Old dogs, no new tricks

Ever since Barisan Nasional (BN) received its ‘reform or die’ message in the March 2008 general election, I’ve been dreading the possibility that it might start cleaning up its act.

Call me unforgiving or even vindictive, but after decades of systematic corruption, injustice and racism, BN deserves retribution for its malicious rule of Malaysia, not a reprieve for improved behaviour.

But all my anxiety has been in vain. Despite months of assertions that it has learnt its lesson from the general election and decisive losses in subsequent by-elections, and numerous attempts to appear committed to reform, BN clearly has no intention of changing.

No genuine action has been taken to clean up the judiciary. The ‘new’ Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission seems as slack and selective in its activities as the old Anti-Corruption Agency ever was.

The ‘mainstream’ media are as blatantly BN-biased as ever. There are no signs of serious investigations into repeated allegations of police brutality and homicide. Suspicions persist of high-level involvement in the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder.

One massive financial scandal after another goes ignored by regulators. Questionable charges continue to hang over opposition figures like Anwar Ibrahim. The Hindraf 5 are still unjustly incarcerated under the unconstitutional Internal Security Act.

The power-grab in Perak remains unresolved. And three forthcoming by-elections are shaping-up, as usual, into BN-style buy-elections.

So the recent call by Umno deputy president Najib Abdul Razak for “massive change” in the party sounds more hollow and hypocritical than ever. Najib is to many Malaysians the most vivid living embodiment of all that’s incurably wrong with BN. And as strenuously as he pretends to advocate reform, he still insists on implying that the coalition’s problems are “perceptions” rather than realities.

For all his reformist rhetoric, Najib is not about to change, and nor are any of his colleagues. And even if they are ready and willing to change, there’s no way they can do it, thanks to the proverbial fact that you can’t teach old dogs new tricks.

There was a time when I might have questioned the validity of this proposition. Back when I was just a pup and perhaps a little more hopeful than I am these days, I probably fancied that anybody is capable of changing, perhaps even for the better.

And even now that I’m much longer in the tooth, I sometimes find myself accepting old dogs’ assurances that they’ve changed their ways. For example I’m optimistic that Anwar, once bitten by fate in the form of Dr Mahathir Mahathir, is now genuinely twice shy of reverting to his old Umno instincts.

My blogger pal K Temoc, recalling what a mongrel he thought Anwar was back when in the days when he was Mahathir’s pet, continues to hound us with his opinion that the man remains his old, rabid self, and is in fact just a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Let’s keep dogging BN

I have to concede to KT that, if Anwar really has changed, then he’s a rare exception to the rule. I’ve been kind of hoping that I’m an exception too, but as doggedly as I’ve been trying to learn some new tricks lately, I’m finding that the old tricks are desperately difficult to replace.

My performance as a husband, for instance, doesn’t appear to have improved much over the years. Despite all the lessons I should have learnt from two previous marriages and divorces, I find myself increasingly in the doghouse lately with my long-time, or, perhaps more accurately from her point of view, long-suffering current wife.

And as if my marital situation wasn’t enough to convince me of the difficulty if not impossibility of being taught new tricks, I’ve recently embarked on a counselling course that requires me to radically change.

One of the two subjects I’ve started studying, Counselling Skills, has confronted me with the fact that I’m lamentably lacking in the listening skills required for success as a therapist.

And my poor performance as a listener has doubtless been increased and ingrained by 40 years in the profession of writing, an activity that could well be described as an endless series of monologues, or one-way conversations in which, as you’re no doubt noticing right here and now, the poor, unfortunate reader can’t get a word in edgeways.

So, as much as I might need or wish to change this situation, transforming myself from a transmitter to a receiver at least when I’m not actually writing, could well prove beyond my capabilities.

As could the other of the two subjects I’ve started with, Conflict Management. All my life, I discover, I’ve been causing, escalating and exacerbating conflict, seldom perceiving the need for, let alone practising, the art of conflict resolution.

All this presents me with quite a tricky conflict of interests. Much as I’d love to qualify as a counsellor or therapist some day and help people settle their intra-personal and inter-personal differences, I’d hate to think I could become reconciled with all the evils I’m accustomed to attacking, like the greed, repression, injustice and corruption of ruling regimes like BN.

Not that curs of this description can be changed by my yapping on about them, or by the howling, barking and baying of the whole pack of opposition writers and bloggers. But unlike the cowed and muzzled lapdogs of the mainstream media, at least we can take pride in performing as genuine watchdogs.

And as long as we refuse to change, in our political writing and other activities if not in our personal and professional relationships, we can take pleasure in BN’s failure to learn new tricks, increasingly falling to fighting among themselves, and eventually tearing each other to pieces.

This would make way for the new breed of politicians that it would take to save Malaysia from going entirely to the dogs.