Let's join the frogs
My daughter was asking me about why in this blue world British people call the French people 'frogs'...
My students told me, simply because those people eat frogs!
In my reading on 'Political Culture' and 'Governance', I was enlightened with the ideals, which of course mainly from the Western sources. Amongst the ideals are the idea of civilised politics, which rooted back to the ideals of democracy; the idea of Individualism; and the idea of freedom. The individualism and freedom were indeed the two major factors dominating any discourses of such topics.
Touqville did talk about 'the tiranny of the majority' in his defence of the individualism value. While Kymlicka, Parekh and Modood discussed extensively about the issue of identity, culture and group's rights. Those issues might be relevant to the Western soil, to be more specifically, the UK, the USA and some European countries. But, the question is, does it applies in elsewhere too?
What about Malaysia ?
I am not a staunch cultural relativist, but I do believe in co-existence and cohesion. Whilst in the same vein, I appreciated Said's ideals on culture and imperialism. World is so beautiful just to be painted with two colours.
But, I totally regret and annoyed with the current 'political culture' in Malaysia. I have long frustrated with the corruptions and the curse of identity politics in Malaysia. But this time I really confused about the corruption happens to the system rather to the people.
The PR primier was eagerly announced that he will establish a new 'Malaysia' with a new Malaysian spirit on the 16th of September 2008. It was a good news for anybody who keep waiting for change. But the means to be utilised was not noble. It was not a secret that circa 40 BN MPs will jump to the bandwagon of the PR, hence we got a new government. After the long wait...we were dissapointed.
It was just today, Perak has shocked the world. BN is going to establish their new state govt. in perak after 4 ADUN jumped out from their parties leaving the current PR coalition govt. without the sufficient number to keep themselves in power. The jumping culture! welcome to the new political culture of Malaysia, the jumping politics...
I hope not one day the Singaporeans and the Indonesians will call the Malaysians 'frogs', simply because the jumping culture has became the dominant norms in the political field.
My concern is, will they jump without any incentives?
Read 'Freakonomics' by Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner!
My daughter was asking me about why in this blue world British people call the French people 'frogs'...
My students told me, simply because those people eat frogs!
In my reading on 'Political Culture' and 'Governance', I was enlightened with the ideals, which of course mainly from the Western sources. Amongst the ideals are the idea of civilised politics, which rooted back to the ideals of democracy; the idea of Individualism; and the idea of freedom. The individualism and freedom were indeed the two major factors dominating any discourses of such topics.
Touqville did talk about 'the tiranny of the majority' in his defence of the individualism value. While Kymlicka, Parekh and Modood discussed extensively about the issue of identity, culture and group's rights. Those issues might be relevant to the Western soil, to be more specifically, the UK, the USA and some European countries. But, the question is, does it applies in elsewhere too?
What about Malaysia ?
I am not a staunch cultural relativist, but I do believe in co-existence and cohesion. Whilst in the same vein, I appreciated Said's ideals on culture and imperialism. World is so beautiful just to be painted with two colours.
But, I totally regret and annoyed with the current 'political culture' in Malaysia. I have long frustrated with the corruptions and the curse of identity politics in Malaysia. But this time I really confused about the corruption happens to the system rather to the people.
The PR primier was eagerly announced that he will establish a new 'Malaysia' with a new Malaysian spirit on the 16th of September 2008. It was a good news for anybody who keep waiting for change. But the means to be utilised was not noble. It was not a secret that circa 40 BN MPs will jump to the bandwagon of the PR, hence we got a new government. After the long wait...we were dissapointed.
It was just today, Perak has shocked the world. BN is going to establish their new state govt. in perak after 4 ADUN jumped out from their parties leaving the current PR coalition govt. without the sufficient number to keep themselves in power. The jumping culture! welcome to the new political culture of Malaysia, the jumping politics...
I hope not one day the Singaporeans and the Indonesians will call the Malaysians 'frogs', simply because the jumping culture has became the dominant norms in the political field.
My concern is, will they jump without any incentives?
Read 'Freakonomics' by Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner!
Maszlee
* Tapi respek sama sekumpulan manusia yang konsisten dengan fahaman mereka. Sedang rakyat sibuk dengan kemelut Palestin dan politik tanah air pun, nafas mereka tetap berapi menegakkan pemikiran ortodoks dan pengamalan sempit agama serta menolak segala usaha pembaharuan!
There was unprecedented political scuffle in Malaysia amid people’s fidgety of global economic recession. PR government in Perak collapsed all of sudden. Three of their assemblymen quit the party while the Umno turn to PKR, Bota assemblyman now is turning back to Umno. It is funny to see this kind of ‘hopping’ joke which he joined PKR just less than 10 days!
ReplyDeleteDid they think they can playing fools with the rakyat's trust by freely hopping here and there without cares the rakyat's feelings? Is this action purposely for the sake of rakyat interest? What can I say, such an action is a mockery to the young generation! But PKR can’t be emotionally claim that such defection is a breach of rakyat trust as they drew first blood by making overtures towards elected BN reps following last year’s election. For BN, they better take Tun’s advice into thorough consideration for next general election survivals.
“Apakah UMNO begitu terdesak sehingga tidak dapat tunggu keputusan mahkamah berkenaan tuduhan terhadap mereka sebelum menerima mereka? Jika diterima sekarang dan kemudian mereka didapati tidak bersalah maka Kerajaan pimpinan UMNO (lebih kurang) akan dituduh mempengaruhi mahkamah. Benar tidak benar bukan soalnya. Pada pandangan masyarakat tuduhan ini tetap akan dipercayai. Ia akan punyai kesan dalam PRU13”
(Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad)
brother maszlee, you have to be very careful the ideas you mention in you article have historical and ideological baggage and you shld look to hamza tzortis debates to know more about this
ReplyDeletehttp://hamzatzortzis.blogspot.com/
2nd, why is it that we continue to look at existing systems in the muslim world? what does one expect from the clonial british system in malaysia, do we expect it to deliver shariah? if we do, we dont understand reality or politics- the kufr system needs to be uprooted completely, this will only bring change to malaysia and the ummah at large.
lets discuss this specifically to malaysia?