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The biggest problem is apathy — Jun Watanabe
February 05, 2013
In spite of the fact that Malaysia has just plunged to
record lows with the latest international ranking on press freedom, we
now possess better access to information with the advent of the Internet
and social media than our parents ever did in the dark decades they
lived through since Merdeka.
The veracity of the information, however, is always suspicious. While
it is easy to dismiss mainstream media, with manipulation as its main
agenda, as biased and selective, alternative media has not fared much
better. It is at best a contrarian voice, and at its worst suffers the
same lack of journalistic integrity as its counterpart.
Though this fault is untenable, because of its intrinsic association
with official media, there is a two-fold problem — that the
powers-that-be are subjecting information to spin and misdirection to
suit their purposes, and thus facts and figures are not readily
verifiable, and the system simply renders everything suspect.
But this essay is not about the media or the freedom of the press. It
is the recipients of information who worries me, because the citizenry
are cavalier with the information they receive. We blindly digest
information we want to hear, no matter what our personal agendas are or
which side of the political divide we are on.
We take them often at face value and we do not subject them to
rigorous scrutiny. That in schools we are not taught to think, that as a
culture we are nurtured to avoid confrontation, that as a nation we
have been programmed to not question authority, and as a people we have
become the risk adverse; all devastating ingredients in turning us into
an apathetic lot.
While encouraged by the recent showing in the 2008 elections and with
Bersih, we are as a general population distracted easily. This
distraction is easily explained — that the average Malaysian is just too
caught up in their daily lives in the middle-income trap of a country
we are. We make too little money to afford imported items and overseas
vacations and we pay too much for transportation to spend too much time
in traffic and too much for decent housing. We have so many other
short-term things to worry about than to worry about something as
abstract as leaving the earth for our children.
Whatever furore we conjure up — with news of police beatings, MACC
suicides, white-collar crimes, corruption scandals, misuse of public
funds, Bible burnings, territorial disputes, abuse of power, judicial
injustices, university rankings — dissipates from public consciousness
almost as fast as they enter it. There will be small groups of people
who would always work to keep the issues alive, but the majority of us
will have discussed and complained in coffee shops, cracked some
“Malaysia boleh” jokes and accepted the anal penetration as the
prevalent way of life.
We do not know our neighbours, we do not volunteer for anything, our
idea of supporting a cause is to like a Facebook page, but yet we do not
contribute money to the cause. We worship titles and luxury cars. We
lead shallow lives, governed by traffic conditions and Astro
programming. Our kids are encouraged to memorise and score in
standardised tests. We do not care if our kids speak badly mangled
English, Malay, Mandarin or Tamil that someone from England, China or
India would see as acutely bastardized. (Veronica Kaiser: My German husband who has grown up in a culture that emphasizes on pronounciation sees my pronouncition of English and Mandarin is horrible & unbearable!) We complain about AirAsia yet we
ride on its planes. We do not stick to our principles and accept the
RM300 summons, preferring the RM50 bribe. We hide behind the computer
and sign off with fake names. We vote for the hot-looking contestant in a
reality show. We have collectively lowered our standards.
That the majority of us have chosen to not to fight for equality in
this country, to stand up to racists and bigots and history
revisionists. That we do not protest when the civil servant instead of
true public service is in the position to betray our trust, to hold us
to ransom. That he can be unreliable, mercenary, partisan, unscientific,
unprofessional, irrational, wittingly or unwittingly part of a
patronage system that is characteristically weak of ideals and
accountability. The average civil servant certainly does not think he is
accountable to the public, he thinks he is owed a living by the
government; he does not readily make the distinction between
government-of-the-day and the public he serves.
Like the rest of us, he also thinks he is able to get away with
prolonged coffee breaks and leaves of absence. He was not taught by his
civil servant teacher in school that as the civil servant he is supposed
to be holding himself to the highest of standards. The description of
the civil servant is interchangeable for the judge, the university
professor, the prime minister, the policeman, the clerk in the Land and
Survey Department who if you protest too strongly will conveniently
“lose” your file and asks you to resubmit.
Why is it so difficult to understand that for the off-duty policeman
in his squad car that if he were to be speeding beyond the limit in a
non-emergency without the sirens and the flashing lights then it would
constitute an abuse of power? And the civil servants in the car with
“Jabatan Warisan Negara” logo on the door panels, when they speed at
160km/h on the Karak highway, are abusing public property.
Why is it so difficult to understand that there should and must be a
double standard? A private citizen who speeds at 160km/h on the highway
risks his life and others on the road, and faces the consequences on his
own and the responsibilities are his and his only. But public servants
who do the same with public assets must be held to a higher standard
simply because his purposes are much bigger and more consequential than
any single individual’s.
Malaysian society in general does not require the civil servant to
commit hara-kiri, but perhaps it should. That society condones by way of
apathy is the biggest crime of all, and we are all guilty of it.
In most elections, most people vote anonymously. For some of us, it
will not be. From the longhouses of Sarawak who face sanctions if a
particular candidate loses, to whole states denied federal funding, the
upcoming GE13 will probably have the most painful repercussions in
Malaysian history. A likely BN victory will make it unlikely that
necessary reforms be made to keep the country off the path to financial
and moral bankruptcy.
An unlikely PR victory will likely see influx of the vast wealth of
BN trying to wrest back control, interest groups and the partisan civil
service resorting to subterfuge and sabotage to destabilise the
government, and/or a larger outflow of capital from our shores than what
we have already experienced; whatever it is, it will keep the PR
government in its rightful lame duck place. Voting either party in may
potentially leave the country tethering on the edge.
Therefore what is more important in the coming years than the results
of GE13 will be the ability of grassroots and non-partisan
organisations like Bersih to galvanise the public in the spirit of
fraternity and justice and equality, to actively take part in the
improvement of our society. Our participation will have to start from a paradigm shift.
We have to first accept that we the ordinary citizens have the power
to change the world we live in. That our words and actions mean
something; that our votes mean something. That we do not take for
granted the relationships that tie us to fellow human beings. We must
learn the true meaning of hard work and sacrifice. We must take
calculated risks. We must learn to question authority, to question the
newsmakers, to decide for ourselves if something we choose to believe in
is based on hard evidence rather than hearsay or just faith. That
because of the differing preferences in the population we must inculcate
altruism as the leading actor to meld the religions.
Instead of waiting for someone else to call for help in an accident
scene, we do it. Instead of waiting for someone else to report a rape in
a parking lot, we do it. Instead of waiting for someone else to improve
the cleanliness of our neighbourhoods, we do it. Instead of waiting for
someone else to accept the gay friend first, we do it. Instead of
waiting for someone else to bring down the illegal tree-logger, we do
it. If we were Muslim, we defend our Christian friend. If we were
Indian, we let our daughters convert and marry a Malay.
To be a good son first, a good mother first, a good worker first, a
good employer first, a good neighbour first, a good policeman first, a
good land and survey clerk first, a good prime minister first.
To be Malaysian first.
When we improve our surroundings, our workplace, our family lives, we
improve our standard of living. We will become more exigent with how we
want to live — the whole of society benefits.
We must realise that we do not want real power in the hands of idiot
politicians from both sides of the divide, that we must maintain our
voices and our rights in a democratic government.
We must learn that the nation’s fate will not be dependent on any political party but the change within ourselves.
“To know and not act is not yet to know.” — Wang Yang Ming, 12th-century philosopher.
