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15726 results in ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute

Page 169 of 787

  • 26 - Excessive Governance Is Not Good Governance

  • from Before 9 May 2018
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 92-94

  • Summary

    The word ‘Governance’ has the same roots as ‘Government’. However, the recent popularity of the use of ‘governance’ comes from the growing notion of looking at political control as a technical matter and of an increasing tendency to think of the government – and the governing – of a country as the management – and the managing – of a country.

    We should also be aware that governance seems more at home in the context of corporations, and in line with that, the word assumes the existence of the entity to be unproblematic – be it a state or a corporation.

    For countries and states that are relatively new and that are still being ‘built’, the increasing usage of ‘governance’ may be in response to the initial and over time, excessive focus on the notion of nationbuilding rather than on state building.

    Governance as a notion necessarily highlights rules and regulations, technocratic mechanisms and corrective procedures. Except where security is a concern, it is of great advantage that information is free and reliable since policies have to be based on them – as are punishments.

    So what constitutes Good Governance on the part of a national government?

    I would deconstruct the term into the following related processes:

  • State building (developing and maintaining the apparatus of the state);

  • Nation building (managing inter-ethnic ties; developing a sense of national belonging; handling extra-national relations);

  • National-economy building (integrating economic activities within the country; managing budget income and expenditure; investing for growth and economic stability);

  • Improving the socio-economic situation of the citizenry and maintaining a promise of a stable and better future;

  • Managing the relationship between state and citizenry (Rakyat), such that security and justice; freedom from fear; and protection from arbitrary power are maximised.

    • Each of these involves complicated and often strongly inter-linked itineraries. The focus differs from country to country and from regime to regime, and necessarily shifts over time as well.

    The important point being made here is that the historical context of any given case must be considered in deciding what good governance is and is not.

    Where building a state is concerned, the focus is mainly on technocratic capability and legal reliability. Building a nation, which is the more commonly adopted notion, deals more with the emotive aspects of social harmony and with matters of identity.

  • 12 - Racialising the Un-racialisable: What Is the Red Shirt Rally All About?

  • from Before 9 May 2018
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 41-43

  • Summary

    Following the Red-Shirt rally in Kuala Lumpur on 16 September, discussions have been rife that the government of Prime Minister Najib Razak was ‘playing the racial card’ to bolster support and to distract the public, especially its Malay supporters, from distressing issues at hand.

    It is true that the demonstration was a purely Malay rally, but what is essential to note is that while the initial impulse to organise it came from people who were undoubtedly trying to highlight and deepen the racial divide, by the time the event did take place, much of that had been deftly turned into a show of support for the beleaguered prime minister by his staunchest followers.

    In the end, few incidents took place and the riot police did not have much trouble keeping rowdy demonstrators at bay, who were symbolically trying to get into the city's Chinatown.

    This is an important point to highlight. The racialising did not spread.

    The demonstration was an angry reaction by Mr Najib supporters to the anti-Najib Bersih 4.0 rally that took place on 29–30 August. Notwithstanding the huge turnout at that two-day event, some mass media outlets had focused on the proportionately low number of Malay participants at the Bersih rally.

    This in sadly typical of Malaysian journalism, in fact—whatever happens, look for the racial aspect first. What should be read out of this is that the Bersih Movement has been very successful in achieving its main long-term goal. This is not so much electoral reforms as the gradual shifting of the national discourse away from persistent racial issues over to a passion for democratic governance instead.

    Ever since it was formed by a large group of civil society organisations and opposition parties, Bersih (short for Gabungan Pilihanraya Bersih dan Adil—the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections) has relied for support on its non-racial agenda of electoral reforms.

    The latest version of its reforms are (1) free and fair elections; (2) a clean government; (3) the right to dissent; (4) strengthening parliamentary democracy; and (5) saving the Malaysian economy. These are generally so technical and generic in nature that one would be hard put to turn them into racial issues.

  • 31 - One Thing Is Certain—There Will Be More Amendments to the Constitution

  • from With Mahathir at the Helm
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 111-113

  • Summary

    As with all agreements, consensus and contracts, a Constitution is a hunt for a balance – and a dynamic one at that, between the expressing on one hand of lofty national aspirations and ambitions, and on the other of compromises meant to be more binding than they usually turn out to be.

