Passive May Be Better Than Active

In his article Cure the Cause, Not the Symptoms yesterday, Raja Petra said:

If the political parties prove they are incapable of bringing about change then maybe we should forget about political parties (and therefore about seeing change through the electoral process -- which without reforms is not going to see a change of government anyway). Maybe it requires a different form of action to bring about change.


And what alternative form of action do you think this will require?


That is what we may need to talk about now.

Now, I wonder what he meant by that. Could he probably have meant taking a passive rather than active stance?

Passive resistance may be a better option than active action seeing that many Malaysians can be perceived as gutless and scared of civil action such as taking to the streets because they fear the police, arrest, water cannons, etc.

Well, how about you DON'T take to the streets? Instead, you stay home and do nothing. Imagine a scenario where 28 million Malaysians stay home and don't go to work or school. Public transport such as buses, train and taxis don't run. How long do you think a government can last. Is this what RPK meant? Was he referring to 'hartal' - the power of silent protests?

Hartal is a word derived from Gujurati that literally translates to “closing down shops” or “locking doors”refers to the act of closing shops or suspending work, esp in political protest. To be fair, whilehartal by virtue is the political and constitutional right of citizens to protest the failure of their government at keeping promises and/or making decisions or taking actions contrary to people’s interest, hartal can negatively impact the economy and daily activities of people.

Historically, it has been more than a century since the first hartal was staged in South Africa. Led by Ghandi who conceived the idea of civil disobedience because of his methodology of satyagraha(devotion to the truth) against colonialism , it was organized to protest The Black Act in 1906 in 1906.

It is inspiring to see how the amendment of the 'Black Act' mobilized more Indian people in the Transvaal into joining Gandhi's Satyagraha campaign. South African History Online says:

On 29 March 1907, Transvaal Indian residents met at a mass meeting to protest against the Asiatic Registration Act and offered voluntary registration. This lead to a seven-year struggle in which thousands of Indians were jailed including Gandhi himself on many occasions. Protesters were flogged or even shot for striking, refusing to register, burning their registration cards, or engaging in other forms of non-violent resistance.


The government was successful in repressing the Indian protesters. However, the public was outraged at the harsh methods employed by the South African government in the face of peaceful Indian protesters. Therefore, South African General Jan Christiaan Smuts was forced to negotiate a compromise with Gandhi.
(Source: HERE)

After the debut success of hartal aka non-violent resistance, Gandhi initiated another hartal, this time in India in 1918. Gandhi started another hartal the following year to protest the Rowlatt Bill.

The proponents of hartals claim to be exercising globally agreed rights such as freedom of assembly and freedom of expression. However, as long as hartals are associated with intimidation, coercion and infringement on other people’s freedom of movement, and if hartals inflict severe costs on the nation as a whole, attempts to justify hartals by invoking principles of “freedom” may not come across as convincing or credible.

The South African experience shows how the dogged determination of its people to fight for the democratic rights of its people .

According to this link:

The African National Congress predates the Afrikaner Nationalist Party as a political organization in South Africa. Originally founded in 1912 (as the South African Native National Congress, acquiring its present name in 1923), its first purpose is to defend and extend the voting rights of Coloured and African citizens in the Cape Province.


After the National Party's postwar election victory, with conditions getting worse rather than better, leadership of the ANC is taken in 1949 by radical younger members including Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela. They organize a programme of industrial strikes, boycotts, marches and passive resistance to discriminatory laws. In 1955 they convene a mass public meeting, a Congress of the People, which proclaims a Freedom Charter.


The Freedom Charter of 1955 emphasizes the ANC's democratic nonracial credentials, stating that 'South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black or white, and no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people'.


The ANC leaders and their supporters (among them Coloureds, Asians and liberal whites) are increasingly harassed by the police. Yet at this stage the campaign remains one of non-violent resistance - a fact internationally recognized when Albert Luthuli, president of the ANC from 1952, is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960. But this same year also sees a dramatic escalation in the conflict, following the founding of the PAC.


