Plural democracy's moment has arrived. It may have taken its time to get here, but demographic shifts cannot be rushed and structural deficiencies take their own sweet time to come out in the open though when they do they often announce their arrival in the most painfully embarrassing way. Yet the moment seems ripe for change and already we see the signs that such shifts are taking place.

The announcement that a special royal commission on the conduct of the Royal Malaysian Police Force (RMP) is a case in point. After decades of public criticism and enquiries, it has finally dawned upon the powers-that-be in this country of ours that the police are, after all, a public institution whose members are ordinary citizens like the rest of us. Cognisant of the

fact that the institution belongs within the public domain, the government now realises that it has to do something to rescue the faltering image and status of this body before the slide to ruin accelerates even further. Though some (such as Elizabeth Wong in her article ) have rightfully questioned the selection of some of the members of the enquiry board. It is clear to all that the government has been forced to act at last.

The recent budget for 2004 has also taken into consideration the needs of the poor and economically disenfranchised in the country. Its emphasis on the rural sector was proof, if any was needed, that the powers-that-be have finally woken up to the fact that tens of thousands of families in Malaysia are slipping behind in the race for development. Though some - myself

included - have also pointed out that this could be seen as an attempt to shore up the Malay-Muslim vote bank for the upcoming elections just around the corner.

What matters, however, is that the government has taken note of the fact that a significant section of the Malaysian populace has felt themselves left out and neglected for the past two decades. What is important to remember, however, is the fact that the income and development gap between the urban and rural sectors is not accidental: in fact it is the direct result of the lopsided development policies that were undertaken from the early 1980s onwards, and which have now revealed their ruinous results.

All in all, these reforms admitted initiated by the government itself have persuaded some that the powers-that-be are not entirely alienated from the people at large. Malaysia is not an Iran of the Shah's time; they insist. Nor can it be compared to the Philippines and Indonesia while under the stewardship of Ferdinand Marcos and General Soeharto, two of the US's closest allies in this region. That may be the case, but we should look deeper into the matter at hand and at least attempt an understanding of the dynamics at work here.

'Reform' as a mechanism of regime self-renewal?

There are regimes and there are regimes. Some, like the disreputable 'banana republics' we have seen dotting the impoverished landscape of Africa, Central and Latin America and the Arab states, have proven to be entirely self-serving and corrupt. Their elites were nothing more than compradore lackeys and wastrels in the pay of the West and they served in their capacity as contracted dictators who merely opened their economies to be pillaged and raped by powerful conglomerates and financial institutions of the developed world.

Asian despots, however, - while belonging to the same carnivorous species of homo dictatus are of a slightly different breed. They have evolved the intelligence and political good sense to know that they can hold on to power better and longer if their regimes of control and exploitation are disguised behind a fa ade of pseudo-democratic acceptability and respectability. In time they have ingeniously crafted a complex discourse that blends together elements and themes of patriotism, nationalism, sovereignty and the national interest; targeting key constituencies and cultivating these to become their natural vote banks; all the while alienating some unfortunate minorities as victimised groups that are continually referred to the 'enemies within', and so on. It was this blend of coercion, compromise and patronage that has allowed the governments of Asean: particularly Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines to stay in power for so long.

In the case of the latter two, democratic transitions have indeed taken place, but the ruling elite are drawn from the same coterie of landed business elite, financial corporate magnates, politicians and traditional aristocracy. The fundamental dynamics and structure of Asean society have failed to adapt and really evolve. Indeed what we have seen all along are shifts and changes

designed to keep the ruling paradigm intact and the same coterie of elites in power, an exercise of regime self-renewal in fact.

These governments and the Malaysian government is no exception can and have indeed 'listened' to the people and reacted accordingly. Once in a while the mechanism of governmentality and the apparatus of the state is tweaked and prodded here and there to keep the system running at an acceptable pace. Unlike many other parts of the world where the governments are really nothing more than a bunch of armed hooligans who keep the masses under check by pointing the gun at them, regimes in Southeast Asia have at least paid lip service to the discourse of democracy. In Indonesia elections were held during the time of Soeharto, even though it was known to all that these were really a sham and that no civic culture of plural democratic participation was being promoted by the state.

