January 12, 2012
Dr. Farish M.Noor: Change will happen
(01-10-12)
It has been a rsther than prolonged time given you have had any reason to be grateful or optimistic about where Malaysia is heading, though today(January 9) you allowed myself a tiny assisting of confidence (and you hasten to supplement it was a tiny helping) as a outcome of a settlement which was upheld (or rsther than not passed) upon Anwar Ibrahim.
Others have already sagely noted which it is as well early to jump a gun as well as broadcast which Malaysia is upon a path of genuine institutional reform, nonetheless you was pleased to see which a charges opposite Anwar were thrown out for a best of reasons, namely which there was small which could be used opposite a man.
Decades from right divided a movie competence be done about a life of Anwar Ibrahim, as well as nonetheless he and
Malaysia cannot be said to be an individual or republic which merits such global courtesy it has to be conceded which very couple of people have had to go through what he has been through, along with his long-suffering family.
If upon which basis alone you can contend which you in truth sympathise with Anwar for what he has been put through given 1998. The movie, if it is ever made, is firm to a spectacular tear-jerker with moments of tension as well as drama aplenty; as well as in truth a single can contend which couple! of peop le have had to be a centre of drama for so long; as well as so unflattering terms.
However, you digress. My confidence lies in a actuality which a single can maybe read today's events as a box of complement of administration maintenance 101, when a embattled powers-that-be face an capricious future as well as have been forced to accept a simple actuality which a society they have governed for so prolonged has wised up as well as matured, as well as no longer hold in ghosts or bogeymen of a past.
Cynics might sneer during today's justice decision as well as explain which it was an example of a complement of administration perplexing to defend itself opposite a taking flight tide of public criticism; though never mind. Even if which were a case, it only drives home a simple actuality which regimes a universe over right divided have to accept a necessity of remodel or run a risk of perishing.
This is, by now, an aged story as well as a structuralist in me cannot help though see patterns which have been repeated time as well as again opposite a postcolonial world. Of course given last year a global media was abuzz with talk of a Arab open as well as how it might impact beyond a shores of a Arab world, reaching Asia.
Do give it a rest, for certainly anyone with a memory which extends behind during slightest a decade will discuss it you which prolonged prior to a Arab open there was a fall of Suharto in May-June 1998; as well as a decade prior to a similarly graceless fall of Ferdinand Marcos as well as his designer shoe-loving wife Imelda.
In all these cases you see constructional similarities during work: Postcolonial elites in Asia, North Africa, Africa as well as a Arab universe come to energy in a 1950s as decolonisatio! n spread s opposite a globe, as well as rught divided pretence a layer of a new saviours of a new-born nation.
But then what happens? Look during a corruption as well as excesses of a nationalists of Algeria, who almost rught divided took to corruption as well as abuse of energy similar to ducks to water. Look during a megalomania as well as cult of care in between a Arab as well as South Asian leaders, with men similar to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto articulate about democracy upon a the single palm as well as sponsoring his in isolation army upon a other.
Look during a officious pretentious as well as vulgar consumerism of a elites of Thailand, Indonesia as well as a Philippines, who robbed their people blind while extolling a virtues of a free market as well as development, as well as along a way collecting enough handbags as well as shoes to fill a measure of department stores. And right divided which a scourge of a OKB complex Orang Kaya Baru, as they call it in Indonesia has come to Malaysia as well, you right divided have our own pale tales of handbags galore to stir up our jaded imagination.
What all these regimes did was usual in most respects: They personalised energy as well as centralised it in a hands of an increasingly smaller oligarchy; they kept energy in a hands of a couple of families as well as cronies; as well as they lorded it over a rank as well as file who could not have as well as could not means what they had.
The believe of postcolonial authoritarian states has regularly been rash capitalism as well as a rush for some-more wealth; with a attendant energy as well as economic cleavages in tow. Imelda Marcos did not finish as a lady whom others admired for her handbags; she was loathed for them by people who could not means rice. The same applies to a Suharto family as well as all a alternative hurtful ruling elites of a postcolonial world.
In a process of enriching as well as empowering themselves, it was they as well as not a rank as well as file who first
introduced, as well as later stretched a cove in between a rich as well as a poor; pushing a already poor rank as well as file to a impassioned of being some-more as well as some-more disempowered as well as divided from a system.
The finish outcome is a growing pyramid of inequality where a gradient grows steeper, to a point where those outside a complement of networks as well as privileges feel which they literally have zero left to lose. you recall seeing how students in Jakarta were throwing bricks as well as sticks during every Mercedes-Benz or BMW which drove past, as these were black of their relative wish as well as poverty.
Yet it seems to have become a norm which so most elites in a postcolonial universe cannot see this happening around them until it is as well late, since they cannot demeanour beyond their credit cards as well as a subsequent squeeze in front of their noses.
Our domestic enlightenment opposite a postcolonial universe remains a hybrid entity, done up by a wasted tools of modernity held in a clutches of a feudalism which cannot as well as will not die. Every cheap, low-grade tin-pot tyrant wants a yacht for himself, a in isolation jet, a luxury home as well as a little babes in draw (Or tucked divided in a little unit block in Orchard road). Their wives have been mostly just as bad, exhibiting a feeling for selling which borders upon a pathological, even during times of economic hardship.
Ultimately a divided rank as well as file who have zero to remove (as they have for so prolonged been denied a stake in anything) will contend enough is enough, as well as this brings us a single step closer to social shift whether you similar to it or not.
One thing is transparent though, as well as it is which a aged institutions of energy have been beginning to regulate to a new realities upon a ground. The actuality which they even realise this is happening is already a spectacle for someone similar to me who is jaded beyond outline as well as with a failing heart to boot.
Whatever happens in a weeks as well as months to come, things or during slightest something will move. And movement, as well as change, have been regularly certain indicators which there is life in a republic yet.
Dr FarishA Noor, an Aliranmember, is a Senior Fellow during a Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
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