IT’S clobbering time!
Apologies, Ben Grimm, for
commandeering your signature line.
You see, so many people I know are bashing Pakatan Harapan or trumpeting the reawakening of Barisan Nasional.
A familiar refrain after the Tanjung Piai by-election is “padan muka”.
Huh!
After May 9 last year, in the excitement of the transition, the curses were cheers instead. More than a year later, the “newborn sun” has, by some accounts, turned into a close-to-the-end supernova.
Let me make two points about the Tanjung Piai episode.
One, too much excitement (and anger) post-election is making us do and say just about too much of anything. Maybe cross over into irrationality too.
One can almost laugh and cry in equal measure at the surfeit of almost uniform polls’ dissections.
“The coalition did this wrong, it did that wrong”. “It’s not listening to the people. It’s listening to idiots.” “There are not enough reforms. There is too much politicking.”
“This leader should go. The other fellow should take over.” “The rakyat have spoken.” (Wah, the last line is so perceptive. We might as well just say, “people should look to the left and right before crossing a road”.)
It’s nauseating.
More so because too many
who say these things are
armchair critics. Which is the
second point.
Gosh, some of them certainly write and speak well enough. They also appear to be armed with experience in one organisation or the other.
But as I said earlier, their vitriol seems pretty much alike. They must be reading from one book, and living in the same echo chamber.
Just like in Trump land. And everywhere else where the polarising fruit of democracy is perplexing reasonable women and men.
If you drill deeper into the resumes of the “expert” critics, I wonder what you will discover. Have these people ever really rolled up their sleeves and got their hands dirty in the affairs of national governance, so that their comments carry real weight? Sitting at a table and barking orders, chairing this committee and that, writing books and giving speeches don’t count, I’m afraid.
Alas, the nervous excitement and anger that I speak about, the emotions that make us build and nourish our echo chambers, will not abate. It is the child of 21st century democracy’s marriage to technology. As for the armchair critics, they are an ancient and resilient breed.
The same phrases, the same clobbering, many times of the irrational variety, will continue. Over to you, Ben.