With the changing of the guards pursuing its peculiar course among our premier political parties, amidst buzzing speculations of yet another general election, we can expect a stormy season of political discourses on the electronic and print airwaves. I suppose it will only get worse in the months ahead. Malaysiakini is no exception, and the letters column provides plenty of food for thought.

It is only natural that the focus of discussion is usually on the various political parties on both sides of the power divide. After all, we do practise a semblance of parliamentary democracy, and political parties and politicians are the main actors in the unfolding drama that we call politics.

On paper at least, ruling and opposition parties provide voters with choices. The options they offer in terms of ideology, policies, and programmes are supposed to manifest the freedom that citizens enjoy by right, in a full embodiment of what it means to live in an independent sovereign

nation.

Thank God we do have a relatively free forum like malaysiakini , where commentators can compare the merits and demerits of different political parties and engage in meaningful debates, in the hope that readers can consider all views and eventually make a reasonable political decision when casting their vote.

But my question is: how do people choose and vote for any political party, or any alliance of political parties? What constitutes "reasonableness" in that choice?

Politics of 'shopping'

I do share a letter writer's observation that there is perhaps a bit too much of the "shopping" attitude latent in many commentaries. Some people examine the various political parties and political leaders, as they would when it comes to choosing a brand name consumer product in a departmental store.

Worse still, the smug air of satisfaction that some commentators assume reminds me of a diner in a posh restaurant pondering over his menu. The consumerist deliberation there is pregnant with the unspoken and perhaps unexamined question: which item would produce in 'me' the greatest pleasure and the least pain, and at the least cost.

I should add a corollary, given the factional fragmented partisan nature of our national consciousness. The unspoken and unexamined question in the mind of many political consumers in Malaysia could also be: which political party can produce the most cost effective satisfaction to 'my race' or 'my religion', and may the other races and religions be damned, as far as this particular voter is concerned.

I call this political consumerism, because the self-satisfied pleasure of the voter comes from the knowledge of his spending power. In the case of our diner in the posh restaurant, his happiness in his power to demand and enjoy maximum service is bolstered by the idea of the cash (or credit cards) in his back-pocket wallet.

In the case of our political consumer, however, his medium of exchange is his one vote. It is a currency very much in demand during general elections. Through it, one can sell off one's temporary support for maximum benefits that serve one's self-interest, or the perceived collective interests of the racial or religious group, with which one identifies.

I suspect subject to verification or falsification through an actual sociological survey that this doctrine of utilitarian vote-peddling, in one form or another, runs rampant across the length and breadth of this nation.

I have vivid memories of villagers in some remote communities in Sarawak, waiting in great anticipation for the arrival of politicians just before polling day, and they were armed with the badges of various political parties. It did not really matter which politician from which party would come to canvass for their vote. There were ready for the great auction, in which they would pledge their support to the highest bidder. Needless to say, the bidding would go on right up to the very last moment of the campaign period, sometimes accompanied by much feasting.

So what is wrong with this "shopper" attitude to politics?

Collective values

For a start, a polity is an ethical phenomenon. A political choice every five years or so during a general election ought to be an ethical decision about the collective values of all the citizens. The process of voting ought to engage the question of what kind of good Malaysian society we hope to see in the future.

Once values are reduced to a matter of prices, as is the case with treating a general election like a business transaction, political corruption creeps in to destroy the social and economic fabric of the national life.

Secondly, a political choice with exclusive emphasis on personal or vested interest is not really open to meaningful debate and discussion. In short, you have made up your mind to look after Number One, and you will give all sorts of reasons to justify your stand anyway.

You are right, and every one else is wrong, except those who happen to agree with you. An exchange of opinions with others who hold opposing views would easily degenerate into a quarrel between a duck and a chicken.

Thirdly, the "shopper" mentality is not conducive to the nurturing of a civil society. A healthy democracy demands the active participation of the citizenry, during and between elections. In sharp contrast though, a political "shopper" is essentially a spectator on the sideline.

Shaping a common destiny

Political parties and their policies are like consumer goods to him, and therefore external to his sense of meaning and existence. In order to derive maximum benefits to himself and his family, he is quite happy to leave the dirty business of politics entirely in the hands of careerist politicians. They usually end up choosing the government they deserve, i.e., an authoritarian corrupt government.

Lastly, it does not make for building a national consciousness. General elections are not merely about who should be in power for the next five years. They should also be about the shaping of a common destiny for all citizens through public discourses, instead of the exercise of naked power

and coercion.

Democracy should be a reasonable process to resolve conflicts and arrive at a national consensus through peaceful means. Exclusive consideration of personal interest, or acrimonious sentiments expressed in the form of racial or religious dogmas provide little room for national compromise.

If the mass media of communication is a mirror meant to reflect the collective psyche of our nation, then ours is a cracked broken splintered mirror. Self-interests or, by extension of personal identification, racial and religious interests will ensure that the irrational forces of hatred and mutual suspicion are always lying in waiting to rear their ugly heads.

You can blame this sorry state of affairs on the political superstructure of communal politics that has been written into our constitution and entrenched by regimes of the past. But at some point, the finger-pointing has to stop.

Malaysiakini the forum?

John Stuart Mill, the father of classical liberalism, proposed unabashedly that political freedom can be realised only when citizens are properly civilised and educated. Our schools have become so rigid as an instrument of social control that we can no longer expect any work of real civilising and educating to be done by them. Perhaps malaysiakini is a proper forum for that purpose.

I suspect many Malaysians logging onto malaysiakin i tend to take the freedom of expression in this virtual space for granted.

I, for one, am concerned that the whole noble project may have to close shop due to lack of financial support. Perhaps we tend to forget that malaysiakini is the closest thing we have to what Jurgen Habermas would call a genuine "public sphere". It is the rarest gem in this stifling suffocating oppressive media scene in Malaysia.

Perhaps, we should also show that we cherish this freedom of expression by adding value to it, in the form of reasoned self-reflective open-ended views, rather than merely duplicating the prejudices of the mainstream media.