In return for this lip service to democracy, the capitalist interests of the West poured in vast amounts of capital to keep these economies open and the charade of liberal-democratic practice could be perpetuated. All the while foreign investors and their local cronies were raking in billions of dollars in profit, and Asean was spared the wrath of enraged Human Rights NGOs who vented their anger elsewhere. All this could have been maintained indefinitely until the economic and financial crises of 1997-98 burst the bubble that was the 'East Asian economic miracle'.

No more delusions

The financial and economic crises of 1997-98 exposed the hollow promises of the rulers of Asean. Overnight the people of Malaysia and its neighbouring countries realised that they had been fed a lie all along: Our economies were deeply penetrated by foreign capital (despite the protectionist discourse and talk of economic nationalism by our leaders); Asean's fragile social orders were torn apart by ethnic, racial and religious sectarian conflict (as was the case of the anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia); our governments' claims to transparency and accountability fell apart when it was revealed just how far corruption, patronage and nepotism had crept into the body politic and the ruling parties.

The moment of disillusionment can be traumatic and dislocating for most of us. While it may not be as shocking as seeing your father wearing your mom's panties in their bedroom, it can make your hair stand on end nonetheless and leave you with a lasting nasty feeling of disquiet for years to come.

But what is being disillusioned, if not being freed from a lie in the first place? For decades we in Malaysia have been fed the same story, with its attendant set of sub-narratives: The official state-approved narrative of the Malaysian nation, as penned by its authors of the Barisan Nasional

compromise, is as follows:

Malaysia is a plural nation of diverse communities and faith groups, but to keep this balance in order and to prevent instability we need to engineer a racial compromise between the groups and maintain laws like the Internal Security Act, Sedition Act (and other pieces of colonial-era legislation) to keep society together. Today we need even more laws and even more extensive policing to ensure that the new 'threat' to Malaysia known as 'Islamic militancy' would not disturb us as well.

Failure to do so would mean that the entire delicate balance would be put in jeopardy, and then all hell would break lose: Students would run riot in streets; minorities would demand their rights to be given equal space in public representation, the media, the bureaucracy, allocations to universities, etc; the Malays would lose their privileges and coveted position as natural 'masters' of the country (re: ketuanan Melayu); the non-Malays would be 'kurang ajar' and make more and more demands on the Malays; dad would be wearing mom's panties, and so on.

Leaving aside the question of who is wearing mom's panties, we need to interrogate some of these claims further and disabuse ourselves of some of the myths and fallacies that have kept the national consensus together.

Talk of the 'danger' of 'extremist sectarianism' in Malaysia is bogus, considering the formula of government in operation in Malaysia in the first place. We all know that the intra-elite compromise in Malaysia is the thing that has kept Malaysians apart for so long. Talk of the need for national service to instil patriotism and love of the nation is proof that nation-building has failed and rings hollow when we consider that the real culprits who have kept the races apart are the component parties of the BN in the first place. After all, till today these parties are divided along lines of ethnicity and race, despite the fact that they are uniform ideologically.

Talk of the danger of 'extremist Islam' is also a cruel conceit when we consider that the Islamisation race in Malaysia has been accelerated thanks to the intense and often bitter contestation for Malay-Muslim voters by both Umno and PAS. And while it has to be said that PAS has made its share of blunders (supporting the Taliban was one of them, forcing its vision of Islamic law on the populace another), Umno has also played its part in politicising Islam. Was it not an Umno state government that stood watch when the Perlis Faith Protection bill was put through, which would have allowed Muslims to be accused of apostasy and have them sent to 'faith rehabilitation centres'? Was it not an Umno state government that stood by when the religious authorities in Selangor came up with more regulations to police and monitor the private lives of Muslims in the state?

The structural deficiencies of the Malaysian model can no longer be swept under the carpet. Even if Malaysia would try to break another world record by making the biggest carpet in the world the political elite of the country would not be able to sweep all its skeletons and scandals under it. When the highest ranking police officer in the land beats up a prisoner who is blindfolded and handcuffed, it tells us something has gone seriously wrong with the system and the system can no longer correct itself: unless there is a genuine alternative. That alternative is democratic pluralism.

Change as necessity

Change is a necessity and fact of life. Every nation, culture and civilisation has to remain open to alternatives and undergo change in order to survive and prosper, and history is replete with examples of successful nations that have done so, as well as disastrous cases where societies have failed to adapt to new realities.

