Of the Ukraine war, use of Malay, and comedians in politics

 

What interesting times we’re in. There’s a war in Europe, being covered breathlessly by the news channels and social media. I sometimes feel like I’m watching a video game with super realistic special effects.

I don’t want to trivialise the war. There hasn’t been a conflict like this in Europe since the end of World War 2, and stakes are high, as is the suffering of those caught in it.

While not taking sides (Go Ukraine!), I’m sobered by the realisation that our quiet everyday life could change so easily and drastically. One day we’re enjoying our roti canai, the next we’re war refugees.

But I enjoy hearing the “talking head” experts on the news channels. Such experts range from deskbound analysts with no experience of war and conflict but lots of opinions (hey CNN, I’m available), to actual players current and past, such as statesmen, diplomats and generals.

Many of these experts are very highly educated, including the military leaders. Some have advanced graduate degrees such as PhDs from very prestigious universities, and even after retirement are still deeply involved in various matters.

I was impressed by the ex-prime minister of Finland, who speaks intelligently in perfect English, and is apparently pursuing a career as a professor since leaving politics. Neither his PhD nor his professorship are honorary by the looks of it.

Politicians with real jobs

In Malaysia, meanwhile, politics itself is a career. A young person starts out wanting to change society, enters politics and immediately becomes a permanent fixture because he has no other skills or qualifications to survive in the real world.

The latest generation of politicians don’t even bother about the changing society part and go directly to the get rich part. And there seems to be more of them every day, and very few with advanced graduate degrees, except for some mail-order ones.

When they’re out of power, they prance around like spoiled, and soiled, peacocks calling each other nasty names, fighting viciously to get back into power. Politics comes first; the nation be damned.

Such “permanent” politicians are dangerous as they make political positions attractive to charlatans and hustlers. If these people have no other skills to earn a living, they’ll fight tooth and nail to cling on to their political power.

So rich they won’t go

Given that politics in Malaysia (and apparently in Russia and Ukraine too) can make you very rich, then you have the situation where nobody wants to leave politics no matter what.

The Ukrainian president started out as a comedian who rode the wave of popular support (or funded by the CIA, depending on your point of view) to the top Ukrainian office.

He’ll have something to fall back on when he leaves office, assuming that doesn’t happen at the muzzle of a Russian gun. He’ll return to being a comedian making jokes about politicians, which was probably how he became a president in the first place.

It’ll be a tougher challenge for our own political leaders, who start out as politicians and inadvertently end up as comedians.

Leadership and real brains

I was also impressed by a senior EU leader who speaks many languages – I heard English, Spanish and French among others. He has several degrees, including a master’s in applied maths from Stanford University!

Now, even if you don’t agree with what they say – and entering politics fries much of your brain cells – the educated ones can still string an argument with some logic and coherence, something we don’t see much back home.

By the way, not all foreign leaders are intelligent. Past and current leaders of the two largest English-speaking democracies have shown that even in such “advanced” societies, lying and cheating imbeciles can also end up on top.

Having brought up the matter of languages spoken at international forums, I must comment on the recent directive by our prime minister for Malay to be spoken at international forums by our government representatives to ensure it gets the respect it deserves.

Time for Bahasa Nusantara?

However, a language is only respected if the people who speak it are respected, and not because we push it up people’s noses and say “respect us”. The world won’t speak Malay just because we “elevate” it to international forums.

Malay is clearly the most widely spoken language in South East Asia, thanks to its variant Bahasa Indonesia. The prime minister wants to make it an official language of Asean, which is easy as it would just require a few people to sign a piece of paper.

But the Thais won’t be happy with it, nor the Filipinos or the Vietnamese. I’d think if they have to accept a foreign language, they’d rather go with something neutral such as English.

I’ve actually suggested that Malaysia work with Indonesia to advance Malay as a regional and even global language. We can call it “Bahasa Nusantara” to skirt the issue of is it Malaysian or Indonesian? Remember, you heard it here first.

The path towards achieving this particular KPI is not that simple, and neither is it a very important one in our list of priorities right now, regardless of whose KPI it is.

Pandering to kampung heroes

What worries me is the prime minister’s directive sends a strong signal to Malaysians that English is not important, exacerbating the already bad problem of our poor and deteriorating hold on a critical business advantage – our traditionally strong command of English.

It’s especially bad when we know the main reason for this directive is that many of our leaders are barely literate, in spite of whatever qualification they may, or claim to, have.

These “kampung heroes” approach the world stage like a scared deer caught in the headlights, intimidated by the occasions they find themselves in. They can’t wait to return home and be all puffed up again with self-importance in our bodek culture.

And while in Malaysia, I guess ministers would have to speak in Bahasa Malaysia even with other English speaking visitors too? Meetings will all be twice as long as everything is translated back and forth. Would Arabic speaking ministers (whose numbers seem to grow) also speak in Malay when they entertain Middle Eastern visitors?

Instead of our prime minister telling our ministers to buck up and improve their English (or Spanish, or French, or even Mandarin) so that they can represent Malaysia more effectively, we have taken the usual easy steps – changing the rules to favour us.

While this may work in local politics, it doesn’t work in the real world. It would make it hard for us to communicate and negotiate with others, and people will see through the charade and know the real reason why we changed the rules.

And they will laugh at us, cementing the fact that our leaders are indeed comedians. -FMT

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