In 1959 Robert Sobukwe, believing that the African cause is weakened by the ANC's partnership with other races, forms a breakaway group under the name Pan-Africanist Congress. The PAC devises a more confrontational gesture than any yet attempted by the ANC. In March 1960 tens of thousands of Africans all round the country present themselves at police stations. They are breaking the law since they are not carrying their compulsory passes. In their vast numbers they present the police with an impossible challenge: arrest us.


At Sharpeville, near Johannesburg, the police overreact. They fire on the crowd, killing more than 60 people and wounding about 180 (most of them shot in the back as they flee).


This outrage proves a turning point. Thousands march and go on strike, while the government reacts with severity - declaring both the ANC and PAC prohibited organizations and arresting some 11,000 people under emergency measures.


The ANC responds in 1961 with the formation of a guerrilla force, Umkhonto we Sizwe ('Spear of the Nation'), to carry out acts of sabotage. One of its leaders is Nelson Mandela. He is captured and is sentenced in 1964 to life imprisonment. He is sent to a gaol on Robben Island, in the bay off Cape Town. Oliver Tambo escapes in 1960 to Zambia, where he presides over the executive of the ANC in exile. READ MORE HERE.

Mandela served 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. After he was released from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to multi-racial democracy in 1994. As president, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation, while introducing policies aimed at combating poverty and inequality in South Africa. Since then, Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.

If there had been no hartal and if Mandela and his fellow countrymen had not persevered for the cause, would South Africa have been liberated? For sure, we need brave Malaysians to blaze the trail for change in our beloved country!

According to UNDP’s report, “Beyond hartals: towards democracy in Bangladesh”:

... if Parliament Members outside the parties in power find themselves repeatedly excluded from meaningful dialogue… and if Parliament does not serve as the primary forum for democratic dialogue on the nation’s future, it is hardly surprising that the centre of gravity of the political debate shifts to more unruly arenas—such as the streets.”

Furthermore, the study concludes that “although political parties must take the key responsibility in ending the ‘hartal impasse’, all sectors of society have an important role to play to ensure that expression of views takes place in a responsible way that will allow the country to continue its development path… This will require courage, determination and imagination to move away from the hartal tradition to embrace a new democratic culture of tolerance and responsibility.”

Page 83 of the UNDP study highlights an interesting development:

During the Ershad regime in Pakistan, civil society played a vital role, for example in preventing Ershad from introducing the military into the proposed Zila Parishad. The bill could not be passed in the midst of severe condemnation from both the opposition and civil society.

Another example of a civil society during this period was the lawyers’ coordination committee that opposed the government’s proposed constitutional amendment bill to set up permanent benches for High Court and Supreme Court divisions at different divisional and district headquarters. In a similar manner a coordination

committees of doctors, engineers and agronomists, various associations of teachers, students and trade unions voiced their professional and political demands through non-cooperation and non-violent methods.

In 1991, after a free and fair general election conducted by a neutral caretaker government, both the ruling party and the opposition restored parliamentary democracy on the basis of consensus - a rare sign of cooperation in Bangladeshi political history.

Can such positive developments happen in Malaysia?

Interestingly, hartal has its place in Malaysian history. Watch the following videos:

10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka Part 1

10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka Part 2

10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka Part 3

10 Tahun Sebelum Merdeka Part 4

In reality, besides street demonstrations such as 'Bersih' and hartal, there are other ‘soft strategies’ that have been effective in influencing policy and voicing views including ‘human chains’, silent protests, mock Parliaments and mock courts.

It is time civil society, the media, and the rakyat play their roles as advocates for change. Civil society should adopt new and innovative ways of popularizing democratic reforms other than the existing methods of workshops and seminars. One way would be to strengthen media relations and with players in the alternative media. All parties should be mature enough to encourage democratic dialogue with the aim of promoting democratic reform through their programmes and advocacy.

While we may have freedom of expression, this must take place in a responsible manner to open up avenues for all have a role to play in developing this nation. Courage, unity, determination and effort are needed to develop a new democratic culture of tolerance, respect and responsibility. In this respect, I believe passive may be better than active. - masterwordsmith