By: Natalie Shobana Ambrose
theSun, Malaysia (pg 14)
It’s that time again, when every other politician's speech is about the utopian nation we will magically become post elections – on condition that their party wins. If it's not about elaborate election promises, these politicians are taking pot-shots at any opposing faction or trying to tear down the competition. Nothing is left sacred.
They are scrapping the barrel by using issues of education, race and religion as political pawns and taking it further by including the Palestinian-Israel issue into the mix thinking they are currying favour with certain sections of the electorate. Unfortunately, our politicians are being careless in trying to gain favour at the expense of someone else's anguish, doing a great disservice to cries of those embroiled in the conflict.
Then there are the sweeping promises; eradicate poverty, ease traffic woes, higher salaries and benefits and better race relations. It's almost as if saying the words eradicating poverty means that the age old problem of poverty will miraculously be eliminated with an election win. Or that suddenly, our traffic issues will be solved and we will give up our second-place of highest level of household debt in Asia all with an 'X' marked on the right box of the ballot paper.
The irony is that the promises of the last election and the one before and the one before that, have not been fully fulfilled by either side – and new lofty ones are being made with lots of money being poured into the "problem areas" and issues in a bid to make everything better, almost instantly but with little long-term solutions.
Since the last election, Malaysia has been inward looking. In a way this is probably a good thing to get one's house in order but at the same time, we're not going about it in a mature constructive manner. There's more infighting than there is insight and the longer we continue, we risk being stuck in this inward looking rut for longer than we should be.
In a way we have become complacent and sucked into the fallacy that democracy is automatic – and our role is just to vote. This is far from true. We need to be active citizens not just voters. Instead of allowing our politicians to set the agenda, perhaps now is the time that we the rakyat set the discourse. If all of us hold the political parties and their leaders to their promises and our ideals of what we want Malaysia to be, there will be little room to wriggle out of responsibility.
We should also ensure that we are not baited into bigotry and that we protect, appreciate and celebrate our cultural diversity not allowing narrowness and exclusion to rule us.
Natalie knows that its easier to be oblivious and complacent but if we care for Malaysia, we need to be active, thinking citizens and not mere voters.
Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
