The Government’s worse enemies- public apathy and cynicism.

 

The worse enemy faced by the government of the day? Public apathy and cynicism.

The ultimate decision makers influencing the outcome of any elections are the majority. They are at once unidentifiable yet recognizable as an entity powerful enough to affect the life of a government.

Simply identified as just the majority. A boon and yet also a curse. A boon if they can be kept submissive, a curse when their consciousness and awareness are no longer controllable. They are natural cynics. I shall explain how.

They don't see the big picture. Not because they are not as smart as the banquet room crowd, but because they refused to be browbeaten and pushed over by the opinions of their more sophisticated brethren. They refuse to accept one that is foisted upon them. Their world view is shaped according to a black and white paradigm. Simple and operational. Yes or no.

Hence for example in the ongoing case involving Anwar Ibrahim, they think it's all some conspiracy hatched by power seekers. People are already fed up, hearing the same old story about being butt rammed. Has the government nothing else to do? And people are talking with increasing loudness. Is this the way the government of the day handles Anwar Ibrahim? It has nothing in its rotten arsenal to overcome Anwar Ibrahim but prey on his foible?

In my personal opinion, this is a battle that the government may win but will lose a war for. People generally believe that Anwar has this habit since his college days. He is a faggot, a gay, but so what? Many of his classmates and schoolmates at MCKK say he isn't. so we don't actually know.

But just for argument sake- assume that he is. All the people who have been associated with him were all the softie types- strengthening suspicions that maybe Anwar does have a liking for the effeminate boys. His latest accuser, whom he called the coffee boy is no different.

But here is what the men in the street are talking. Yes Anwar has got this habit but it becomes a wrong censored by our laws and society only when it became public- i.e. the victim who was a willing participant in the first instance, decided to squeal. If Saiful the beautiful coffee boy had not squeaked as the rat he is, then the sin remains between Anwar and Saiful. Society is none the worse off. The people are saying that if but for this habit, they see Anwar as a good leader.

Further, here is how the mind of the man in street thinks. There must be some shadowy power behind Saiful encouraging him to the seductive partner. The powers that be, are fully aware of Anwar's sexual preferences. So they planted a jambu boy in Anwar's camp telling him if ever Anwar were to make advances of the sexual kind, he is to play along. For that he will be paid handsomely. Saiful of course is known as jambu in any case such that, to place him in sexual harm's way wasn't really that despicable.

I am at a loss to explain the simple logic of the men in the street. I am not going to be judgmental on the general perceptions of the people. If they think along these lines, I am not sure the government of the day can win the natural cynics of the majority.

What can we learn from practice? To my mind it is this. People are generally unmoved by bizarre actions taken by the government. If they are not going to be moved to accept a bizarre storyline involving Anwar Ibrahim, they will be equally unmoved by the bizarre and grandiose economic schemes of the government.

Put simply, they don't care unless actions by the government bring immediate perceptible changes in their daily lives, they are unlikely to be influenced by government initiatives. Indeed they see what the government is doing, is to find 1001 excuses to justify using tax payers money.

So Idris Jala can impress whoever are gullible; Najib can even build a MRT directly to his official residence, buy a nuclear submarine, built a nuclear plant, whatever- people just don't give a damn anymore. What can the government do to win people over? So to paraphrase the Sarawakian, no hope for the future, no power for the present.