I could have sworn that not too long ago the future for regional democracy looked brighter. I know - this is a region with a history of one-party Communist regimes (Vietnam, Laos and most notoriously Cambodia's Khmer Rouge), military dictatorships (Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar) and parliamentary authoritarianism (hands up Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Lee Kuan Yew).
However, the 2010s saw some seismic election results that seemed to herald brighter days ahead. When Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party scored a thumping win on Nov 8, 2015, to bring the long time dictatorship in Myanmar to an end, liberal presidents such as Benigno Aquino III and Jokowi were already in place in the Philippines and Indonesia.
In Malaysia too, we had an apparent dawn of democratic expression when the 61-year-old Umno grip on the country was ended in May 2018. However, what these happy occasions seemed to disguise was that the new reformist administrations did not enjoy strong mandates for change and often had their hands tied.
In Malaysia, one wonders how many of the Pakatan Harapan MPs elected in 2018 were genuinely committed to multi-racialism and an anti-corruption agenda. By the looks of things, I am not even sure if 20 of 222 current MPs qualify. Certainly, if the Trojan horses include the prime minister and the home minister, then an administration is almost certain to fail.
And yet all this pales in comparison with the situation in Myanmar where a military dictatorship held sway from 1962 until handing over power in 2015 to the NLD. Even then, the military kept 25 percent of parliamentary seats for itself, fielded its own proxy party and had earlier passed a law to ensure that Suu Kyi herself could not be president.
After five years of an uneasy cohabitation, which included yet another landslide election win for NLD three months ago when it won 396 of the 498 contested seats, the Myanmar military snapped and reclaimed absolute power, jailing Suu Kyi and other government leaders in pre-dawn raids.
Suu Kyi's stock has fallen internationally due to her appalling failure to defend Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority, but tens of thousands of people have been rallying across Myanmar to denounce the coup and demand the release of their beloved leader in what are the biggest protests since the 2007 Saffron Revolution by Myanmar's monks helped lead to democratic reforms.
Say what you will - it's an inspiring sight, to see crowds defying the military and the Covid-19 pandemic to gather in Yangon and other big cities sporting red shirts, flags and balloons (the colour of NLD) and chanting "We don't want military dictatorship! We want democracy!"
In July 2007, I interviewed Thant Myint-U, the grandson of former United Nations secretary-general U Thant, a historian who had just published The River of Lost Footsteps: The Histories of Burma.
He mourned the decades lost to dictatorship and repressive policies.
"There is no idyllic, timeless Burma anywhere - only a country which has undergone massive social and political upheaval, sixty years of civil war and more than thirty years of intellectual as well as economic isolation," the author and historian told me then.
This week he wrote that the anti-coup protests show every sign of gaining steam. "On the one hand, given the history, we can well expect the reaction to come.
"But Myanmar society is completely different from 1988 (when Suu Kyi and NLD won elections that were scrapped) and even 2007.
"I have tremendous faith in today's younger generation. Anything is possible," he wrote on Facebook over the weekend.
It remains to be seen how long General Min Aung Hlaing will remain at the helm. He was supposed to retire as army chief in 2016 but stalled. He has used and abused his position as military chief, and his family has business ties everywhere.
Incidentally, when Malaysia's Foreign Ministry moved to condemn the coup and oppose the imposition of a state of emergency, the irony was not lost on ordinary Malaysians. Neither was the fact that we are assailing Suu Kyi over the Rohingya, but we have turned them away in boats at sea and failed to prosecute our enforcement officials for the atrocity of the jungle death camps at Wang Kelian where scores of Rohingya died.
Not to mention the concern raised by human rights group Justice for Myanmar that companies that are doing business in Myanmar, including from Malaysia, may inadvertently benefit Myanmar's military.
I also had a chat with Cod Satrusayang, Thai Enquirer editor-in-chief over the weekend about the situation in Thailand, where the military has also constantly gotten in the way of democratic progress, toppling elected governments on numerous occasions, and most recently, banning the wildly popular Future Forward party, while using lese majeste laws to suppress dissent.
Despite all this, Thais made their views clear during large protests towards the tail end of 2020 – they want to be heard and live in a free and modern nation.
"The situation in Thailand is fluid, and it's further complicated by the pandemic. It's been start and go, but the fact that the student protesters have broached previously taboo topics is already a huge step," Cod told me.
"No matter what happens going forward, the youth are almost unanimously progressive because of the abuse they've suffered at the hands of the military-backed government," he added optimistically.
Well, what about us then? Just like our fellow Asean countries, we have seen that a little bit of liberalism and openness threatens the establishment and provokes a right-wing backlash.
Are we then to accept that the 2018 vote was just a flash in the pan?
Are we to be silenced by the emergency and the suspension of Parliament? Are we to allow ex-attorney general Tommy Thomas and suspended judge Hamid Sultan Abu Backer to be silenced when they expose improper practices?
By forming the new group Muda, our young have shown impatience with a deadlocked system where our vote doesn't seem to matter. But guess what - even their registration has been blocked!
Ultimately we are still light years ahead of the most stricken of our neighbours like Myanmar. But as despondent as we have been over the last year – now is not the time to give up.
In fact, on the matter of defending democracy against authoritarian rule, there is never a good time to give up the fight.
MARTIN VENGADESAN is a Malaysiakini team member. - Mkini
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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