    It is an act of self-definition and self-control, where rights and duties are laid out in broad generic terms. Thus, one can see it either as a search for common ideals, or as an arena of contestation where the fortunes of different interest groups shift over time. Which parts are carved in stone and which parts are of wet clay? That seems to be the unanswerable question.

    Edmund Burke, the famous conservative and vivid scholar of the French Revolution wrote in 1790 in Reflections on the Revolution in France that ‘A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Without such means it might even risque the loss of that part of the constitution which it wished the most religiously to preserve.’

    The obsession that Malaysian political parties have about the twothirds majority in parliament is a clear reflection that the country's Constitution is an arena of contestation rather than an expression of common ideals. Having the means to amend the Constitution is what power seems to be about.

    One can certainly argue that the contingencies of the 1950s – the fear of communism, the rush to gain independence on the part of the Malayan leaders and the need of the British to let its empire fall into a pattern that still left it with serious advantages, made the basic law of the country-to-be a balancing act – a superb act in legal formulation – that allowed most citizens to feel that they had not been excessively ignored.

    As we know, the choice for Malaya of a federation model instead of a union model – a decision reached in the immediate post-war period rather than after the communists had been largely defeated in the mid-50s, was not so much a matter of political principle and academic wisdom than it was the expression of the British need to retain the status quo of having sultanates.

  • 24 - Time for Anwar to Accept Mahathir's Olive Branch?

  • from Before 9 May 2018
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 85-87

  • Summary

    Malaysia's former prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, surprised his countrymen by turning up at the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Monday to shake the hand of his former deputy and protégé and (perhaps former) political foe, Anwar Ibrahim.

    This is a highly significant event and their short meeting sent a strong impulse through the Malaysian political landscape. Since Dr Mahathir launched a campaign to unseat Prime Minister Najib Razak many months ago, including a national tour that succeeded in collecting beyond its target of a million signatures calling for the removal of the Prime Minister, it had been unclear how far his movement would take him. Or how far he would actually go in getting what he wants.

    Strange twists in Malaysian politics now see the two figures who were once the two most powerful men in the country becoming fellow travellers with the common ambition of toppling the Prime Minister. The deep animosity between the two camps had loomed as the biggest hurdle to their forces mounting a concerted campaign against the federal government, and threatened to divide the opposition into those who would embrace Dr Mahathir into their camp, and those who refused.

    It was an understandable divide, given that while Anwar's supporters wished to topple UMNO and not only Mr Najib, Dr Mahathir's supporters were only out to get rid of the Prime Minister.

    The opposition parties, though having trouble working with each other, are largely faithful to Anwar and his agenda of national political reformation. No doubt, the grief that the former deputy prime minister and his family had had to suffer since his sacking on 2 September 1998 and eventual imprisonment accounts a lot for the sense of loyalty his supporters continue to feel for him.

    His Reformasi Movement has after all been the inspiration for the generation of Malaysians from all ethnic backgrounds that now forms the backbone of the opposition.

    In his dramatic move, Dr Mahathir appeared on neutral ground and over an issue that he and Anwar could agree upon, namely opposition to the National Security Committee (NSC) Act that they both claim gives unlimited powers to the Prime Minister.

  • 9 - Let's Be Cosmopolitan and Leave Multi-ethnicity Behind

  • from Before Pakatan Harapan
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 32-33

  • Summary

    It is fascinating how seemingly innocuous words actually are not. Especially those that sound neutral, even ethically positive. That is why the sage never thinks in haste, because he knows the words that bear his thoughts cannot be trusted and his listener's ability to understand him the way he wishes to be understood must always be doubted.

    Take ‘multi-ethnic’ for example. We often consider that term to be a practical synonym for ‘pluralism’ or ‘multicultural’. And so, we move on from that concept to begin dreaming about celebrating diversity based on multi-ethnicity. And we are then exasperated by how impossible that seems to be.

    I suspect the basic problem is that ‘multi-ethnic’ is actually a highly conservative term. Its major connotations are static and ignore the evolving nature of individual identities in favour of collectivising humans under simple groupings.

    Revealingly, after the term ‘race’ became taboo in social scientific circles following the end of the Second World War, ‘ethnicity’ was recruited instead to replace it. In Malaysia, we now use those two as synonyms, as we do with ‘multi-racial’ and ‘multi-ethnic’.

