Anwar and his Democracy

One commentator scolded me for offering quotes by writers. He/she does not know it. It is his idol that is doing that. I am re quoting the intellectual luminaries cited by Anwar Ibrahim. That means he has not read the Anwar article. He has to find it. If he did, then he would know, the one who quoted Locke, Voltaire and Amartya Sen is Anwar.

I can't fault others for using different approaches in condemning Anwar. I don't agree but they have chosen their own style perhaps to counter supporters of Anwar writing in horrid style. So its tit for tat.

That commentator must be young in age. He does not know the man he adores has this penchant of associating with great thinkers. In the past, names like Al Maududi, Maryaam Jameelah, Mohd Asad, Syed Hoessein Nasr, would come out easily from Anwar's lips. That would send girls into a frenzy. Even Hassan alBana. Greatness by association.

I am astounded by the countless assertions saying that Anwar has his faults and all that. What do they mean? This is precisely the reason why we end up with useless UMNO and BN leaders. We keep finding excuses and stop ourselves from demanding the highest quality. So PKR supporters speak of change when they do so with this kind of warped thinking. If you people have this kind of thinking, you end up with PKR leaders who are mirror images of the people whom you despised. Then you become people whom Frantz Fanon wrote- the oppressed after overthrowing the oppressors, become the oppressors.

If you want change then you set high standards. If you go on finding excuses and hiding behind the tired rationalizing of …"he has his faults, but that's ok, he is still the best"- you are lying to yourself. You will end up eventually where you started.

We are consumers really-except we consume the products of politics. If we accommodate mediocrity, we lower our standards, we have not changed really. So all this talk about changing without demanding stringent standards is all bullshit. It's just brinkmanship. So the wailings of people like Schenker and Greenbottle et all are just pretentious posturing. We don't see PKR supporters criticizing their leadership openly as many of us do to UMNO.

Let us see why it is important for Anwar to insist we have failed as a democracy.

For Anwar, the promoters of Asian Values version of universal democracy, have offered the world a false discourse. Anwar HAS to discredit the localized version of democracies. It has to be so in order for Anwar to categorize those people who do not share his unabashed embrace of universal democracy. It also has to be, because this bastardized version of democracy allowed these rogue democracies to incarcerate people, abuse freedom, violate human rights including presumably a person's rights to express whatever sexual inclinations.

This for Anwar:-

the false discourse of "Asian values" merely shows how far authoritarian rulers, along with their cronies and apologists, will go in order to justify and preserve their rule. Although autocrats remain entrenched in some places, their influence over the masses is waning, and it is undeniable that Asian peoples have demonstrated not only their desire to promote democratic principles, but also their ability to sustain democratic institutions and freedoms.

Hence for Anwar those rulers who promote the Asian values version of democracy do so in order to stay in power. but he went further to say, that the influence of these Asian values version of democracies is waning.

Why does he seem to contradict himself? Because in most of these rogue democracies, there is tremendous economic development and stability. Sometimes stability becomes the more important reason why some of the rogue democracies is supported by the citadels of liberal democracies of the West. Then he will able to say, those development come about because there is more liberal democracy.

What do people want really?

People want economic development first and foremost. They know that is the route to human decency. They don't want to discuss esoteric ideas of Voltaire or Locke or whoever. But Anwar can't talk about local economic development. Because then, the issue loses universal appeal and that makes it impossible for him to harness universal concern and interest. So he talks in the language of universal ideas- democracy and such things. The majority of the people he talks to in Washington or elsewhere don't even know where Malaysia is.

People want decent living- food on the table, clothing, work, education, and a future. So you talk about the universalism of liberal democracy- that's humdrum to them.

People don't care for the niceties and the intellectual delineation of the ideas of democracy. They don't care two hoots about the different shades of democracy. What they do care about is whether the government of the day can bring economic development. Can it manage the economy- create jobs, create opportunities for them to own affordable homes, education, security at home and abroad. Their primary concern is economic development. This is the number one issue. People reject the universalism of democracy if it means putting on the worshipping altar esoteric ideas at the expense of satisfying economic wants.

 

Society breaks down then not because they don't adopt pure liberal democracy as conceptualized in the west- they break down because whatever form of government failed to satisfy economic wants. As Anwar would like it, society breaks down because they have less democracy. This itself is a false discourse( his favourite term) – but we have to understand that he chooses his battle ground well as he would be severely challenged if he had chosen lack of economic development as a point to argue.

 

So what can UMNO do? Know what the people want. They want good leadership. They want clean leadership. They want a good government. UMNO has to show one or two examples of genuine success. That is sufficient to steal the thunder from Anwar's world stage performance. What kind of success? If this government stands for no corruption, get the big names. If transparent, make open tender a must. Create several successful economic showcases that have ordinary people as the principal actors. Dispel the notion of One Malaysia is for certain people, and the other Malaysia for the rest.

Do these fast and Anwar has no answer to these. If you don't, others will do that.