Vote to stop the slide backwards into feudalism

 

It seems we hit the eight billion population mark on Earth this week. That’s a lot of people.

If each person were to get married to a person of the opposite sex, there’ll be four billion weddings. Great time to be a wedding planner, though perhaps not an undertaker.

The growth comes amid falling birth rates compensated by longer life spans. At some point the human population will peak, but then it will begin an inexorable slide.

Meanwhile, the rich countries will carry on while their population shrinks, longer lifespan notwithstanding, while the poorer nations will grow theirs.

There’ll be less of the Haves, and more of the Have-Nots. It’s not a great future to look forward to.

All this assumes the climate catastrophe, or nuclear war, or viruses and pestilences or just plain tribal conflicts will not do us in earlier. I wouldn’t be betting against any of those given how things are.

We have a very interesting population trend right here in Malaysia, too. We started out with the Malays and aboriginal natives until a few hundred years ago when the colonisers brought in migrants to help run their businesses and industries.

At our independence, the Malay population had become the minority to the total non-Malay population, and even to the Chinese.

I grew up when Chinese people desired, and had, large families. Our local grocery shop owner, Bok Cheng, had nine children, all sons. He must have struck a heavenly lottery, though his wife always looked longingly at other people’s daughters.

I wouldn’t say our multi-racial kampung lived happily with each other in the way some people have painted the “old days”. There were problems then, too, as life was tough for us fishermen and farmers regardless of race, but we helped each other more than we hindered.

Bok Cheng once went bankrupt, and ran off to Kuala Lumpur to escape his creditors. He stayed there with some Malay friends from our kampung, and passed off as a Malay given his flawless Penang Malay accent.

When his shop was being auctioned off, he was helped by many local friends of all races to recover as much of his possessions as he could. He went on to run the shop again, and died a man praised by all.

Good people are good people, no matter what shade or belief they come in.

But the knowledge that the non-Malays outnumbered the Malays, and seeing how the Chinese then were going for large families, spooked the Malays and seared their racial memories with fears of being overwhelmed.

That became the basis of future Malaysian politics; for the Malays, it was calculated and callous exploitation of their insecurities and grievances and fear of losing “privileges”.

Today, Malays outnumber Chinese at least two to one, and the gap is growing given their higher birth rate versus the lower birth rate of the Chinese, and perhaps their higher rate of emigration too.

But the seeds of racial fear implanted decades ago have taken root and poisoned our politics.

It’s all playing out right now as we’re engrossed in the 15th general election, or GE15. And no, we’re not electing generals – that tends to happen in Thailand, Myanmar, the Philippines and maybe Indonesia (and even Singapore actually), though luckily, not Malaysia, which has never had a general as the country’s leader yet!

We had a big election in 2018, the GE14, that brought about a political tsunami – the changing of the guard after six decades of continuous power. Unfortunately, the new government was impregnated with bad seeds from the previous governments, and didn’t last long.

GE15 is clearly the most uncertain of all general elections we’ve ever held. For once, no one is certain who’ll get a clear majority. The consensus seems to be a hung Parliament with much post-result horse trading to create a coalition, or coalition of coalitions, to form a government.

But folks, don’t watch this space for analysis or commentaries on what will happen. I’ll be at a mamak somewhere watching the World Cup. You should as well.

I’ve always hated politics based on race and religion. I’m not an idealistic young man espousing some socio-political homilies about diversity and inclusion, especially in national politics. It’s almost impossible to make it work within a smaller organisation, such as a company, much less a country.

But using race and religion as political ammunition allows for emotion to cloud our judgment. The strongest of emotions tends to be fear, which is easily exploited by politicians. You don’t need a degree in political science from Harvard to be good at this.

Once fear sets in, and while it might hibernate and simmer underneath the surface at times, it can easily be woken up by the right triggers, and politicians are instinctively good at triggering.

I believe in the dictum that power corrupts, hence my belief in checks and balances. We must have a system where, like Ronald Reagan famously said, quoting a Russian proverb, we trust but verify.

We must stop sliding backwards into feudalism. We must have strong systems to keep the politicians in line, such as free and fair elections, strong judicial and administrative systems, and an educated and informed population.

We must not have a winner-take-all environment.

While the angriest with what’s wrong tend to be the middle-class and higher – can’t blame them as they are the ones who pay the bulk of income taxes, whether directly or indirectly – the ones who suffer the most in the long term are those at the bottom.

Being the least educated and poorest, they are the easiest to exploit. Political power then becomes about keeping these people forever fearful, forever poor and needy and hence forever subservient.

And forever keeping their numbers growing by having a high birth rate to produce even more of them to help keep their own exploiters in power and wealth.

Regardless of your beliefs, go out and vote. Pinch your noses if you have to, but vote. Make democracy work, because – imperfect as it is – it’s better than all the other systems. You can’t improve a system unless you believe in it and do something about it.

And the Malays must come to realise that, while politicians care about quantity, we should care more about the quality of life we can build for ourselves and our children. - FMT

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