    Putting together disparate units that are in the process starkly distinguished from each other does not bode well for the harmony of the whole. There is a contradiction herein that should warn us to have low expectations. The association between the groups is encouraged to be cultural or religious and is about treating each other as members and representatives of distinct groups. This collective identity approach to social life is a defensive and conflict-oriented one that cannot but breed caution and fear rather than celebration and enjoyment. If you ask me, that is where racism has its roots.

    The future is urban

    There is also the aspect of existential space. If we assume rurality as the backdrop for modern social interactions, then we are assuming that there is sufficient space for problematic differences to exist at a safe distance from each other. On the other hand, if we assume urbanity instead as the present and definitely the future nature of Malaysian society, then we must deal with the fact that there is simply not enough existential space for static divisions to be able to co-exist harmoniously.

  • 38 - What the Penang Floods Say About Malaysian Politics (and It's Not Just About Climate Change)

  • from With Mahathir at the Helm
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 145-148

  • Summary

    Extreme Weather hits most places on Earth every now and then and recently more than ever. But when freak storms appear with an intensity stronger and more devastating than living memory can recall, it is wise to conclude that we should not take blue skies and cooling rainfalls for granted.

    More obviously, governments should begin thinking very seriously about how the effects of dramatic climatic change can be mitigated at the most local level. If there is any lesson to be learned from the tropical storm that hit northern Malaysia, most notably the state of Penang on the weekend of 4–5 November, this is it.

    Weather systems seem to have shifted, and the people of Penang, where the weather has almost always been mild and where disasters are queer events that take place elsewhere, were totally surprised by an extremely heavy overnight downpour accompanied by high-velocity winds that brought down dozens of trees and countless branches, onto fences, roads, houses and cars.

    Seven people died.

    Penang being Penang – a state defiantly run by the federal opposition since 2008, and which has for two mandate periods now been a poke in the eye of the powerful and long-standing central government, it has been difficult for many to consider the floods simply as a natural disaster. Instead, some schadenfreude was initially evident and fingers were pointed at the state government. But to be fair, much of this was done before most people realised how bad the situation actually was.

    It did not help that there had been some flash flooding and landslides a couple of months earlier on an unprecedented scale, though a scale now dwarfed by the November storm.

    A construction site landslide that took 11 lives on 21 October had further shocked the people of Penang into demanding answers and action from the Pakatan Harapan government led by Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng. His government has set up a commission of inquiry into the latter incident.

    Civil society groups had been demanding for years that the state and local governments exercise more control over hillside developments.

    The political pressure had therefore been mounting on Lim before the storm hit on the night of 4 November. Perhaps because of that, the chief minister was fast in responding to the latest crisis.

  • 27 - Why Malaysia's Opposition Will Take to the Streets Again

  • from Before 9 May 2018
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 95-98

  • Summary

    Mass demonstrations are a strategic forcing of an issue to a head. This is definitely so in the case of Malaysia's Bersih 5 rally planned for 19 November. As its name reveals, this is the fifth street protest in a series.

    Organised by a huge assemblage of civil society bodies, the first Bersih (Malay for ‘clean’) street march held on 10 November 2007, directly and simply called for clean and fair elections. That day, at least 30,000 yellow-shirted demonstrators turned up, with some having to endure chemical-laced water cannons for their troubles.

    That demonstration turned a page in Malaysian politics and in the evolution of the country's civil society activism. It precipitated a political avalanche that almost swept the long-ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition out of power in federal elections held the following year. The impetus continued, but again in the 2013 elections, the BN managed to cling on to power.

    Bersih 5 goes beyond calling for clean elections and is instead a public show of outrage over how badly democracy has deteriorated in Malaysia. But unlike 2007, the diversity of forces arrayed behind it this time reflects the difficulties critics of the BN have faced in trying to dislodge a government they consider to have lost its moral mandate to rule.

    Prime Minister Najib Razak's government, as a consequence of its weak position, has in the last few years applied a string of legal, paralegal, institutional and political means to silence powerful opponents. These have been surprisingly effective.

