For Malaysians, by Malaysians

 

From Fatimah Tajuddin

To be honest, I have lost the motivation to care about Merdeka or Malaysia Day.

This lack of emotion became pronounced after the #kerajaangagal fiasco, the replacement of Muhyiddin Yassin by yet another prime minister that I did not vote for and the retention of ministers who failed spectacularly in important portfolios such as education, health and women, family and community development.

I was frustrated and disenchanted by the dysfunction demonstrated by the government of the day and how it has affected my mental health.

Thus, I have been questioning the significance of politicians’ roles and functions in our social structure and wondering where we are heading as a nation.

But ordinary Malaysians seem to be able to get their act together and address many of the issues that these politicians do not care to address.

Let me highlight several everyday efforts that I find inspiring.

Let’s begin with how the rakyat effectively played their role in public advocacy, such as in welfare and education.

The most recent was the #BenderaPutih or #RakyatJagaRakyat movements. These created awareness and solidarity that caused many Malaysians to look out for white flags in their neighbourhoods.

The white flag movement was so swift and organic in its execution that it left politicians with no time to react.

And then there are the efforts of various education NGOs such as Imagined Malaysia, Undi18 and Architects of Diversity which have been proactive in providing public education through social media and workshops to facilitate the unlearning and relearning of our history and ethnic relations and to improve political literacy.

These NGOs have been providing the youths the opportunity and space to critically discuss and learn about our collective history, ethnic relations and political system from capable and qualified educators.

They are addressing the myriad unresolved issues that the education ministry has failed to address.

There were two significant social protests worth mentioning. The #HartalDoktorKontrak and #Lawan protests were a result of the grievances of Malaysians over the government’s mishandling of the pandemic in terms of health strategies, SOPs and our future in general.

Protests play an important role in society. They enable people to publicly express dissatisfaction when all officially sanctioned avenues have been exhausted.

To make matters worse, we were without a functioning Parliament for seven months and this suspension was legitimised by the declaration of a state of emergency. It would seem that the more crises we have, the more non-functioning our Parliament becomes.

I would also like to highlight the important role of criticism in keeping the government in check. Many of those who voiced criticism were able not only to express their grievances but to do it creatively.

For example, one can appreciate political satire by individuals such as Fahmi Reza, Zunar and Douglas Lim. The bold group of Pangrok Sulap artists have also expressed dissent through their incredible artwork.

Of equal poignancy and profundity is the Merdeka animated music video titled Demi Cinta, which Petronas launched recently. It captures the individual struggles of the rakyat and the sense of solidarity transcending ethnic boundaries to survive the pandemic collectively even when our leaders have failed us.

The video did not even show a single character representing a politician or political leader. A subtle but powerful criticism of the political institution, I dare say.

In closing, I would like to share two important frameworks that have helped me make sense of how we Malaysians have functioned as a society.

Imagine the whole of Malaysia as a body, with its various organs of individuals and social institutions making up the organism that we call Malaysia. When all the organs are able to function effectively and are interconnected, we have what Emile Durkheim refers to as cohesion.

But social cohesion will not materialise if we just keep quiet and sweep unresolved social conflicts and political failures under the rug or bury them. We need to balance the social cohesion framework with the conflict framework.

Karl Marx, a conflict sociologist, advocated social change by calling out abuses of power and inequalities so that we can remind dysfunctional individuals and social institutions to restore their roles or change with the times and the needs of society.

After connecting these two frameworks to make sense of the everyday efforts of the rakyat, I can’t help but ask another question.

If the rakyat can function cohesively, why do we need politicians to represent us? If that question is too direct, consider this: If the rakyat can function cohesively, then what kind of politicians do we need?

Perhaps politicians can reflect on these questions, too, if they care enough about the rakyat. - FMT

Fatimah Tajuddin is an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.