Man” Theory of Politics
More than five years after the upheavals of 2018, it is slowly dawning to the consciousness of the Malaysian electorate that “semuanya tak boleh diharap.” There is a level of disillusionment amongst Malaysians at the politics of the day, that is certainly unexpected when we think back to those hopeful days after the electoral defeat of the Barisan Nasional.
There was an expectation, then, on both sides of the aisle, after six decades of unbroken Alliance / Barisan Nasional dominance, that the electoral revolution that brought Mahathir Mohamad back to the premiership would also presage a new era of democratisation for Malaysia. The past few years have put paid to such hopes.
A significant part of this mismatch in expectations, I believe, comes from a built-in sense of undue deference to political leaders that probably arises naturally within a polity still engrossed in feudal concepts of leadership and fealty. As a society, we are naturally predisposed to think of our leaders as “good”, and that all we need to do is elect the right leaders, and these “good” leaders will naturally do what is correct and necessary.
This tendency manifests itself most clearly in that Malaysian habit of “blame the penasihat” for when things are going tangibly wrong. The initial instinct for many Malaysians is to believe that the leader must be infallibly correct and good – and so when circumstances clearly indicate some weakness or failure in leadership, the immediate response is to say “oh, this must be because the PM is getting bad advice from so-and-so.” Others would say “ah the PM needs to sack his incompetent advisors. Once he gets better advice, things would surely get better.”
This sentiment arises naturally due to the nature of power-distance dynamics in Malaysia – and is entirely unhealthy. The unfortunate truth is that sometimes bad leaders make it all the way to the top, and by the time they get there, others are too timid or too afraid to say no to the boss. In the most extreme cases of such feudal cowedness, millions lose their lives because they aren’t enough people in the system with the courage or strength to say no to a Pol Pot or a Mao.
Maybe it is simply the nature of an immature polity, that we continue to hold out for that “good man” in political leadership. Maybe it will take several more instances of living through tyranny before our society finally comes to its senses and realises that only through democratic restraints on our leaders can we compel them to put the public interest ahead of their own personal agenda.
Tentang Sebuah Titanic Yang Bakal Karam
Titanic karam: pengakhiran sebuah parti keramat?
Tentang Parti Keramat Itu
Sida-sida yang
terkasi, kumat kamit
membaca talkin.