Tunisia and political opportunism in Malaysia

 

When revolution (it was that actually), took place in Tunisia recently, it sent shivers to all the despotic rulers around the Arab region. It also sent shivers to those western powers notably Europe and America on the real possibilities that those countries which they supported, could call also succumb to revolution.

Because in these countries, there are many things similar to Tunisia, oppressive government, despotic rulers, extensive poverty, schisms in society, rampant corruption, abuse of power and so forth. The USA chiefly, finds it a necessary evil to support and help maintain rulers of these countries, because they are friendly to USA and her interest. America it seems is obsessed at propping up benevolent dictatorships as bulwark states to Iran for instance.

The chief enemy to America, for which the price to contain the enemy is of no consequence, is the rise of political Islam. This is the chief enemy- because Islam does not only pose a formidable challenge to America's messianic mission to spread western democracies, but Islamism can also be a possible means to shift entire societies to retrogressive eras. America, guardian of universal values, democracy, reason and modernity will have none of the ear chopping, hands cutting, eyes skewering and honor killing stuff. These are stuffs of a barbaric era.

This is the fear which America is interested to cultivate. Stop political Islam because Political Islam will push back modernity and modernity is what the world needs. It serves American interests to see that the world is engulfed in a schizophrenic instant fear of anything Islam, Islamism or Islamic. (Religion, its political variants and its features).

The way America sets about doing this, i.e. spreading universal values, reason and rationality is not entirely virtuous. The truth perhaps is, the majority of people would prefer and are eager to live under liberal democracies where people live a normal life. The reason why America is allowed a wide berth to carry out its democratizing ideals, apart from it being a super military power and has the means to enforce submission, is because, the universal values it talked about are in resonance with what normal people ACTUALLY want. And normal people do indeed want normalcy.

How do you stop the rise of Political Islam?

America can't simply march into other countries and impose its sense of moral tyranny. Of course it has done just that in modern times; in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is trying to achieve this imposition of universal values through American democracy by way of bombing and napalming entire villages and cities. The cost of all these- civilian deaths, wanton destruction are just collateral damage to the higher agenda of setting up democracies upholding universal values, rationality and modernity. To continue doing this, America risks universal condemnation. There is nothing we can do, if entire people of any one nation, choose to lead a life and lifestyle that affronts American values.

So it does the indirect means. Prop up tyrannical and satellite governments in the form of dictatorships, one party state, military rule as long as American interests first and universal values second, are also carried out.

So what do you offer the world? A sort of political Phillips curve. Now, economists will remember, that the Phillips curve described a phenomenon whereby a trade-off occurs between unemployment and inflation. Lower unemployment is possible at the cost of higher inflation. It was a novel observation at one point in time.

The same principle applies when America and it satellite subscribers see Islam. There is a Phillips Curve version between the rate of modernity and the rate of Islamism. Islamism is the rise of Islamic political consciousness. Higher and more modernity is only possible when the rise of Islamism is cut down.

Closer to home- that sense of paranoiac fear that America wants to create, is easily lapped up by self-serving writers and dark propagandists. Any political party bearing the torch of political Islam is readily equated with the evil of Islamic politics which America wants to stop.

And in Malaysia, the only want party that seeks to establish political Islam is PAS. Hence PAS becomes the logical and clear target of venomous attacks, the political bombing and napalming. Writers of sorts, seizing on the fact, that indeed, many of the worst regimes and most backward states are ruled by Islamic tyrants and proponents of a return to the dark ages are Muslim, are pushing for a general acceptance that anything PAS brings, must be rejected off hand.

How do you do this? By insisting that any rule, other than Islamic rule is better and society is better off without political Islam. Never mind some of the abuses of power, the daily grind of corruption exposed, the rape on the judiciary and perversion of justice, the clear pillage of the treasury and the country's wealth. Just like the price America pays to ensure the spread of liberal democracy, reason and modernity, these are mere collateral damages to our country.

Do we accept this kind of perverted reasoning?