    When he took power in 2009 in a party coup, Datuk Seri Najib's initial profile as leader was to reconcile traditional Malay-first aficionados with those gathered around former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim who was preaching good governance as the cure-all for the country's many political ailments. Not only did Mr Najib fail to live up to this promise, his time in power has seen a worrying approval – and instigation – of dangerous expressions of racism and religious extremism.

    In the general election of May 2013, Mr Najib had – albeit half-heartedly – focused his attention on winning back the Chinese electorate. After his narrow victory in those polls – no thanks to that electorate – he had asked angrily: ‘Apa lagi Cina mahu?’

  • 51 - In Lieu of Race and Religion

  • from Beyond 9 May 2018
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 201-204

  • Summary

    One can easily see how southern Southeast Asia, being largely maritime, ethnically very diverse and historically and geo-economically a collection of trade routes, in dividing itself into zealous and jealous nation-states over the last century, would as a region see prescribe racial and religious sentiments in the creating of stable national, ethnic majorities.

    To be sure, the creation of a politically relevant sense of ethnic commonality has almost always depended on a synchronised proselytisation of a common religion. Thus, communal sentiments have more often than not been constructed by means of an emotive complex of religious control and race construction.

    This begs the question, how then is peaceful multicultural life even possible? And relatedly, why would a project of ethnic identity even allow itself to be open-ended and contaminated? Let me in a hasty fashion list some points that I think can help the discussion along.

    The Contingency of Ethnic Identity Creation

    To start with, ethnicities are not as stable units of identity and community as one might think. Indeed, the project of ethnicity creation is in itself a deceptive undertaking. I would claim it to be a political game played in the interest of a select group more than it is a description of unchanging reality. In Karl Marx's exaggeration, it is necessarily a false identity.

    But what comes first? The need to survive or the need to identify? Now, I can agree that since a group is stronger than an individual, group identification immediately increases the chances of survival enormously. Beyond a certain level though, the economic gains to be had from inter-ethnic collaboration becomes obvious. Close societies seem therefore to be rather unstable. One of the greatest political paradoxes in human history is that empires tend necessarily towards multiculturalism while nation-states move in the opposite direction and exert petty control over the expressions of identity of its citizens.

    International Economic Mutualism

    What humanity has learned more clearly than ever now is that economic interaction between nations and polities is done because it is mutually beneficial. In fact, the post-World War II, post-colonial, post-Cold War era is a period where economic interaction and the conditions needed to sustain and develop international trade are recognised and pursued as the remedy for international war.

  • 50 - Malaysia's Reformasi Movement Lives Up To Its Name

  • from Beyond 9 May 2018
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 194-200

  • Summary

    A Silent and Peaceful Revolution

    A revolution took place in Malaysia on 9 May 2018. It was a silent and peaceful one, amazingly achieved through the ballot box and is therefore not noticed for what it is. But it is a revolution nevertheless and the effects of it are moving like a strong undercurrent throughout the nation – cutting down old structures, be these mental ones, social ones or political ones. A sense of jubilation and disorientation now permeates the country and will do so for a few weeks yet, if not months.

    For people in the states of Penang and Selangor, which had been governed by federal opposition parties for the last ten years, the sudden change whereby the federal power is now an intimately friendly one is dizzily baffling. From being necessarily defensive, strategic and reactive in all they did to parry an antagonistic central power, they now have the weird opportunity to dream big. It will take a while before they can do that with gusto and confidence. Their old habits will die hard. Some hesitation is to be expected, along with much resentment against those who had supported the fallen government so unconscionably. Some frames of thought will appear clearly outdated, and when expressed will sound revisionist or obsolete.

    Economically, there is good reason to hope that the country can now live up to its potential again, that many of its migrated sons and daughters, now well trained in foreign lands, will return to help put the country back on track and that the recent fall of the ringgit will be reversed.

    This toppling of a regime that had been in place since independence in 1957 occurs two decades after the country lost its ability in 1997–98 to soar with fellow Asian flying geese. And with the change in government, it is now finally able to put the lessons it learned – or should have learned – from the Asian Financial Crisis to good use.

    While countries such as South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia experienced immediate regime change and institutional reforms that today have left them as unrecognisably different entities from what they were in the Roaring 90s, Malaysia came through that period with its political system intact. That was partly due to the doggedness of thenprime minister Mahathir Mohamad in rejecting external assistance and interference.

