“You can't beat women anyhow and that if you are wise or dislike trouble and uproar, you don't even try to.”

– William Faulkner

COMMENT | First off, shout out to Maryam Lee for writing articles that actually qualify as think pieces. Just one thing, though – “herstory”? Really? Do feminists still use that? Either I’m old-fashioned or I should check my privilege or something.

Nathaniel Tan is one of my favourite Malaysiakini writers because he makes a habit of bucking the trend in a non-reactionary way. His response to Raja Petra Kamarudin’s (RPK) misogynistic and racist tirade against Ambiga Sreenevasan and Clare Rewcastle-Brown was measured and logical, but I think the bigger issue is ignored.

This is not really about means or ends; this is about what is wrong with this country. Political discourse is merely a reflection of this.

Here’s the thing though. If RPK had stuck to the conspiracy angle – something he admittedly does pretty well – it would have been par for the course as far as partisan politics goes. In fact, it would have been extremely effective in persuading people who do not subscribe to the echo-chamber groupthink that the opposition was conspiring with a foreign power to shape the destiny of this country.

This is the same strategy the opposition is pushing, on how Malaysia would lose its sovereignty to a regional superpower if the Umno regime endures.

In any case, the attacks against these two individuals were based on ethnicity and gender because that is the political and social climate here in Malaysia. When attacks against the opposition are made, it is always along racial and religious lines. When the targets are women, it gets more virulent. Why?

(Please keep in mind when I say "opposition," I do not necessarily mean it in the political affiliation sense, but rather opposing the status quo in general.)

We live in a society where the establishment routinely demonises women through the mediums of race and religion, and encourages a culture where the male gender is supreme, much like how it is in the establishment’s racial and religious preoccupations – which, of course, are not limited to Umno, but that is a topic for another piece.

Sticking with the political angle for a moment, ours is a Malaysia where political operatives such as Tasek Gelugor MP Shabudin Yahaya, who endorsed paedophilia and rape, can have nothing happen to them beyond the online opprobrium that some mistake as the pulse of the country.

As I’ve written previously: “He also squarely places the blame on the ‘wild lifestyle’ of women and girls which absolves men from their crimes and reinforces the victim-blaming and shaming that constitutes the foundations of a rape culture that is based on a paternalistic agenda of men like Shabudin Yahaya.”...