Are ‘fighters’ the answer ?

Exciting comeback: To many, Rafizi is an extremely charismatic, energetic, dynamic leader – famous for relentlessly giving tight slaps to the establishment, and firing up ceramah crowds. – Facebook

In Douglas Adams’ great book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy, a mega computer called Deep Thought is asked to calculate the answer to “Life, The Universe, and Everything”.

After seven and half million years of calculation, Deep Thought finally reveals the long-awaited answer to be: 42.

Everyone is perplexed.

Deep Thought says:

“I checked it very thoroughly... and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”

Much excitement – understandably – surrounds the long-awaited political comeback of Rafizi Ramli.

I totally get it. To many, Rafizi is an extremely charismatic, energetic, dynamic leader – famous for relentlessly giving tight slaps to the establishment, and firing up ceramah crowds.

So if the question is “Who is one of Malaysia’s best political fighters?”, then “Rafizi Ramli” could indeed easily be the answer.

If our question is instead “Who does Malaysia need the most right now?”, should the answer be the same?

I suppose that depends on what (not just who) you believe Malaysia needs most right now.

Many probably feel what Malaysia needs the most right now is in fact our best political fighters – like the cavalry in some Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings scene, swooping in at the last minute to smash the enemy and snatch victory from the jaws of death.

I get this feeling. I totally do.

Many voters feel disenfranchised and frustrated, and when you feel that way, it’s only natural to be drawn to people who you feel are speaking up and fighting for you.

Rafizi has truly proven himself to be an excellent fighter – one who is always willing to fight fire with fire.

No one will ever forget how bravely he stood up against the “cows and condos” NFC scandal, and how he brought fire and brimstone down on 1MDB and other corruption cases.

Rafizi’s tireless campaigning and fierce fervour also undoub-tedly played a major role in bringing down Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s government.

Blowing apart everything in his crosshairs, however, may have come with a bit of a price.

I am reminded of another prominent Opposition politician, from a different party.

When I first met this person, maybe over 15 years ago, he was an incredibly humble, soft-spoken, down to earth guy – clearly smart as a whip, and passionate about making Malaysia better.

He too was/is an amazing fighter.

Over the years, though, I couldn’t help but feel that more and more, he was becoming the fight.

The high you get from winning a few battles can become addictive. The way people cheer you on, the satisfaction of crushing your opponents – it’s like a drug.

You start craving that battle high so much that slowly, over time, everyone starts to look like another enemy to defeat.

These fighters can be fun to cheer on. We can get addicted to winning battles vicariously through them too.

For many of us following these battles, more and more fellow Malaysians then start to look like enemies too. Goodness knows we have no shortage of “pro/anti” conflicts – on issues like secularism, vernacular education, LGBTQs, and so on.

In my humble view, saturating our political landscape with fighters will only heighten these battles and the painful social divisions Malaysia already has so many of.

I’m sure Rafizi has a diverse skill set and sincere motivations. After taking a step back from politics, he nobly focused on trying to solve problems of underemployment by working on a job portal.

I’m not sure exactly how that went, but I’ll be the first to say we should never judge people purely on their successes or failures. And while some have expressed concerns about what happened with some earlier political fundraising, I’ve certainly not seen any solid proof of any wrongdoing.

Some areas that might not quite fall within Rafizi’s skill set, however, include emotional intelligence, the ability to inspire mutual trust, and the ability to forge consensus- based alliances (indeed, right off the bat, Rafizi seems to have already fired opening shots at those within PKR, and at DAP’s leadership as well).

I’m sure some people feel that he does in fact actually have the skills mentioned, and they could be much more correct than me.

It may, however, be worthwhile to try and get a more comprehensive view by talking to people who have either had extensive direct experience working and interacting with him (on Twitter perhaps, for example), or those who have observed him closely over time.

Some people don’t feel these skills are particularly important or relevant to what Malaysia really needs right now, and I can respect that.

My only worry is that if all of us think what Malaysia needs is to identify our fiercest warriors, hurry to raise them up as our leaders, and push them to wage war on our behalf – then what we will get is perpetual war.

In this season of actual war in Ukraine, it’s easy to be reminded of two lines from the movie Crimson Tide: “In the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself” and “The true nature of war is to serve itself”.

Just like in many other countries, politics in Malaysia has become all too much like war – and what happens in politics tends to spill over into all aspects of social life.

Coming back to my earlier questions, my humble view is that what Malaysia truly needs are people who specialise in de-escalating wars, not people who specialise in escalating them.

It’s easy and fun to cheer on the escalators, because they are exciting to watch in the same way action thrillers on TV are exciting to watch; but it seems to me that Malaysia’s particular set of current problems require peacemakers more than warmongers.

I’m not talking about peacemakers between political parties, but peacemakers between segments of Malaysian society that seem to hate each other more and more.

If this is indeed “what” Malaysia needs right now, then “who” Malaysia needs right now are not politicians at all. This is because politicians are by nature trained and built to fight – against their opponents and even against their own allies.

Furthermore, the more obsessed we are with the idea that all we need to set Malaysia right is the right leader, the more we will fight among ourselves about who that leader should be.

Instead, the “who” that Malaysians really need are ultimately normal citizens like you and me – citizens who are willing to stop this cycle of conflict and vicious bickering, give up our overreliance on politicians, and find new ways to genuinely live out grassroots democratic ideals from the ground up.

Learning from The Dark Knight, those may not be the heroes we all want, but they could be exactly the heroes we need.

Nathaniel Tan currently has no opinion on who the next deputy president of PKR should be. He works with Projek #BangsaMalaysia. Twitter: @NatAsasi, email: [e-mail]. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.