Scary Clown

It was Aidilfitri 2020 yesterday. I met one relative yesterday, my cousin. And it was his phone call right after I woke up, when I was hungry that I decided to head to his place to eat roti canai and kari daging. It was actually one of the best Aidilfitri I have ever had. I had time to reflect on things. This Aidilfitri, with the Movement Control Order, is one which I spent mostly on my own, just like the Ramadan and the month preceding it. 

Free time is dangerous because it makes people think and that's why any administration would want to fill even the smallest of time to be filled with some kind of activity so the workers wouldn't even have the time to think. Those who don't think are generally easier to be controlled and manipulated because their thinking patterns are predictable, just like the rest of the herd. I, on the other hand, did some thinking. Just some.

Even to me, the fall of Pakatan Harapan is not so much a mystery. It had it coming in so many ways but I just could not put my finger on what or why exactly it happened. Till this was being written, I still don't have the total explanation to what happened but I do have some large ideas (palataoism), which is open for debate.

A big chunk of the Pakatan Harapan leaders are left winger liberals. Liberals tend to be high in “openness,” meaning willing to consider or speculate about new ideas. They take one idea and add it to another to create something new. They are our entrepreneurs and artists. But they tend to be low on conscientiousness, attention to detail, follow-through. So liberals are not good at running the organizations that they create. They cannot implement their ideas and this is why they were for the most, unable to even to do anything that is really worthwhile to be remembered about. 

Conservatives, on the other hand tend to be good at managing structures that other people created.Liberals and conservatives tend to look down at each other in business as well as in politics. Liberals scoff at the conservatives trying to understand the deeper meaning of religion or a deeper aspect of their race, focused on getting all the details right. Conservatives chaff at liberals who want to begin new ideas when they haven't done the basic things in fixing what their ideas actually are because it's more likely some idea they can't really explain. 

We need both: new things, and management of old things. The key to success in society is keeping liberals and conservatives talking to one another. That’s why society so needs free speech. The way the democrats fights for moral superiority with the conservatives in the US have shown how extreme politicking and long winded hatred can be damaging to a country. With covid19 killing Americans more than any other country in the world, the narrative of the 2 sides differ along the lines of closure of businesses to prevent further outbreak. While the liberals, many who are well off are comfortable to spend time in the comfort of their own homes, many (70%) can't really afford to just stay home because they don't have money to buy food. And both sides keep arguing without either trying to see the point of the other side. 

At the same time, the old school concept of hero is dying out and most of the Pakatan leaders who preach on values which may seem really attractive back then are now seen in a different light. With popular characters such as Joker and Thanos, who, to viewers were seen as realistic heroes who take responsibility to change their lives and the lives of others, even in ways that can seem to be borderline wrong and evil. Society are now looking things from less from an ideological standpoint but more on the direct results of performance such as increased jobs, safety etc. Change of media choice also exarcebates the situation. As YouTube and streaming applications like Twitch and Discord creates new portals of information exchange, traditional media like the television suffers a very painful slow death from lack of viewers. As it dies out, it takes away their kind of heroes as well. 

Politically, to give hope to people also means implementing those ideas and it seems that in this regard PH seem to fail as the implementation did not materialise what was promised at all. And as they went along, the broken promises of a smooth transition of power between Tun and Anwar Ibrahim brought them all down, obvious from the recording of the meeting between leaders, revealed by themselves for everyone to evalute.

From the recording, the leaders were fighting about transition of power. And all of them had some good points to say, from their own perspective. Like it or not, this is democracy. The recording was more than 2 and a half hours and throughout the meeting they only discussed about the transition of power. Worth to note that many in the recording mentioned that the transition of power discussion took place at every meeting but with no concrete solution. Even now, there is no absolute agreement on who will lead the coalition, either Tun or DSAI. And devoid of a manifesto or any sort of written agreement between them, arguments like the ones contained in the recording of the presidential meeting is bound to flare up again every time. So, PH is looking at being broken up by themselves. While it used to be they had a common goal of kicking out Najib, now in that absence, the infighting looks set to be the main agenda of every meeting. 

Probably its time for PH to ink an agreement to move forward between all members of the faction. On the same note, they are full of Social Justice Warriors who may or may not be interested in taking up the responsibility of seeing the rights of the people being administered with the right amount of leadership, resources and effort. See, its easy to imagine a world that is equal and equitable for all, letting people to have their own rights as a citizen and more importantly, as a human. But with that right, there come costs as well. And this is probably what is missing from PH. The accountability. At least to come up with new ideas and to explain them at length and with a plan to implement them. A clause such as "we made promises because we thought we wouldn't win" cannot be used again.

To be on the side that is governing now, Perikatan Nasional, too would not be exactly the right thing to do as some who had jumped ship from PH to PN won their electoral seats based on the "understanding" with the voters that it was to kick the previous BN Government out. Yet, PN consists of the very same people that PH, before the elections vowed to kick out. So this is why many had voiced that it was treason of "the people's mandate" that led to PN gaining power as they brought back the government that they promise to take out. Confusing? Of course it is. This is Malaysiaaaa!

Looking at how the Trump administration and the Brexit movement had mushroomed into a new set of unrefrained embrace of ridiculous leadership, the world is going on tribalism mode as many sees the liberal factions as not being pragmatic enough to rule modern governments. Trump rose to power was mainly caused by dissatisfaction of the working class to the elite liberals. Obama was the perfect looking president spokeperson. But in terms of job creations and improving the lives of Americans as well as the world around him, he did poorly. Or poor enough for the conservatives to use that as a bait for angry, poor Americans to be on their side. Theoretically it is much easier going the route of tribalism or in its classical term, racism. Taking care for 70% of the population is much easier than taking care for all as resources are limited. 

At a tribal level, people are more emotional and consequently less logical: Fans of both teams pray for their team to win, hoping God will take sides in a game. On the other hand, we regress to tribalism when afraid. This is an evolutionary advantage that would lead to the group cohesion and help us fight the other tribes to survive.

Tribalism is the biological loophole that many politicians have banked on for a long time: tapping into our fears and tribal instincts. Some examples are Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan, religious wars and the Dark Ages. The typical pattern is to give the other humans a different label than us, and say they are going to harm us or our resources, and to turn the other group into a concept. It does not have to necessarily be race or nationality, which are used very often. It can be any real or imaginary difference: liberals, conservatives, Middle Easterners, white men, the right, the left, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs. The list goes on and on.

So this is my fear. That just like the US, Malaysia is breaking into 2 distinct faction of politics and to a large extent, social factions. While the non Malays and liberals swing towards PH, the Malays towards PN.  Once this path is chosen by the electorates, there will be only 1 clear winner no matter how or what both political parties do. It's not even important anymore. The majority WILL win. And the majority, as it was proven in the last 60 or more years, can become quite parasitic of a monster when greed takes over.