  • 20 - Interview with Mahathir Mohamad: ‘People Must Be Able to Hold Their Heads Up.’

  • from Before 9 May 2018
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 68-74

  • Summary

    Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was in Penang as part of his cross-country tour, and as a guest of Penang Institute, to gather at least one million signatures for the Citizen's Declaration he initiated. He spent 20 minutes talking with Ooi Kee Beng in between arriving from KL with Tun Dr Siti Hasmah and rushing off to deliver his speech at the packed Straits Quay Convention Centre. The interview took place in the late afternoon on 8 May 2016 at the E&O Hotel.

    Dr Ooi Kee Beng: Tun, your generation fascinates me. You are of the nation-building generation who dared to imagine that it would not only change the world, but configure it to fit local conditions. The impact of that generation has of course been enormous in all post-colonial countries but that generation is passing. What advice would you give young Malaysians about the future, given what you see now of global economic dynamics and the political situation in Malaysia today?

    Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad: The first thing for people to learn is the history of the country because if you don't have an understanding of the background of the country, you cannot make an assessment of events or of the improvements that have taken place. Many Malaysians today were born long after Independence. I would tell them that what we are seeing today is completely different from what we had under the British or even in the early days of Independence. So we must be able to make a comparison between the past and the present.

    OKB: If there is one word to describe you, Tun, I would use the word ‘nationalist’. You are very much, for want of a better word, a situationalist. Your analysis of events and different times shifts as things evolve; you seem very tuned into evolving dynamics. In that sense the methods you adopt would be understood best in a tactical mode. Would that be correct?

    MM: I was trained as a doctor and a doctor approaches a problem with a certain method. He has to know the background, the history of the patient and do an additional examination to see what the problem is. For a sick person or for a community, it is the same thing. Once you adopt that approach, you recognise a problem much more clearly.

  • 3 - Beyond the Nationalism Trap

  • from Before Pakatan Harapan
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 10-12

  • Summary

    One thing that shocked me when I first went to Sweden for my studies 35 years ago was how dirty a word ‘Nationalism’ was in Western Europe. This reaction, I realised, was very much a reflection of how the concept was positively implanted in my mind while a schoolboy in Malaysia but it also demonstrated how greatly human experiences can differ in different parts of the world.

    More importantly, it revealed to me how strongly we are intellectually captured by the language use of our times and our location.

    But the Swedes are very proud of their country, so how come nationalism is frowned upon so badly? The same thing applied throughout Europe, at least until recently. Excessive immigration over the last two decades, coupled with declining economic fortunes and waning self-confidence has buoyed the ascendance of ultra-rightist groups in all countries throughout the continent.

    So why was Nationalism so despised? Europe is after all the home continent of the nation state.

    For starters, Europe was always a place of endless wars often fought ostensibly for religious reasons between feudal powers. The arrival of the nation state ideology helped to lower the frequencies of these tragedies but only to replace it soon after with non-religious types of rationale for conflict. The American Revolution and French Republicanism added the new phenomenon of ‘government by the people’. The French case also brought into the equation the Left-Right Dimension that would define politics and political thinking for the next two centuries.

    This conceptual division between Popular Mandate and Elite Rule expressed the rights of common people on the one hand and the role of the state on the other sharply. Once this gap was articulated, conflating the two poles anew became a necessary task.

    The three major articulations in Europe of this mammoth mission to bridge the divide and achieve a functional modern system were Liberal Democracy, Communism and Fascism. While the Anglo-Saxon world championed the first, Stalin's Soviet Union perfected the second and Adolf Hitler developed the third to its insane conclusion. In Europe, it was basically these three actors who fought the Second World War.

    In Asia, Japan's brand of state fascism ran riot throughout the region, rhetorically championing nationalism in the lands it took from the European colonialists.

  • 10 - Noses Don't Grow Back

  • from Before Pakatan Harapan
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 34-36

  • Summary

    It is very sad that the state of Penang is being ignored in the 11th Malaysia Plan (2016–20). None of the infrastructure projects the Penang government presented for financial support has been accepted by the federal government. Putrajaya seems to imagine that Malaysia will reach advanced nation status by 2020 without Penang's contribution; instead KL, Johor Bahru, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu are declared the growth catalyst cities, and will therefore receive central support.

    Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng was right to be outraged, as all Penangites are.

    They do not seem surprised by the fact that the federal government is willing to lower the country's chances of achieving advanced nation status just for the pleasure of punishing its stepchild state.

    Cutting your nose to spite your face is not something sane people do.

    Among the first things to happen following Malaysia's first general elections in 1964 was the suspension of local government elections. This affected Penang greatly. Local government in the state had been responsible ‘in advancing progressive policies such as social housing and major public infrastructure projects such as drainage, public toilets (a novel idea at that time), mobile clinics and even a dam.’ (See Penang Monthly'scover story for April 2015, p. 35).

    This was followed by the steady withdrawal of the free port status that Penang had always enjoyed. This spiked further the unemployment that the state was already suffering in the late 1960s, exacerbated by the crisis that followed the huge devaluation of the British Pound on 18 November 1967. The Penang riots of 1968 were very much a result of severe economic dejection.

    We forget today how bad things actually were for Penang back in the days and how many of the state's sons and daughters had to leave for what they could only hope were greener pastures either to the Klang Valley or beyond.

    The depressed socioeconomic situation of the times sufficiently explains the Gerakan phenomenon – how this party, Partai Gerakan Rakyat, founded only on 24 March 1968 by a hotchpotch of failing politicians and idealist academics, could take power in Penang in May 1969, less than 14 months after it came into being.

  • 6 - Let's Work Out What Malaysia Is Good For

  • from Before Pakatan Harapan
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 18-20

  • Summary

    A wave of pessimism and dejection has been pervading Malaysia for quite a long time now. Exactly when it started is hard to say, but what has been obvious is that whatever potential lines of division that can be found in the diversity that characterises the country have recently been made more salient.

    Relatedly, the types of criminality seem to have become harsher, suggesting that the social fabric is being worn very thin and that the economic situation for the lower classes has worsened dramatically. The recent abduction and beheading of a two-year-old girl in Kuala Lumpur stunned the country.

    Homelessness has increased with as many as 1,500 people not only roaming the streets of Kuala Lumpur with no shelter but also being accused of preferring stealing and begging to ‘a normal life’. The latter bizarre verdict reportedly came from no one less important than the country's Minister for Women, Family and Community Development.

    The planned implementation of a federal goods and services tax regime in April next year to ease state budgetary imbalances, whether well-advised or not, is not expected to help the less fortunate either.

    Apart from deteriorating socio-economic conditions, inter-ethnic and inter-faith relations have been widening, pushed by small extremist groups with ties to the dominant party claiming mass media coverage for themselves way beyond their due – and certainly way beyond the merit of their arguments.

    Religious authorities have also been overly eager in policing improprieties in Malaysia's highly pluralistic society, in one case taking Malaysians back to the trauma of observing a non-Muslim funeral being disrupted by Muslim authorities that took the deceased away from her family with the claim that she was a converted Muslim. The Penang State Shariah court rejected this claim a couple of days later. Such cases of ‘body snatching’ at funerals grabbed the headlines frequently several years ago causing great damage to inter-faith trust.

    The ban on the use of certain words considered the monopoly of Muslims has also upset non-Muslims greatly, again undermining trust between the diverse communities that constitute the population of the Malaysian federation.

  • Foreword

  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp ix-x

  • Summary

    Reading Ooi Kee Beng's Catharsis a month or so after the historic 9 May 2018 general election has been such a joy. These pages essentially express the early warning signs of the 2018 electoral tsunami. It is just that those on the Barisan Nasional side couldn't be bothered to listen, and many supporters on the Pakatan Harapan side probably thought it was outlandish to think that BN could be defeated against all the odds.

    Kee Beng was one of the earliest to see the importance of the emergence of Dr Mahathir Mohamad as opposition leader and of his tactical moves to reconcile with Anwar Ibrahim.

    Kee Beng's words are sharp and pointed: For instance, ‘a resignation by Mahathir (from UMNO) is not a throwing in of the towel but a declaration of war.’ But his concerns go beyond commenting on who would win and who would lose.