The new reality of Malaysia today is that it is a young country, with a significant section of its population under the age of 25. It is also an urbanised country where a majority of its people are city dwellers inhabiting a cosmopolitan habitus, are in contact and daily interaction with other communities, and are exposed to alternative currents of thought and social behaviour in other parts of the world. Younger Malaysians are aware of the tremendous strides that have been made in other countries, notably in neighbouring Indonesia which has seen the emergence of a free and critical press after the fall of Soeharto. They are also aware of the democratic advances made in other parts of the world, and realise that democracy means more than just voting once every five years: it also means being able to choose your own government and taking that government into account when it makes a mistake.

If and when these young Malaysians take to the streets, it is not for the sake of simply doing so or to cause havoc and chaos. It is because they are playing their role as active citizens to raise questions about how government is being conducted and who is responsible for what in this country. The trendy liberals on the wayside may moan and groan about how disruptive this may be especially if it leads to a traffic jam and they miss their date in Bangsar but that really shows that the liberal is really a conservative in disguise.

What the liberals and conservatives fail to note is that the younger generation are the ones most in tune to the realities of the age we live in. Their support of, and calls for, democratic space, transparency, governmental accountability, media freedom, cultural rights and freedom of thought and speech shows that they have already internalised the key themes and values of democratic pluralism that the liberals have abandoned on their way to the megamall. Those who call for change and the inculcation of plural democratic values are not a threat or a menace to this country: indeed they are the real patriots who still believe that Malaysia has something better to offer and that the Malaysian narrative can end with a happy conclusion for all Malaysians.

All of us, regardless of our racial/ethnic, religious, class and linguistic backgrounds share one thing in common: we are all Malaysian citizens and we all call this country our home and care for its future. We dream of a future Malaysia that is equal to all, that takes into account our particular wants, needs and aspirations and at the same time is able to cater to the needs of others according to an inclusive logic of equal representation and equal rights.

This cannot happen in a dictatorship, or in a system that obviously privileges one racial, ethnic, religious or class grouping above others. Indeed, in any other system the inherent contradictions that are built into the system itself will only occasion an ultimate collapse, followed by real chaos and dislocation possibly on a scale that cannot be contained or repaired in the future.

Democratic pluralism is based on the belief that a democratic system must be premised on the acceptance of the plural nature of society. A plural society in turn can only be run effectively if the mechanisms of democracy are put in place, to ensure transparency, equity and justice in the management of the public good and the distribution of common resources. It is a political

ideology that eschews and rejects all forms of sectarianism exclusivism, notions of racial/religious supremacy, and makes anti-racism and anti-sectarianism one of its cardinal fighting points.

The sceptics may claim that democratic pluralism has no future in Malaysia. Those who wish to see the status quo remain will undoubtedly say so, but then again that is to be expected as the rich and powerful seldom want to see any kind of change that threatens their own class interests. But as stated at the beginning of this piece, demographic changes and the gradual failure of the structures of state have made it inevitable for change to happen. If Malaysian society waits till it reaches a critical point before it acts, it may be held hostage to the more radical alternatives on offer then: The fall of the Shah of Iran and the rise of the Mullahs could have been averted in mainstream Iranian society had listened to the pleas of the poor in their midst, and given democratic pluralism a chance much earlier.

But history need not repeat itself here in Malaysia. As stated earlier, Malaysia is no Iran. Nor is it a Soeharto-era Indonesia or a Marcos-era Philippines. While our faults and weaknesses are open for all to see, the remedy is also at hand. That is why it is crucial for us to champion the cause of democratic pluralism and for Malaysian leaders (and potential leaders) to take it up as their political platform thus far one politician has done so at least: Sivarasa Rasiah. (See: www.sivarasa.com

) A few enlightened fresh faces in PAS have also done so. And even the reform measures introduced by Umno (albeit to save itself) shows that it can no longer avoid the plural democratic tide.

So forget the 'Green tide' of PAS, or the 'Blue tide' of Umno: get out your board and ride on the rainbow tide of democratic pluralism instead. Within its many shades and hues, you are bound to find yourself as well. It is not an ideology of 'us' vs. 'them'; or 'us' above the 'rest', but instead one that speaks of 'us' in every sense.