Steering boldly

THE hot news of the week is obviously the dismissal not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA) of Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s graft charges.

I don’t think I will join the chorus of people yelling and jumping up and down, shouting this is the end of the world.

I don’t think I will join the chorus of government supporters yelling endless variations of what is essentially: “Well, do you prefer PAS then?” and “Muda should just shut up”.

I think I will instead use this space to reflect on how we got here, where gravity seems to be pulling this nation down, and where the centre of that gravity might be.

“We often meet our destiny on the road we take to avoid it.”

It turns out this exact quote has no precise source.

It is often attributed to 17th century French fabulist and poet Jean de la Fontaine, who wrote a poem called Le Milan et le Rossignol (The Kite and The Nightingale), where the sentiment is expressed, but in which the exact quote does not appear.

Of course, people like me tend to be more familiar with the phrase from Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda.

I have often written that politics and governance in Malaysia resemble a movie script, with different politicians being the actors.

After elections, the actors may switch roles, but it turns out that the script and the movie remain somewhat surprisingly unchanged. Different actors in different roles, but speaking the same lines as before.

For example, we used to have prosecutions that seemed to side with the government of yesterday; and now, it feels like we have prosecutions that seem to side with the government of today. As political scientist Prof Wong Chin Huat pointed out in a recent cogent article – different governments, same types of prosecutions.

This can be frustrating, because sometimes we voters think we successfully voted for change in order to avoid the same mistakes of the past. And yet, that road seems to sometimes lead us directly back to square one.

Another Frenchman, critic, journalist, and novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” – meaning the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The easiest conclusion to reach is a dismissive, “Politicians are all the same”. Some would find such analysis to be lazy; others find it brilliantly succinct.

I hope to go just a little bit deeper and explore the many ways we seem to be meeting our fate on the roads we take to avoid them, and why politicians seem to all act the same, despite going on and on about how different they are from their opponents.

Coming up in a little while to their first year in power, it seems that our political leadership is most concerned about holding on to the reins of power.

Perhaps given the events of the Sheraton Move and the years of political instability that followed, one can be slightly sympathetic to this view.

It feels like there is a prevailing fear that this entire government is like a house of cards, liable to collapse at any minute from the type of parliamentary politicking that saw no less than three changes in prime minister (without elections) in the short two years between the Sheraton Move in February 2020 and the 15th General Election in November 2022.

House of cards: Politicking in 2020 saw no less than three changes in prime ministers (without elections) in the short two years between the Sheraton Move and GE15. — AZHAR MAHFOF/The Star

And then, there is the fact that Malay voting sentiment seems to lean towards Perikatan Nasional, rather than the unity government.

These two facts seem to have the government playing defence at every turn. There are times it looks like they are running scared, and employing policies of appeasement.

In a move they think appeases the conservatives, they ban rainbow watches, even though I can’t for the life of me imagine a single voter (no matter how conservative or on the fence), thinking to themselves: “Ah, the unity government has banned these darned rainbow watches. I didn’t support them before, but I support them now!”

I suppose the powers-that-be feel they must “appease” certain factions, or face a collapse in Parliament.

The trouble is, much like trying to appease Hitler to avoid war resulted in World War II, all these acts of appeasement may result in the exact fate our political leaders are trying to avoid.

Sometimes, being timid and too risk-averse because you fear losing what you have will result in you losing everything you have anyway.

To be fair, perhaps our political leaders are facing a stacked deck either way.

I’ve recently started thinking of an analogy to represent the elements of government that are voted in and out, and the elements that are permanently there. It’s a little bit like a ship, with captains that are voted in and out, and a helmsman at the wheel who is always there, regardless of who the captain is.

The captain is the nominal leader of the ship, but the helmsman is the man whose hands are on the actual wheel that steers the ship. In theory, the helmsman is supposed to follow every order given by the captain. In practice, the degree to which these orders are followed tends to depend on how strong the captain is.

When Malaysia had a captain that ruled with an iron first back in the 1980s and 1990s, that captain’s word was (almost literally) law. He could command the helmsman to sail west, and no matter how illegal or improper it was to sail west, the helmsman would obey.

On the other extreme, when the captain is weak and at risk of being replaced at any moment, he could command the helmsman to sail east, and no matter how legal the order, or how good sailing east would be for the whole ship, the captain ultimately might not be able to stop the helmsman from going in whichever direction the helmsman deems fit.

For a moderately strong captain, the helmsman might only dare to deviate a little to the north-east or south-east. If the captain is weak, the ship might find itself sailing north, south, or even west.

The most important part of this analogy is, perhaps the helmsman has started to understand that he gains most from having weak captains that are always on the brink of being replaced. The more often the captains change, the more they have to rely on the helmsman; and the more the helmsman gets to run the ship however he wants.

From an electoral and strategic point of view, many of the government’s moves make little to no sense. Banning rainbow watches will not pull Malay votes. The handling of the DNAA (which is “the way things have always been done”) will enrage many traditional supporters of Pakatan Harapan. These are but a few recent examples of things working out in ways that seem to disadvantage the unity government again and again.

Is this fumble after fumble? Or are these moves being subtly shaped by a centre of gravity that is enjoying greater and greater power, as our elected leaders become more and more fearful of being replaced.

I guess these are difficult questions for those of us outside the loop to answer accurately. But for anyone trying to think about the long-term betterment of the country, perhaps these are questions worth pondering carefully.

Nathaniel Tan is strategic communications consultant who is on the lookout for more work. He can be reached at [e-mail]. The views expressed here are solely the writer’s own.