Of ‘grand coalitions’ and the One Ring

“Fruitless did I call the victory of the Last Alliance? Not wholly so, yet it did not achieve its end. Sauron was diminished, but not destroyed. His Ring was lost but not unmade. The Dark Tower was broken, but its foundations were not removed; for they were made with the power of the Ring, and while it remains they will endure.” -- Elrond, The Fellowship of The Ring

IN theory, all this talk of a "grand coalition" is of course in the right vein.

Everyone is looking at the same data, and it’s no surprise that anyone with a modicum of sense would be reaching similar conclusions.

The main feature of said observed data is that Malaysian politics is in complete disarray ("bloody shambles" to quote Michael Adeane in Season 2 of The Crown), and has been since the Sheraton Move, arguably.

Politicians see it, the rakyat sees it; everybody knows this is a terminally unsustainable state of affairs.

When it comes to finding an actual way out however, everyone seems to be little more than babies grasping blindly and confused in the dark - engaged in well-intentioned, but ultimately doomed and relatively feeble attempts to fill a gaping, deeply felt vacuum. There are no home runs, only vague aphorisms like "grand coalition","new narratives","resets", and so on.

Put another way: everyone knows something needs to be done, but nobody knows what to do.

The recent drama in Perak is but the latest in a long line of proxy battles all leading to the climax of the war: who will be the next candidate for Prime Minister.

Indeed, this is the question that besets all current political players - the question it all always boils down to.

And here we start to delve into the real core of the problem, and the real reason all this current talk of a grand coalition - however partially sound conceptually - is likely to amount to naught, simply because none of the key political players will be willing to do what it truly takes to break out and shatter the old moulds, and make the kind of drastic changes necessary to make a grand coalition work.

One of the simplest, and most fundamental reasons at the very centre of the impasse is the overconcentration of power in the chief executive.

The Prime Minister (and Menteri Besars) decide far too much. When so much power is vested in this post, then obsession over who occupies that position is a black hole sized centre of gravity that blots out the sun and everything else.

No other consideration - no matter how noble, eloquent, or insta-worthy - will be able to knock current political players off their obsessional orbit around this goal, and their relentless pursuit of it.

To put it in Tolkienesque terms, our political discourse is still all about who should wield the One Ring, rather than how to destroy it.

The Lord of the Rings is a saga of half a million words and 11 hours of film.

If we were to draw a parallel, Malaysia is still stuck in the Council of Elrond, where most people seem to be thinking like Boromir - that the solution is to wield the One Ring and its power,"against" the Enemy. Needless to say, this causes everyone to squabble like children over who should control the Ring. This squabble goes on for some time.

In Malaysia, this is still going on. We are only at minute 90 of a 672-minute film, and we have been stuck there for months (or years, depending on how you look at it).

Everyone knows that we need something like a consensus - a consensus similar to the one which resulted in Frodo endeavouring to take the One Ring to the fires of Mount Doom, the only place it could be destroyed.

But nobody seems to know who our Frodo is, or the way to Mount Doom.

I believe that politically, just about every month since the Sheraton Move has been us stuck in the part of the Council of Elrond where men, elves, and dwarves squabble on and on. Words like impasse, stalemate, and loop, all seem apt descriptions.

I believe that much like the story, the answer can only come from an unlikely place. Not just younger men, elves, or dwarves, as some would seem to suggest, as I believe younger politicians are still more like politicians than not.

Frodo was an outsider. A hobbit, in a world where hobbits were not warriors, or great leaders of grand coalitions, but humble farmers. Aragorn, who ended the story as King, was portrayed not as a man who sought power and glory, but a man who sought first and foremost to help Frodo on his quest.

And Frodo? After all was said and done, he donned no crown for himself, and took no riches (unlike his uncle). He returned to the Shire, and ultimately joined Gandalf and the elves, sailing West and leaving Middle-earth for the undying lands.

The story doesn’t work if Aragorn is the primary protagonist. Despite the excitement of the battle scenes, the only battle that truly matters is the one within Frodo (and Gollum), as he struggles not to succumb to the power of the Ring, and complete his long and arduous journey. Even Aragorn speaks of how the very last battle is but one to distract the Enemy, and buy Frodo time.

I think the One Ring represents power and greed. People who give in to their greed and who crave power and are willing to wield it without conscience will always be able to do big things - not unlike the Sheraton Move.

But such people cannot be defeated by using the Ring against them - just as fire cannot be fought by fire. If we try, then we will be stuck forever in the squabblings of the Council of Elrond.

Those among us who talk of grand coalitions, resets, new political narratives and so on - their hearts are not in the wrong place.

I’ll never forget the advice a friend of mine gave at a significant point in my life, before I was to embark on a big change. He said: If you really want to do this, you have to die to yourself.

Letting a former part of you die is incredibly difficult and hard - not unlike actual death. In my own life, this is something I continue to struggle with, and I know not yet the result of that particular battle.

In politics, unless we are willing to die to our old ways, it seems we will only continue to see more of what we see now. The rhetoric we hear shows that on some level we know what we need to do to break free, but the actions suggest that no one yet is willing to give up power to a hobbit.

Granted, a portion of this problem is "intellectual". We need a new roadmap, one that can only be drawn by those who are fearlessly inventive. Perhaps that is where Gandalf comes in.

By the time Frodo arrived in Rivendell, he had already overcome significant challenges. Similarly, our Frodo will likely be someone you haven’t really heard of, but who has spent their life in relatively quiet service.

When the time comes for a Frodo to emerge - someone from the sidelines, who has already spent their lives working for the good - we will see whether the rest of us will be willing to entrust this little hobbit with the quest to destroy the One Ring.

Frodo did not set off from Rivendell with the Ring by himself. His fellowship represented a grand coalition as well.

The thing is though, a genuine "grand coalition" is easier said than done. I think what Pakatan Harapan’s first term in power showed is that a coalition that is formed merely to fight an enemy is hardly that grand at all.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy begins with a recounting of the last great war (The War of the Last Alliance), in which the peoples of Middle-earth united against Sauron. They defeated him, but when Elrond bid Isildur to throw the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, Isildur refused. Isildur squandered a vital opportunity to rid the world of evil because he lacked the moral core to resist the allure of power.

Just like in 2018, such a coalition can win a battle. But without a true moral core, just like the War of the Last Alliance, that kind of victory will not truly end the war.

As such, there may be many "coalitions" yet to come (we have already seen unending iterations and constantly shifting alliances since the Sheraton Move); but there will be no "grand coalition" that will achieve true success, until such a coalition is formed on the basis of an unshakeable moral core as well as genuinely shared values, and formed with the right goals in mind - not to give the centralised power of the One Ring to any one person, but to destroy it forever.

NATHANIEL TAN wishes the family of Tun Rahah Noah deepest condolences on her passing, and recalls how her husband formed one of Malaysia’s first grand coalitions. He can be reached at [e-mail].