    Nation building is what he cares about. How to shape a Malaysia that is at ease with itself and its multiethnic heritage in the rapidly changing world full of challenges – but also opportunities. Malaysia is not merely a collection of races and religions but a platform for individual citizens to thrive as citizens of a nation that they can all be proud of.

    Kee Beng returned to the region in 2004 after having sojourned for more than two decades in Europe. I returned from Australia in 2005. Since our first meeting in Kuala Lumpur in 2005, we have in many ways participated in each other's careers, which somehow intertwined with the great changes in Malaysian politics that have been occurring since then. In the closing days of 2006, I was reading the then recently published The Reluctant Politician before it hit the bookshelves to become one of the most sold non-fiction books in Malaysian history, and through which Kee Beng became a favourite name among the Malaysian reading public. I remember clearly being at his house in Singapore in December 2007 telling him about my reluctance to contest in Penang as I wasn't sure about how much support could be gained in his hometown. I had no personal ties there.

    So very much has happened ever since.

    It is my great pleasure to have known Kee Beng all these years and to have him as one of my intellectual mentors.

  • 29 - A Battle Between Malay Leaders Over Malaysia's Future

  • from Before 9 May 2018
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 102-104

  • Summary

    The year 2016 is about over.

    It was a year of surprises globally, what with terrorist attacks in Europe, the refugee flows into Europe from the Middle East, Brexit, the election of Donald Trump as the next US president and so on.

    For Malaysia, it was allegations and investigations, and sackings and jailings surrounding the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) investment fund run by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak that were given the most column inches and the most browser space in the traditional and social media.

    Tied to this was the low-key celebration of the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the dominant party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). This should not surprise observers since the party has in fact been plagued by serious internal strife and its president has been under tremendous pressure to explain the goingson involving 1MDB. Sadly, the 1Malaysia slogan that he so hopefully adopted after taking power in 2009 is now cause for ridicule and criticism.

    A totally new political scenario has been building up over the last two years, and despite Najib's and UMNO's amazing ability to survive challenges that in most other countries would have seen a change of government many times over, there is likely little chance that the ruling coalition can increase its voter support.

    UMNO's challenges are serious indeed, and they have been coming fast and furious. We saw the removal, among others, of its deputy president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin as deputy prime minister in June 2015 and his sacking from the party in July 2016. Since then, Muhyiddin has joined former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who had resigned from the party in February 2016 after his son Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir was dumped as Menteri Besar of Kedah. Mukhriz was later sacked from the party along with Muhyiddin.

    In September, these three, together with other former UMNO members, formed a new Malay-based party, Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM). And on Dec 13, PPBM most significantly signed an electoral agreement with the opposition coalition, Pakatan Harapan.

    Over in Sabah, Shafie Apdal, the UMNO vice-president who was removed from the Rural and Regional Development portfolio when Muhyiddin lost his Cabinet position in July 2015, formed an opposition party of his own, the Sabah Heritage Party (Warisan).

  • 52 - It All Seems So Simple Now…

  • from Beyond 9 May 2018
  • Kee Beng Ooi
  • Book:
    Catharsis
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    03 September 2018, pp 205-207

  • Summary

    Into the great dining hall, the children came. The guards at the gates do their best to keep as many of them out as possible, but they are too few and the children have become many and they have become good at pushing their way in. They gather eagerly despite feeling unwelcomed because this hall is opened only once every five years for the grand dinner. And everyone can talk that day. Over time, the children have learned that if they are precise in their language, and if they speak in unison, their voices can actually echo nicely and fill the room.

    They tend to assemble in several big groups. There are those who rush to come close to the head of the table where the food is served first and where the favours of the master of ceremony are dispensed most freely. Then there are those who sit slightly to the side, sulky but hopeful of some attention from the main table. At the far end of the room gather those who have given up on ever getting to the main table and they mix in uncomfortably with those furthest away who prefer the fresher air closest to the tall windows.

    There are always some who prefer to hang around outside the swinging doors that lead into the kitchen, not caring that being close to where the food is being prepared does not mean that they get served first, or at all. But they are hopeful. And every now and then, one of them manages to sneak in to satiate themselves unnoticed.

    It is otherwise all meant to be rather formal and ritualistic, like a sun-worshipping ceremony that starts with the sun rising and that ends when the sun goes behind the first clouds, and whose real significance few remember any longer, least of all the masters of ceremony.

