Many of us have at one time or other watched politicians on the platform or on television mechanically repeating familiar phrases - combating corruption, nation-building, national unity, peace and harmony, increase transparency and press freedom, multiracial tolerance...

Some of us probably have had a curious feeling that one was not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy.

In George Orwell's words: "The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses.this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia."

Orwell - the British author, journalist and essayist whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair - in his essay entitled 'Politics and the English Language' essentially implicated that "just as the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes, so the irresponsible use of the language leads to muddled politics".

Certainly, we have our fair share in our local Malaysian polity. Hence, the wise say 'half a truth is better than politics'.

Although the essay was written in 1946 the writing has probably not changed the fact "that political writing is bad writing" even until today. Millions of readers in many countries have probably read it and probably wise up to politicians who use the language in "defence of the indefensible".

Political rhetoric

We are all too familiar to political speeches and economic policy development plans saturated with dying metaphors, pretentious diction, meaningless words and empty rhetoric found in pamphlets, leading articles generated by spin-doctors, general election manifestos, White Papers and utterances by political leaders.

Rhetorical slogans and political language are the biggest culprit "designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable", borrowing Orwell's famous description in criticising political speeches trying to "give an appearance of solidity to pure wind".

Political publicity materials like general elections manifesto often play down paternalistic tone of the ruling party and enhance a false sense of empowerment of the people to woo voting support with words like 'gives each citizen a say in the administration of this nation or listen to and act on the hopes and aspirations of all groups regardless of age, gender, ethnic background and religion'.

How often we hear the phrase 'national security' in defending the phraseology of our local politics relating to 'sensitive issues, seditious remarks and special rights'.

Politics is local but human nature is universal especially applicable to the peculiar professionals called politicians.

Senior editor of American publication Weekly Standard Magazine Andrew Ferguson, widely accepted as an acute judge of political rhetoric, said: "Politicians in the art of politics have become more scientific, which is to say, that politicians now know what people want to hear in a way that they didn't before.

"Focus groups, polling, a whole array of mechanisms that speechwriters and rhetoricians in politics now employ to tweak language to the point that it is only what people want to hear and not what they don't want to hear, which creates a general effect of dumbing down."

Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu (Chou Dynasty, ca 360 BC) a defining figure in Chinese Taoism once quipped that, "a dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker; a man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker".

Gore Vidal even remarked that "today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either".

Past eloquence

A cynic in a coffee shop quipped that some of our members of Parliament have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, and not because they have ever anything really meaningful to say.

The statesmen's written and oratory speeches of the 1950s and gift for simplicity, straightforwardness, directness, clearing away all the clutter are dead and gone. Compare that eloquence to speeches of some of our modern day parliamentarians who are more obsessed in evoking emotions or overtly preoccupied with their great sense of showmanship.

Malaysians are ashamed of those who constantly seek self-exposure, constant self-dramatisation and a constant elevation of their selves over all considerations of national concerns and the purpose of their being elected there.

Pollsters and propaganda spin masters and focus group masters should take heed. There are many who are of the view that state affairs are deteriorating - and not just the quality of education, environment, political leadership, policy implementation and what not.

There has to be a kind of cleansing of the political rhetoric to reflect the realities facing our nation. Political leaders should call a spade a spade and reinvent the type of leadership qualities that require them to speak plainly, directly and with honesty.

Political messages should reflect honesty and clarity and be void of promises that they cannot fulfill. It may be a tall order for some. We expect that political or economic messages will continue to be diluted, manipulative, silly and often nonsensical.

The Malaysian electorate is more sophisticated and a thinking population. Don't take us for fools by slovenliness and vagueness in conveying written or oratory speeches.

The wise man would probably advise us to say what you mean and mean what you say. Political language in the form of rhetorical electioneering slogans and electoral promises should be scrutinised or lumped as verbal garbage to be thrown into the proverbial dustbin where it belongs.

STANLEY KOH is a Buddhist Monk and works for a local think-tank.