Terence Gomez: It ain't over till the fat lady sings

That was the gist of Dr Terence Gomez's talk at Silverfish Books last Saturday: Malaysia's 13th General Elections: Policies, Institutions and Social Change. The turnout was not huge, but good, and, best of all, intelligent. (This is the first in a series of (hopefully) monthly public talks we have planned to cover literature, performing arts, history, philosophy, politics and so on, at Silverfish Books.) It was not a talk for those (on either side of the divide) who'd prefer to keep their prejudices intact, unencumbered by facts or logic. For those of you who'd have liked to be present, Dr Terence Gomez started by handing out two printed spreadsheets (five pages) showing Differences in BN support in Electoral Trends in (i) Malay Majority constituencies, and (ii) Non-Malay Majority constituencies, from 1990 to 2008. (We still have some copies left at Silverfish Books.) Briefly, the main ten points (there were many more) were:

1. There is no material difference in the public policies as announced in the manifestos of BN or PR.
2. Generally, percentage Malay support for the BN has been on the decline since 1990 (including the Mahathir era) except in 2004 (Abdullah Badawi's first GE).
3. Chinese support for the BN rose in 1995 (Mahathir era), and dropped in 1999, up in 2004 and down 2008.
4. Historically, DAP have done better on it's own than as part of a coalition.
   
5. Historically, PAS have done better (outside Kelantan) in a coalition than on it's own.
   
6. Historically, PAS have never done well in Johor.
7. PR state governments have been seen to show better governance, accountability, and transparency (in the last 5 years).
8. BN is seen not to have not been successful in tackling corruption.
9. While the urban population has many sources of information, the rural folks get theirs only from BN controlled media.
10. Most of the students in local universities come from lower income groups, while the middle class and above send their children overseas where teaching is perceived to be better.
    

But several other factors have come into play in this elections, and it is left to be seen how much impact they'll have. All will be known on May 5, 2013! The New Economic Policy of Malaysia (Affirmative Action, Ethnic Inequalities and Social Justice) by Terence Gomez and Johan Saravanamuthu addresses some of these other issues.


For more than 40 years the New Economic Policy and its successor programmes have shaped Malaysia’s socio-economic development and the allocation of political power. The original policy sought to eradicate poverty and achieve economic parity among the country’s various ethnic communities. However, it was based on an apparent paradox — the use of ethnic preference to promote national unity. The policy’s core tenet was affirmative action on behalf of the Bumiputra community.

Drawing on a wealth of statistical and documentary evidence, this major new book provides a comprehensive and rigorous assessment of the NEP. The contributors show that there have been some positive outcomes, among them a considerable reduction of poverty, greater inter-ethnic equity parity and the emergence of a resourceful Bumiputra middle class. But these partial success have to be weighed against persistent complaints associated with increasing intra-ethnic Bumiputra income disparities; the emergence of a small, politically powerful and disproportionately wealthy Bumiputra elite; a serious brain drain; and weak human capital.


Dr Terence Gomez, however, refuses to predict the outcome.

George Orwell’s 1984 revisited

Kee Thuan Chye published his play, 1984, Here and Now, in 1987 at the height of Mahathirism. What title would he give it if he were to update the play now, after a quarter of a century? 1984, Still Here, Now?

I decided to revisit the George Orwell's 1984 seeing it sitting in my iPod (a free download) for a while. I was simply looking for something to read, and not because the 13GE is around the corner. I was barely twenty pages into the book (on my tiny iPod screen) when I had to laughed out loud. It was so like home!

1984 is still here, now!

Everyone has heard of Big Brother, so I’m not going into that, but I found interesting, the structure of Ingsoc: people were either members of the Party, or proles (those who lived on the outside, who were regarded a little more than animals). ‘The proles are not human being,’ he (Syme) said carelessly ... nobody cares what proles say ... What was required in a Party member was an outlook similar to that of the ancient Hebrew who knew without knowing much else, that all nations, other than his own, worshiped “false gods”. Listen, listen, listen! Their gods are not even gods!

