The Malaysian Insider

NOV 5 — They were three and it was unnerving but you just have to, you know. It was a late Raya open house and the crowd had ebbed away except for hardcore Umno men and this writer.

There were a few givens in what was to follow. I was not going to win any arguments, I just have to be content making them. There will be floor counts ever so often, and I’d lose all of them, of course. The people associated with me — and their ideas — are to be ripped apart, minced and then nuked for good measure. But I chose to stay the course.

Because you see, by being in a difficult place, I get to talk to difficult people.

By talking to them, I get to forward my intent to the people I wish to sway, and perhaps for them to sway me, or to moderate my thinking. Either way, it lends me belief that I am closer to change than not.

How else are we going to get our respective agenda forward?

Like in the previous instance of English for maths and science. Its proponents and opponents spoke in their own circles and were appealing to the powers-that-be for its continuation or cessation in our schools system.

Towards the end the sides engaged, but it was too late for either side to shift to allow a societal voice, and therefore leaving it to the political expediency of our then-new education minister.

Senior engineers lacking protégés to lift their firms’ prestige needed to talk to the Malay linguist who feels the dominant use of Malay determines its survival. Parents who wanted their A-levels-bound kids to have the same advantages as kids in Leytonstone should have had the argument directed to the taxi driver in Bandar Tun Razak who does not have the hours to guide his kids in a language quite foreign to him and the missus.

But since as usual we avoided the “difficult conversations”, we disable our own democratic right, to express our conviction of right and just.

It is a result of our polarised nation, with careful encouragement built further polarity.

Societies move in the direction of its general will. It has a general will, even if most of its people are not cognisant of it.

It is no morning powwow where millions gather to decide where they as a people want to head to. Yet these millions shape that general will, in infinitesimal amounts until in time the direction is seemingly inevitable and natural. Because when you take a step back in time, the general will which delivered you to the present was neither inevitable nor natural.

The general will is what most people think is cool enough.

It is formed by ideas championed by a few, admired by some, unopposed by most and loathed by a fervent minority. As you can see, successful social ideas need not have logical construct or mass support — they just have to be strategically deployed.

Sitting at my mate’s place a few weeks ago listening to his friends give their own “State of the Federation” expositions was just unbearable — even if I agreed to most of their conclusions. One after the other had a go at the pet subjects of the day — PKFZ, PAS’s religious limbo dance, Umno’s intolerance, institutionalised racism, etc.

I support discourse, but there was a constant theme in their exertions. They were trite, unimaginative and non-exploratory. It happens when all you do is preach to the converted.

It is our national ethos which is impairing us. The one that says, if it is sensitive, upsetting or taboo, don’t talk about it.

But not talking about it means the more orthodox, simplistic and dismissive ideas prevalent in scared societies will be the ones dominating us. They will always be the sensitive, least worrying and taboo compliant.

From the Kaum Tua-Muda disharmony in the early 20th century to the PMMKM-Umno values debate in the post-Second World War period, various factors — not the least a colonial master — disallowed widespread “difficult conversations”.

Separate to the past and our personal summaries of it, surely today in a more progressive Malaysia we should individually promote “difficult conversations”.

If you are unhappy with paying more for a home than other Malaysians, then talk to the Malaysians who are getting that discount. Not a complete stranger, but there are people in your life whom you will not talk to about some things because it would be uncomfortable.

Well, you have to decide then. If the situation is discomforting enough that you will write in websites’ comment sections, bash up through grunts at family gatherings and exchange with expats you meet, then why are you not talking to the very person who is benefiting from the system you loathe?

If the government cannot be adult about various things, it is not good enough for us to ask it to grow up without us willing to participate in our own personal growing pains.

If you want guns, legalised prostitution, no censorship or less religion in government, then engage a sibling, neighbour, colleague, classmate, milk vendor or despatch rider who is diametrically opposed to you.

There were crazy days in my young teenage years where I would be arguing with groups of older people on various things — like Mahathirism, race politics and freedom of expression. I lost in their minds, but at least they knew a 15-year-old thought most of us will live to rue the rule of the dictator from Kedah.

In the least you learn about your opponents, like I did with my three Umno friends.

I can’t make my ideas dominant unless I move enough people in its direction, and that can’t happen by me sitting in my corner, especially in a “first-past-the-post” parliamentary system which never rewards the insular “new kid in town”.

So, if you have an agenda, go out there and have that “difficult conversation”, and have sedatives in your bag just in case.

Comments (1)

Show/Hide comments

Show/Hide comment form