The master-servant relationship

And this is the reason why we must redefine the master-servant relationship. In the past, before Merdeka of 1957, we the rakyat were the servants while the Sultans, who were the rulers, were the masters. But that has now changed. Today, we the rakyat are the masters and those we elect to run the country are the servants.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

I remember Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad lamenting about this same matter more than once. In a way he also touched on this issue in his book ‘The Malay Dilemma’, which was banned by the government in 1969 or 1970. In fact, later, when he became Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir went even further than that: he lamented that the Malays are so emotional and he wished that they were more like the Chinese -- pragmatic.

The issue that I am talking about here, and which is the brunt of Dr Mahathir’s lament, is that the Malays are too feudalistic. And Dr Mahahthir found this out the hard way when he engaged the Rulers in a Constitutional Crisis back in the 1980s and the rakyat sided with the Rulers. Dr Mahathir had no choice but to back off and rethink his strategy before coming back for a second round of attacking the Rulers.

Yes, even the great Dr Mahathir who could challenge Britain, America and Australia and tell them to go screw themselves could not break the feudalistic mind of Malaysians, in particular the Malays.

We all know the stories about the Sultans of old who would ask you to divorce your wife if he took a liking to her, or the son of the Sultan who would stab and kill you if you accidentally knocked into him, and whatnot. What about the legend of Hang Tuan and Hang Jebat where Hang Tuah is portrayed as a saint for allowing the Sultan to order his death based just on rumours while Hang Jebat is considered a villain for opposing tyranny and for standing up for justice?

Yes, that is how the mind of the Malaysian works, in particular the mind of the Malay. We are feudalistic through and through and don’t ever suggest that Malaysia abolishes the Monarchy and turn the country into a Republic. That would be like wearing a Liverpool T-shirt and walking into a Manchester pub. You would not need to jump out of a window of a MACC building to commit suicide.

And that has not changed much. Maybe the Sultans are no longer the powers-that-be and are only Constitutional Monarchs. Nevertheless, while we now have elected representatives instead of Monarchs in charge or running the country, these elected representatives and politicians have become the new feudal lords and masters.

And that is why we must become anti-politicians. Malaysians politicians have become the new feudal lords of Malaysia. Never mind whether it is Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat. They are all the same. After all, many of the Pakatan Rakyat politicians are ex-Barisan Nasional anyway.

And this is the reason why we must redefine the master-servant relationship. In the past, before Merdeka of 1957, we the rakyat were the servants while the Sultans, who were the rulers, were the masters. But that has now changed. Today, we the rakyat are the masters and those we elect to run the country are the servants.

But somehow the elected representatives and politicians have forgotten this. We removed the absolute Monarchy and replaced it with a Constitutional Monarchy. And then we elected those who should rule the country as our representatives. But then these elected representatives and politicians took over the role of the Monarchs and forgot that they are not our masters but our servants.

The politicians should not be the ones to tell us what to do. The reverse has to happen. We should tell them what to do. And now that the BERSIH march is over and Malaysia has regained its sanity, we need to focus on the new issue in hand. We need to bring the politicians to the negotiating table and force them to sign a Magna Carta or Social Contract with the rakyat.

The way the politicians are talking is like they are in charge -- they are the masters. They fail to realise that we the rakyat employ them and they work for us. They are not our masters but are our servants.

But can you just hear them talking? They are telling us that only they have the right to decide who shall become our elected representatives. When we tell them we are not happy they will reply that those seats belong to them so it is within their power to decide who contests the elections.

This seat is an Umno seat, says Umno. That seat belongs to PKR, says PKR. And all the more than 20 or so political parties will say the same thing. They decide who contests the election and which seat they contest. We the rakyat have no say in the matter.

So what say do we the rakyat have then? Nothing! We have no say whatsoever. Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat decide on the seat distribution and the list of candidates who will contest these seats. We the rakyat just put them into power.

They fail to realise that the seats do not belong to the political parties. They do not own them. The seats belong to the rakyat. It is the rakyat who gives them the votes. So surely the rakyat should have some say in the matter. The politicians and elected representatives are not our feudal lords and masters. And we are not their servants.

If we allow this state of affairs to continue the future for Malaysia will become very bleak. We do not have capable people running the country. What we have are political parties who treat elections as an exclusive club which only a handful decide who can join.

Over the next 20 years we shall realise the folly of our ways. Many of you will still be around 20 years from now. Some of us like me will not. And 20 years from now when Malaysia’s population has aged and the brain drain and capital flight have taken its toll on the country’s economy, we shall lament just like Dr Mahathir laments, that the feudalistic attitude of Malaysians has resulted in the country stagnating while the rest of the world progresses and moves forward leaving Malaysia behind.

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Malaysia will become aged nation by 2030

The United Nations (UN) has projected that Malaysia will become an aged nation by the year 2030 when 15 per cent of its population will be above 60 years old.

The Women, Family and Community Development Ministry put the current number of senior citizens in Malaysia at 2.1 million, constituting 7.3 per cent of the total population.

Life expectancy was expected to rise from 72.6 years in 2010 to 74.2 in 2020 for men while for women, the figure was expected to rise from 77.5 years to 79.1 years during the same period.

'The figure is expected to rise in line with the improved health standards of the population,' Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil said.

She added that the government, through the Social Welfare Department, had set up Rumah Seri Kenangan to provide care and protection to the aged who were poor.

As of May 31, there were nine units of Rumah Seri Kenangan throughout the country which provided care and protection to 1,942 residents. -- THE STAR/ANN