    It is all often more reminiscent of mealtime at some Dickensian orphanage, where one gets one's share – and often less – and any request for more is rewarded with a sharp slap or with detention.

    But this year, 2018, 9 May, the often oppressive and unhappy atmosphere in Malaysia Hall feels strangely different. Perhaps it is because the windows over time no longer shut very well and more fresh air than normal now fills the room.

  • Foreword

  • John Lee
  • Book:
    The "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" and Implications for ASEAN
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    26 August 2018, pp v-vi

  • Summary

    The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

    The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

    The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policymakers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

  • The “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” and Implications for ASEAN

  • John Lee
  • Book:
    The "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" and Implications for ASEAN
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    26 August 2018, pp 1-34

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    On 2 September 1945, General Douglas MacArthur made the following remarks during a broadcast to the American people after conclusion of the Japanese Surrender Ceremony:

    We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in peace what we won in war …

    Various methods through the ages have attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations … If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door …

    To the Pacific basin has come the vista of a new emancipated world. Today, freedom is on the offensive, democracy on the march. Today in Asia as well as in Europe, unshackled peoples are tasting the full sweetness of liberty …

    MacArthur's remarks were to prove relevant and prescient for the next half century.

    The post-war period was marked by dramatic transformation in East Asia. The United States established a series of bilateral alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, Thailand and the Philippines, which survive to the present day. Security arrangements were gradually cobbled together with many of the major maritime states including Singapore and Malaysia in addition to a de facto military partnership with Taiwan.

    A messy but integrated political and economic system developed around this hub-and-spokes security architecture. America offered capital, know-how and access to its immense consumer market to help East Asian economies back on their feet, or in some cases, to embark on the pathway to modernisation for the first time in their history. East Asian states enjoyed protection, stability and economic access to the U.S. economy in return for supporting the U.S.'s geo-strategic presence in the region.

    G. John Ikenberry observes, “East Asian countries export goods to America and America exports security to the region.”2 As these states became successful economies, they were expected to gradually democratise, open their own domestic markets, and contribute further to the maintenance of stability and security in the region.

    The rules-based order which emerged was essentially a liberal hegemonic rules-based order: a system of rules, laws, institutions and treaties underpinned by a liberal superpower offering protection and public goods for all nations agreeing to play by its (the superpower's) rules.

  • The “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” and Implications for ASEAN

  • John Lee
  • Book:
    The "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" and Implications for ASEAN
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    12 February 2019
    Print publication:
    26 August 2018, pp vii-viii

  • Summary

    EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

  • • In recent times, the United States, Japan and Australia have all promoted extremely similar visions of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific as the central organizing concept to guide their efforts in the region. The concept is essentially a reaffirmation of the security and economic rules-based order which was cobbled together after the Second World War — especially as it relates to freedom of the regional and global commons such as sea, air and cyberspace, and the way nations conduct economic relations.

  • • Be that as it may, the Free and Open Indo-Pacific is an updated vision of collective action to defend, strengthen and advance that order. It signals a greater acceptance by the two regional allies of the U.S. of their security burden and takes into account the realities of China's rise and the relative decline in dominance of the U.S.

  • • There are a number of noteworthy “updates” which include:

  • – A deliberate move from “Asia-Pacific” to “Indo-Pacific” as the primary geo-strategic and geo-economic area of interest and responsibility for the three countries;

  • – An increased emphasis on creating and sustaining a “balance of power” in favour of the rules-based order; and

  • – A greater emphasis on the liberal aspects of a preferred order including the importance of rule-of-law and limitations on how governments wield their power, and greater separation of political and strategic objectives on one hand with commercial activities on the other.

  • • While operationalization of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept is at an early stage, trilateral strategic cooperation between the U.S., Japan and Australia is significant and quickly deepening. On the other hand, and with respect to misalignment and inconsistency, the economic policies of the Trump administration are causing considerable frustration.

  • • The three countries have also been strong supporters for the revival of the Quadrilateral grouping which also includes India. However, and notwithstanding some apprehension in Southeast Asia, about where the “Quad” is heading, the latter grouping is only still a fledgling one and its shape and development will depend on the extent to which the four countries become concerned about China's activities in both Oceans.

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