No place for ‘celaka’ in politics – James Chai

R.S.N. Rayer’s failure to withdraw his infamous “Umno celaka!” statement is disappointing.

The Seri Delima assemblyman’s failure to recognise the importance of doing so, and what it had meant in terms of political overtures is even staggering.

Instead, Rayer chose to resort to contest the meaning of the word or try to determine the magnitude of harm and attribute similar derogatory statements uttered by Barisan Nasional (BN) members in the past – “BN did it, too, so why is this a big deal” or something to that effect.

It does not move the debate like that, as no matter how valid and convincing the claims by Pakatan Rakyat’s leaders on the gross disproportionality (amounting to “hooliganism”) of the threat from Federal Territory Umno Youth members to burn down the DAP headquarters and the “storming of the Penang assembly” (a much less heroic “storming of the Bastille” in France 1789), BN politicians will still justify their acts to the initial provocation by Rayer.

This is harmful to Pakatan, as they will not be able to gain a distinct political capital as they would easily have, had the apology been made promptly after. Wary citizens will still be drawn to the fact that it was, in fact, provoked in the first place, and always place that justified reservation on why there was such a difficulty to apologise.

All efforts of condemning the “hooliganism” – that are extremely detrimental to racial harmony – will be wasted because of it.

While it is certainly ingenious to avoid talking about your own shortcomings and amplify the opponents’, it is nonetheless dishonest to do so.

We cannot condemn the reaction without addressing the impropriety of the initial provocation.

It is not a matter of what “celaka” means and how an ordinary and reasonable Malaysian would take it to mean.

As long as Rayer is aware that it might contain insulting or provoking tendencies, it must be regrettable that such language was used. This is additionally problematic when Rayer is a lawyer and that he should have realised this above anyone else.

Pakatan agenda

Facing BN is an unprecedented challenge, as no other coalition in the modern world has remained in power for so long.

In theory, this means that BN has built a longstanding political bulwark of support and there is a need to deal with the entrenched reality of traditional powers and familiarity.

Vote choices for many were almost never premised on which would provide a reasonably better alternative – as a healthy democracy would require – but a vote for BN is almost “natural” or merely routine every general election.

The people had also waited too long for an alternative government that is not only slightly better than BN – it would not be worth the change in that case – but a drastically better one.

The logic also follows that if we can concede that the damage to our economic competitiveness, welfare, intellectual discourse, institutional integrity had all been perverted by BN, then nothing short of a drastic change and betterment of governance can restore it.

I say this because Pakatan needs to recognise the higher benchmark that they have compared with BN.

Pakatan cannot afford imperfection – and this covers administrative competency and the manner of carrying itself.

Or else, fence-sitters (also “deciders”) will fall back on the “comfort” that they have with BN. We do not want lesser of the two incompetents, but the best group that can hold themselves to world standards of exemplary politicians who are skilful, persuasive and first-class.

Westminster convention

In the UK, there is a constitutional convention for individual ministers for competency and morality. The debates in UK Parliament are frequently on intellectual substance of policy, and parliamentarians hold themselves in such elegant regard when presenting a speech.

I believe that Pakatan would want its members of parliament and assemblymen to hold themselves to those conventions as long as they are in the august house, even without being a minister.

Leaders of each component party in Pakatan should, therefore, ensure that their candidates are held to account even upon a carelessly enunciated remark. And “celaka” is, sadly, not moral.

Respect for politicians, finally

Pursuant to this is the need to create a new form of respect we have towards our politicians. From the salary hike controversy of MPs and assemblymen last year, it had painted a picture of how these politicians are perceived as “undeserving” of such salary increases (which they actually do), as the rakyat had lost faith in their politicians and would only view the salary hike as another opportunity to exhaust the nation’s resources for personal gain, thanks to BN politicians past and present.

After participating in some MP/ADUN’s work, I daresay that the expectations and workloads are disproportionate to their salary.

Hence and either way, they should be afforded respect that they currently do not have.

We have to remind ourselves that they are servicemen to whom we owe a debt.

And for the time and opportunities they have foregone, nothing short of respect should be returned to their choice of occupation.

Nonetheless, it is a two-way interaction and it is, therefore, imperative that politicians carry out their services with the conduct and manner that deserve such respect in order to change the impression towards politicians.

It is not an easy task, and the uphill battle is made harder especially when BN leaders are consistent violators of the ideals that we hold true since the time the Pakatan candidate pledged to take that sacrificial decision to serve the nation in such turmoil.

But failing to apologise is silly and Rayer’s response had been nothing short of unsatisfactory and unhelpful to the cause thus far.

I recall how Karpal Singh had to persuade Jelutong MP Jeff Ooi’s over his “kucing kurap” remark last year.

From this, I believe that a leader of Karpal Singh’s stature, though unjustly persecuted and baselessly humiliated throughout his political life (as with Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Kit Siang), would recognise the importance of this battle against BN and on creating a new form of respect towards politicians, to hold politicians to good conduct and mannerism.

“Celaka” is plain silly.

* James Chai is a first-year law student.