Adam Adli gets the problem, will he be part of the solution?

 

“I'm tired of being crushed under the weight of greedy men who believe in nothing.”

-Jackson ‘Jax’ Teller ‘Sons of Anarchy’

If you consider life a war, youths are on the frontlines. Youths are the demographic that more often than not are hardest hit by the policies and political and religious stratagems of the old people who sulk in the corridors of power.

Adam Adli Abdul Halim, PKR’s newly-minted Youth chief, should know a thing or two about serving on the frontlines. His recent public comments on the youth vote are a clear-eyed expression of how tenuous the political reality is for Pakatan Harapan.

Harapan and its partisans have always suffered from the delusion that the youth vote in Malaysia was a panacea to the political problems they (including Umno/BN and PN) created and Harapan arrogantly assumed that the youth vote was with them. They offered no evidence beyond aping cultural and political rhetoric imported from Western culture wars.

The youth vote was always problematic for me. Forget about Umno, but PAS political and religious operatives told me they welcomed the youth vote – even if youths did not vote for them – because the youths from the majority polity were already exposed to the religious indoctrination by the state.

PAS’ power is not in its electoral victory but in its ability to influence policy that dismantles the crumbling secular guardrails in place. This means that all young people have to do is vote for any type of Malay political party, even the so-called multiracial parties.

PAS’ agenda would be served by political operatives who have no desire for a secular alternative, believing that hegemonic control of the way people think (especially young people) is the key to the kingdom, here on earth.

The Arabisation process is bearing fruit and the decades of religious and political malfeasances by the Umno state and the enabling of extremist religious sentiments in the guise of populist policies have created a generation of young people who viewed religious dogma on equal footing as secular laws or worse, believed the former trumped the latter.

Destruction of the Left

Meanwhile, the opposition in its various incarnations did nothing to present an alternative narrative when it comes to social policies, but more importantly, reinforced certain religious and cultural narratives when they attained power.

If youths are not progressive, it is because there has been an agenda by the state to ensure that they remain myopic when it comes to their religious and cultural beliefs.

More importantly, if youths are apathetic, it is because they believe – and who could blame them – that nothing really changes when it comes to the political landscape in this country.

Keep in mind, there was a deliberate and successful attempt to destroy the left in this country which, if it was not successful, would have ensured at the very least a generation of youth who were at least leaning left or open to the kind of progressive ideas that Harapan claims to have. 

PAS, for instance, had deep leftist roots which have been completely poisoned and that bastion of Malayness – Utusan Malaysia – was at one time considered a “pinko” news organ.

While the state is attempting to remind everyone how important the Malays are to this land, forgotten are patriots like Said Zahari, who understood what the struggle for all Malaysians was about. You certainly would not hear about him in the pantheon of right-wing charlatans that the state glorifies.

Hypocrisy not lost on youth

The Bangsa Malaysia kool-aid may work on urban youth, especially the non-Malay youths, but the hypocritical actions of those who promulgate such propaganda are not lost on the youth demographic that holds the most influence.

Add to this, the sustained funding by supposedly secular political parties of the religious bureaucracy in the hopes of Malay/Muslim votes has enabled a certain type of religious bureaucrat to have influence over the national narrative.

Adam claimed he respected “Muda leader Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman’s abilities as a politician”, but Syed Saddiq’s abilities as a politician are exactly the problem when it comes to reinforcing certain values which enable extreme religious sentiment.

Did anyone else find it hilarious that Minister Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman, when he was youth and sports minister, vowed to defend the freedom of speech of a doctor who wrote an anti-LGBTQ polemic but remained strangely quiet when it came to the freedom of speech of Fadiah Nadwa Fikri and Asheeq Ali Sethi Alivi?

Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman

This should tell you something about the politics at play or maybe even the kind of prejudices that are acceptable by the ruling elite in the country.

This is not about the LGBTQ issue but rather about how a supposedly progressive political operative like Syed Saddiq would defend the free speech rights of this doctor but would not defend the rights of young people who are pointing out that the emperor has no clothes.

This tactic is directly from the playbook of extremists who would use democratic rights and norms for themselves but would sanction others from availing themselves of those same rights.

‘Youth programmes’

In addition, please forget about all these youth programmes that various governments have come up with in lieu of asking young people what they want and need. What are youth governmental programmes really about?

These programmes exist to brainwash young people into thinking that the government is a benign entity which should be supported because – depending on the quality and efficacy of said programmes – governments bring some sort of benefit to their lives. Whatever they receive in terms of experience or skill sets is built upon a foundation of propaganda.

So, there are two main problems when it comes to the youth vote in the country. The first is that the system – the establishment and the opposition – is invested in suppressing youths, especially the youths from the majority polity, through religious and racial programming.

Adam said, “(The youth’s political views are) not necessarily what they see on social media, but rather, what they discuss with their family, what their teachers told them in school, and what their friends and neighbours talk about every day.”

Which brings us to the second point; there has never really been a secular and truly multiracial alternative for young people to gravitate to.

While Harapan engages in the kind of identity politics they accuse Umno/BN/PN of doing, what they should have been doing is planting the seeds amongst youth voters of an alternative political reality to which they gravitate, even if it means losing elections.

Grabbing onto anyone to retain or get power just feeds into the cynicism of young people.

I sincerely hope that Adam is one of those youth leaders who do not forget that what brought them to politics was a desire to change the system for the better instead of one of the legions of youth leaders who confuse greed for political power with pragmatism and maturity.

We will know soon enough. - Mkini

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.