Wan Sou Hai denied he had absolved the Malaysian leadership for bringing the country to the present mess, but nowhere could I find him apportioning any such blame on the government in his previous letter , ('Introspection for 'blame-happy' Malaysians').

Instead, he was found pointing the accusing finger only at the opposition and the people throughout his previous discourse.

Even in his present rejoinder where he concedes to the ruling coalition BN's wrong-doings ('Rakyat must share blame for the government we have'), he continues to play the role of defender and apologist for the present leadership by down-playing the severity of its shortcoming by repeatedly using the tactics of "yesbut...".

Examples:

- Yes, the leadership has abused power and eroded democracy, but the people are to be blamed for having lowered their vigilance and allowed themselves to be "distracted" by racial and religious issues and the glamour of mega projects.

- Yes, there is hanky-panky in elections, but these are not serious, and electoral results are still reflective of BN's popular support.

- Yes, we have draconian laws and corruption, but we still have some civil liberties, and are better off than many other countries.

- Yes, the ruling party is unsatisfactory, but the opposition is worse.

With this series of "yesbut...", the stupendous misrule of the present regime is glossed over.

Let us be absolutely clear on one thing at the outset. No one but the perpetrator must be held responsible for having single-handedly destroyed Malaysia's judicial independence and brought in the culture of money politics into a way of life in this country.

It is also through the autocratic zeal of the same leadership that the noose on democratic space was gradually tightened through a series of draconian legislations, progressively introduced over the years.

Without the checks and balances of an independent judiciary and a truly functioning Parliament, the executive has rampaged over the constitutional roles of all the democratic institutions and abused powers at will to amass improper wealth and suppress legitimate dissent and curtail civil liberties.

Wan put the blame on the people for not being vigilant to prevent all these from happening. But the truth is, prior to the 1969 racial riots, we had vibrant a political opposition playing vigorous roles both inside and outside of Parliament.

These opposition parties had played their roles so well as watchdog and as alternative to the ruling coalition that they scored significant electoral success, so much so that ruling power Umno felt threatened.

The infamous May 13, 1969 racial riots turned out to be the turning point in this country's history, as thereafter, the opposition that consisted of all races with non-Malays as majority, have never recovered their political strength to resume their former roles.

That paved to way to the emergence of hegemony by Umno; and multi-racial and multi-ideological politics were since replaced by Umno's singular agenda of uplifting Malay economic and social status and entrenching Malay supremacy.

Political hegemony cannot of course be sustained without some measure of mass support, as rightly suggested by Wan.

But in Malaysia's case, the leadership must bear the larger portion of the blame for leading the country down the racialist descent. This is because Malaysia is a young country in its formative and malleable stage and the political leader has total control of the mass media.

Instead of using this vitally important tool of monopolistic information dissemination for the political education of the masses to instill positive values of nation building, the media has been ruthlessly exploited for political propaganda to advance the ruling party's parochial interests.

In the course of doing so, Umno has taken the short cut of exploiting the primordial instincts of race and religion, in order to gain mass support and to cover up its deficit in clean and competent leadership.

The immense power of information cannot be over-rated, as even intellectuals can be brainwashed by incessant bombardment of information carefully selected and designed to achieve certain ideological purpose. Nay, even the entire population can be mersmerised by such propaganda.

And history is abound with examples of autocrats looked upon as demi-gods by their governed populace through sheer force of propaganda during their reign, only to be demolished as blundering tyrants upon their departure from the scene. Among such examples are Mao of communist China, Hitler of Nazi Germany, Stalin of Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein of Iraq.

Malaysia being ruled by an autocrat is no exception to its abuse of the media. Nowhere was the devastating power of monopolistic exploitation of the media more vividly demonstrated than during the last general election in1999.

During that election campaign period, a dozen full-page advertisements appeared in all newspapers everyday, undeservedly glorifying the "achievements" of the ruling party while dishonestly portraying the opposition as rioters and religious extremists.

These latter images were reinforced with distorted photos showing the reformasi movement's street protests against the persecution of Anwar Ibrahim, racial violence against the Chinese in Indonesia, and religious extremism in Taliban's Afghanistan.

Incessant video clips of similar propaganda in all the television channels also powerfully drove home the message of violence and religious persecution as inevitable consequences if the opposition were to come to power.

Against this all-out propaganda onslaught, including frequent appearances of BN leaders in television, the opposition was not given a single chance to appear in television or to put up a full-page advertisement to retort these lies and distortions.

This completely lop-sided election campaign had obviously resulted in an electoral bonanza for BN, as unprecedented massive swing of Chinese votes from the opposition to the ruling coalition swept the latter back to power. It is safe to say that without this manipulation of the mass media, the outcome of the last election would have been vastly different.

Thus, mass media is seen as a most powerful maker and shaper of opinion, and by far the most important instrument in influencing the hearts and minds of the people. Wisely used, it can forge national integration out of a diversity of races, play vigilance against abuse of power and corruption, and inculcate sound moral and civic values that can propel the nation to excellence in all fields. Wrongly used as in the case of corrupt autocracy, it could be turned into a dreadful instrument to enslave an entire population with deception and unwholesome ideologies.

Hence, when the entire mass media becomes the monopoly of a corrupt autocrat, the latter can virtually dictate the outcome of an election. That is why the incumbent in such a political system is never defeated in any election, no matter how corrupted and incompetent he is. The only exception is its self-destruction through an implosion of internal conflict.

It is for the purpose of highlighting this fact the futility of gauging genuine support through electoral results in a totalitarian state, that I brought in the example of Saddam Hussein. I did it to provoke critical thinking along this line, not to make comparison between Saddam and Mahathir, or between Iraq and Malaysia, as misunderstood by Wan.

Despite Wan's admission to the present leadership's shortcomings enumerated by me, he seems quite smug about Malaysia's democratic institutions and practices as comparatively superior to those in "some other Asian, African and South American countries".

I must remind Wan that unlike these less fortunate ex-colonies, Malaysia had the good fortune of a perfect head start, in that power was handed to us on a silver platter through a smooth transitional period of tutorship on self-government. We had an excellent Constitution based on sound democratic and egalitarian principles crafted for us, and we inherited a judicial system and a civil administration of impeccable integrity and discipline.

In contrast, many of these other countries referred to by Wan gained their independence in much rougher terrains of wars and conflicts, and in circumstances that ill-prepared them for democratic self-rule.

In spite of our initial superiority, we have squandered away these precious "assets" of democracy and good governance, through decades of abuse of power and betrayal of trust, prompted by political expediency and greed.

Our democracy has faded and our political leaders are badly wanting in integrity. We have retrogressed so much that even our neighbours such as Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines who used to lag behind us are now well ahead, practising vibrant democracy with a flourishing free media.

Supporters of BN may cite Malaysia's economic "success" as the regime's redeeming feature. But before they get carried away, they will be well advised to look at other regional success stories, whose background was similar to ours.

Just like Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore were also liberated from colonial rule after World War II. South Korea and Taiwan had a lower per capita income than ours only two decades ago, but have become major regional powerful house in economics, education and technology, and their per capita income is much higher than ours.

It is also worthwhile to mention that they did not have the good fortune to inherit from their former colonial master a judicial and administrative system as fine as ours.

A political leadership must be judged by how efficiently it has utilised the resources available, and how successfully it has motivated people towards heights of excellence. It is not a measure of absolute quantum, but of value added. On that score, our leadership has failed.