Then, there was more.

For those who have forgotten, 1984 is written from the point-of-view of Winston Smith who worked in the Ministry of Truth, his job being to falsify history and create new ones on a daily basis -- we should be familiar how this works.

Today he (Big Brother) should commemorate Comrade Ogilvey. It was true that there was no such person, but a few lines of text and a couple of faked photographs would soon bring him into existence ... It struck him (Winston) as curious that you could create dead men but not living ones.

The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in.

It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and noser-out of orthodoxy.

Parsons was Winston’s fellow-employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralysing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms -- one of those unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more than even the Thought Police, the stability of the Party depended.

Winston thinks he can trust O’Brien, in whom he thinks he sees a tiny glint of reasonableness and understanding, but that only leads him to Room 101:  Always, Winston, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever.

Listen, listen, listen. And the name of the arch-enemy of the people w-aaa-s ... Goldstein! A Jew!

A Short Intellectual Puzzle

The Alienist, by Machado de Assis
Paperback: 86 pages
Publisher: Melville House (August 28, 2012)
Language: English
(Tel Silverfish Books about availability)

After the departure the druggist and the alienist mounted their horses and rode homeward. Crispim Soares stared at the road, between the ears of his roan. Simao Bacamarte swept the horizon with his eyes, surveyed the distant mountains, and let his horse find the way home. Perfect symbols of the common man and of the genius! One fixes his gaze upon the present with all its tears and privations; the other looks beyond to the glorious dawns of a future he himself will shape (The Alienist, 17).

The Alienist is a concisely narrated Don Quixote, where Machado de Assis explores the fate of science as the quixotic ideal. One of the greatest masters of Brazilian literature, de Assis was known for his experimentation with the narrative technique in The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas (or The Epitaph of a Small Winner), and for having influenced Jose Saramago, Carlos Fuentes and Woody Allen.

This drily humored allegory numbers at a concise 86 pages. In short, a scientist – the alienist – sets out to explore the boundaries of madness in a Brazilian town. What ensues traces strange parallels to Michel Foucault’s nonfictional narrative of madness (in Madness and Civilization, 1971). De Assis inverts the definition of insanity more than once, while criticizing 19th Century Brazilian society with tongue-in-cheek insolence.  The provincial quality of the town – the rumors, daily squabbles, the characters of avarice, greed, pusillanimity and foolish innocence – carries a faint whiff of Marquez’s The Chronicles of a Death Foretold while being the precise opposite of the novel’s lyrical convolution. De Assis’ matter-of-fact wit and satire are delightful evening company for anyone seeking brief respite from their daily toil, and leave much food for thought.

Review by:

Ms Rain Che Bian
Public Diplomacy Officer
The Embassy of the United States of America

The Storytelling Animal

Title: Joseph Anton
Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Random House, 2012, 636 pages


Joseph Anton was the name Salman Rushdie went by while under the ‘protection’ of the British Special Branch, during the Iranian fatwa period for writing The Satanic Verses. (He chose it himself, from the first names of Conrad and Chekov.) In this book, he tells his version of events.

He gets a little whiney in parts, but it’s a good read overall, with his sense of humour coming through to rescue those moments of angst, but given his predicament, it is understandable but it does not become too heavy. It is surprisingly light and readable, with not much of his usual literary gymnastics that make many of his books difficult to read for some.

First a disclaimer: I have been a great fan of Rushdie’s writings for decades. I love his sense of humour and his gymnastics.

So, was Salman Rushdie held under protection, or as a prisoner? In his version, his freedom was certainly curbed, he was under virtual house arrest, and what he was ‘allowed’ to do was severely restricted, while those who threatened his life walked freely and continued to preach violence on his person. Besides, it was not like he was provided with any of the safe houses by the government; he was required to pay for them, only to be upped and moved to another one at his cost (again) at the slightest (real or imagined) breach in security. The media regarded him as a stubborn man, a nuisance, a menace to society, and a drain on taxpayer’s money, and slandered him with impunity when he had no means of self-defence. In short, a piece of shit.

