Written by Choo Sing Chye
Politics in Malaysia - A simple philosophical take
The political discourse in Malaysia and also the West is high on racism, radical nationalism and low on substance and quality.
Unfortunately, this current trend runs parallel with the political drift to the Right in the world today, particularly, the US and Western Europe.
It doesn't need any deep thought or intelligence from these politicians to whip up racist, radical nationalistic and anti immigrants sentiments and made it their central theme to win elections.
In fact, the further one tilts to the Right, the faculty to think becomes straight jacketed and inevitably becomes constricted and inferior.
It is pretty obvious that the quality of some of our politicians and the speeches that, had nosedived to such a worrying stage that it leads one to believe that these wannabes had in the past, done very little or a lot of wrong schooling.
One shouldn’t blame the people from taking a poor view of these politicians or this line, as it is not rare to find a PHD or a Degree holder saying silly, trivial and untrue things, particularly in the press and social media.
At times, it is so mind boggling to hear comical nonsense coming out of these seemly characters that it cannot stop one from wondering whether or not they had ever weaned off comics books from their childhood days.
Now our politicians especially from the opposition, demand that they should be given a free pass to say whatever they like and whoever they wish to direct to.
Actually what is missing in our politicians’ speech is intelligence not freedom.
So to have a better understanding in this particular concept of free speech, we must turn back the clock to the era of ancient Greece where speech and intelligence came hand in hand. These two were inseparable parts of their political discourse.
For a starter, Ancient Greek politicians were tutored by the best sophists of the day when they were young, because their parents knew that the “hearers“ (people or council members) of their sons’ speech were obsessed with intelligence rather than the freedom to make it.
Thus, their parents would spare no expense to hire the best sophist to tutor their sons, so that they would not make a donkey of themselves in a debate or any public discourse.
Speech to the Ancient Greeks is different, they branched out their speech into three categories with different priorities.
According to Aristotle, speech comes in three different categories, namely, a) Forensic, b) Ceremonial oratory of display, and c) Political oratory.
Forensic speaker either attacks or defends somebody. They stay neutral on the subject matter. They needed no research or to prove whether the statements they made were true or false. It didn’t matter.
Ceremonial speaker either praises or censures somebody and it is in this category most of our politicians fall in. It is the tit for tat type of engagement which our politicians are so fond of using that it had seeped into every corner of our daily life in Malaysia, even the parliament is not spared. Unfortunately, the press and the social media too, are full of these tit for tat politics.
And lastly, Political Oratory, one would find that the ancient Greeks took this category of speech very seriously and primed it with a large dose of intelligence and substance.
So to be qualified as a Political Orator, one must be an expert in a vast range of subject matters, namely, 1) Ways and Means, 2) War and Peace, 3) National Defence, 4) Imports and Exports, and 5) Legislation.
1) Ways and Means:
The Speaker must know the number and extend of the country’s sources of revenue and also its expenditure. This is the work scope of a modern Finance Minister.
2) War and Peace:
The Speaker must know the actual and potential military strength of his country and of his enemy’s. From the knowledge of history of war fought, he must have a contingency plan for further peace and war.
3) National Defence:
The Speaker ought to know the inner working the actual defensive strategy use, its actual strength and character of the defense force and also the positions of all the defensive forts.
4) Import and Export:
The Speaker must know what his country’s food production and what is imported. Treaties must be made with foreign nations on the import of food or export.
5) Legislation:
The Speaker ought to know different types of constitutions from different nations to be able to formulate a good set of legislation which would put the welfare of the nation at heart and also would leave very little for the judges to adjudicate upon. Here our MPs could learn a thing or two from these ancient politicians. They were also aware that if they pushed legislation too hard and extreme, the nation would become an oligarchy. Moreover, they were intelligent enough not to monopolize political power and turn the state into a dictatorship.
My simple wish is that our politicians should do more thinking and reading and opt for facts and truths, not fancy and falsehood.
Anybody can give speech, but the content must hold a certain level of intelligence that should not involve trivial matters like “bak kut teh,” “short pants” and so forth; and worse, to debate these non-essential matters in Parliament or in the mainstream media. It is a waste of time.
Please leave these trivial matters to where they belong, in the Pasar Malam (Night Market), Five-Foot way and Tik Tok.
In sum, politicians should pool all their intellectual efforts together to make this nation a better place for all citizens.
Written by Choo Sing Chye
Politics Now!
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