- “O wonder!
- How many goodly creatures are there here!
- How beauteous mankind is!
- O brave new world
- That hath such people in’t!”
- -Miranda in The Tempest, by William Shakespeare.
Aldous Huxley once wrote a book with a title based on this speech. I
read it once a few years ago, and I recall having an uncomfortable
impression of a world where there was excessive order and control for
the sake of peace and comfort. It was a place engineered to be a
duplication of paradise. There was no war, no poverty, no diseases and
everyone was generally happy. All this however came with the price of
human emotion, thought and expression, and people were brainwashed into
having only one line of thinking. Opposition to the order of the system
was not only forbidden, it was virtually unheard of because people were
taught not to disagree. They didn’t even know how to. They functioned
without truly functioning. Huxley refers the novel as an ironic
dystopia, and rightly so.
I couldn’t shake off the feeling that although the setting takes
place in the far future, it could become an actual reality today if
we’re not careful, or if we allow that to happen. A society without
thought, without the freedom to express or to oppose. Doesn’t that
sound somewhat familiar to you?
It’s been two weeks since our 12th General Elections. I said earlier
that I wanted to wait it out, let the overwhelming atmosphere die down
first before giving my own 2c but I’ve decided to stop thinking about
how I should put it and to just come out straight and say it. Fact of
the matter is, I don’t have that much to say. Before the elections, I
wasn’t particularly caught up in the fever because having not
registered in time, I wasn’t able to participate in what was to become
a historic day since Independence. In retrospect, I believe not being
able to exercise my rights as a citizen in this particular election
will be one of my major regrets to commit to memory. As the race went
underway, it was hard not to feel the heat. There was something in the
air that suggested it was going to be a different kind of fight this
time around. You might have realised my lack of political comment in
the days leading up to 8th March. Truth be told, I was skeptical
whether 2008 was going to bring any real change, but irony decided to call in. Change
came and on a whopping grand scale too.
I told my friend I was nervous. He asked me whether I was nervous about
change or about BN retaining their power. I answered an excited nervous
for the former, and a sinking trepidation for the latter. It was on the
day itself that the magnitude of the elections hit me, and today I find
myself living in an Opposition state. I didn’t think it possible.
So you’ve read it all before. ‘Political tsunami’, ‘winds of
change’, ‘dawn of a new era’, so on and so forth. What I bring here is
nothing different. The people have spoken and in my humble opinion,
they have spoken with a gravity almost akin to the storming of the
Bastille in French revolution history. However indifferent we are, this
is a big deal.
My heart leapt as the results came pouring in that night, both
official and unofficial, from the telly, from telephone calls and from
text messages. We were inundated by numbers, figures, names, parties,
seats..it was incredible.
So this is where I reveal my political inclinations, yes? I am not
anti-Government per se. There is no reason why I should rebel just for
the sake of rebelling, and I acknowledge the contributions the ruling
party has made in the preceding years, but there is something greatly
lacking in the Government which is a critical flaw, and that
is transparency.
In the same breath, I am not particularly pro-Opposition either because I haven’t
had the opportunity to see exactly what they can bring to the table and
what they can do for the people. It was never within my contemplation.
In my lifetime, I have seen both the Labour Party and Conservative
Party at the helm of the British society, and I have seen both a
Democratic and Republican President of the United States. I never
thought I’d see the day when Malaysia would have the ruling Government
lose its 2/3 majority in the Parliament and in turn find themselves
being the Opposition in 5 states. It’s a good sign for this nation,
that people are waking up and seizing their power to determine the fate
of those who govern them.
As for me, I don’t swing one way or another, I’m just anti-corruption,
anti-nepotism, pro-change and pro-democracy. What we have today makes a
far better and more interesting political landscape. People want to be
involved, they want to participate, and more importantly, they want to
be counted. We hear talks of social unrest and instability due to
this sudden shift of events, but I think its only to be expected. Never
before have we had to confront such a restructuring of our executive
and legislative organs, but it’s better that we face it now than never.
Adjustments have to be made. We need to move forward. Would you rather we remain in our state of dystopia, like Huxley’s world? Because everything is not alright.
Relatively speaking, the easy part is now over and done, the
promises have been made and the people have acted. Here’s where the
hard part comes in - the execution and delivery of those very promises.
It is clear that the people will no longer settle for the lesser of two
evils. They want competency and accountability. Whatever the outcome, I
have faith that both BN and BR, whatever their current status, will
know fully well that complacency is not an option when it comes to the
people.
Otherwise we say goodbye in 4 years.
The resolute Rakyat resolved to quietly revolt at a risk, and the
results of the revolution has since resonated throughout this region.
Here I echo Miranda.
“O brave new world, that hath such people in’t!”
Enough said here.