Certainly, he sounds bitter and his arguments are meant to refute many of the charges made against him, and one would be surprised if he didn’t do that when he finally got his chance. But something else nags the reader. Although he does not say it, one wonders if media would have railed against him so much if he had been of a colour different from brown? Would they have called Martin Amis names like that?

That western governments didn’t want to rock the boat initially, and upset business relations with Iran, is not surprising -- to heck with principles when there’s money to be made. We saw that in South Africa before the end of apartheid.

What is really sad is that someone somewhere can make a wild threat and make the whole world go into panic mode, and instead taking action against the perpetrators, the victim is stripped of his freedom and imprisoned for his safety. Speaks volumes about the resilience  and integrity of the entire western civilisation, for all its bravado. Human rights and freedom of speech are fine, as long as they are confined in neat bubbles.

Throughout history, every power, both religious or secular, has sought to restrict what stories can be told and what cannot, and where the start and end. It is testimony to the resilience of the storytelling animal that we are where we are and not still living in caves, or still believing that the sun goes round the earth.

One more from Inspector Mislan

UTube: Inspector Mislan and the UTube Serial Rapes by Rozlan Mohd Noor
Genre: Fiction, crime, homophobia
Publisher: Silverfish Books
Price: RM35.00
Release date: 16 October 2012

EXPLOSIVE, DISTURBING and DANGEROUS

A synopsis

After four rapes (video recordings of which are posted on the internet), one suicide and one bloody murder, Inspector Mislan is convinced that something more sinister is afoot; all the victims are gay.

“There’s nothing to indicate that these were crimes of lust, or opportunity. The vics were meticulously selected, possibly monitored for days, weeks, even months, before they were raped.” He shakes his head, “These were definitely not one-man jobs. And, I won’t be surprised, if they have a list of potential vics identified.”

But he’s not ready for where it leads:

“... We also know that there are, at least, two rape teams using the same modus operandi. There could be more out there, waiting for a signal from their controllers, like suicide-bomber squads waiting in their cells, brainwashed and manipulated into blowing themselves up along with innocent bystanders for the ‘cause’, whatever that may be. These are simple-minded men and women who do not have the money to finance, nor the mental capacity to plan the crimes.”

Or what he uncovers:

The suspect shakes his head wildly and screams, “Pergi jahanam kamu, pemusnah bangsa, penderhaka agama. You will both rot in hell ... How dare you call yourselves Muslim? It’s people like you, and those deviants, who defile our religion. Kufur! Kufur! Lesbian lovers, infidels …”
Mislan watches in disbelief, as the suspect yanks at the handcuffs, trying to break loose, wailing and cursing. Lighting a cigarette, he thinks: Shit, this guy is mad. He’s willing to break his damned hand …

He scares himself with his conclusions. Throughout history men have controlled ‘wayward’ women with terror: beatings them into submission, disfiguring their faces with acid, murdering them in the name of honour, and worse. Now, a group of fundamentalists have decided on the 'final solution' to the ‘gay problem’ with the ultimate hate crime..

Mislan says, “… the username, Emancipatist suggests a person out to free others, a liberator. I put that together with the anti-LGBT movement … and it adds up to a hate crime.”
The two women stare at him.
“To be specific; corrective rape,” he whispers, as if the term is taboo.

And he is not ready for how high up it goes:

“The unknown suspect that you’re looking for is a man or a woman of influence, could even be a man, or woman, of power. He or she is patient, and extremely devoted to his or her faith and cause.” She (Dr Suthisa) pauses to light a cigarette. “This idea of emancipating non-conformists is common in Christianity, Islam and Judaism, but less in polytheist religions, though it’s not unknown. Since your victims are all Muslim women, I’d say the person you’re looking for is also Muslim.”

And so is unleashed another wave of terror, compared to which murder and mayhem are merciful for the victims no longer suffer, and survivors get on with their lives. Corrective rapes, with videos of it on UTube, will haunt them throughout their lives.