The threat of the climate of fear is slowing enveloping us, we can’t seem to talk openly any more ever since some revelations were made and many high-profile sackings and terminations of services were done at the stroke of a pen within the corridors of power in Putrajaya.

Suddenly the very safe positions of being in the civil service has become a thing of the past, because now at the stroke of a pen and at the calling of sudden meetings, positions of high ranking civil servants cannot be guaranteed any more. The police force seems to be threatening the people with the use of laws on acts which it determines that threatens parliamentary democracy. How stupid have we become?

In a parliamentary democracy, the people have a right to be heard, a right to assemble peacefully and a right to associate and form organisations.

In a parliamentary democracy, members of Parliament and state assemblies are elected by the people based on the representations made by these candidates and the parties they represent but when it has been proven that these elected representatives are corrupt and have abused their positions of power for personal gain, the people have a right to object and call for their resignation because it is a blatant breach of trust which they have committed on the people who voted had for them.

As a result of this, it is the poor electorate and the general population that pays the price for the avaricious ways of those whom we have elected to lead us. But yet again, we seem to see that these people seem to ride the tide well,  till it is quelled. The very reason for why we seem to be unable to hold our leaders accountable is the serf mentality amongst us Malaysians.

We have come to a point where we have lost our ability to think and decipher issues, we seem to always believe that the government knows what is best for us and thus we don't question authority. With an attitude like this, it becomes easy for the avaricious and the highly-corrupted to lord over us.

If we can only break down the compartments in which we have all been put as Malaysians and come to together as one for the sake of this country of ours, we can show the way to the door to these avaricious creatures who lord over us. They seem to live off our financial and social misery, everywhere we turn, nothing gets done unless there is a special ‘amount’ given.

They know that our serf mentality will not make us retaliate when they abuse and bully us to submission. They know that they can manipulate the law to their whims and fancies because being a serf with a serf mentality and a thick feudal vein running, a good majority will choose to silently bear the pain, shame and guilt even though they have done nothing wrong and are asked to do the bidding of these avaricious creatures.

What we seem to have lost now is the system of checks and balances in governance. We don't know what is the meaning of good governance any more. We can’t seem to decipher what is government's funds which holders of high office are entrusted with as trustees. Seeking high office in government seems to be a favoured route to quick enrichment at the expense of the people and this is done without an iota of guilt and remorse.

The way in which the common man suffers to make ends meet, to put food on the table and to educate his children doesn’t seem to be felt at all because all these avaricious lot knows is to dig deeper into the coffers of the government and channel it here and there in the name of development and investment which never benefits the people nor reduces the burdens living on them.

If we only had a judiciary that questioned and stood its ground, we would not be in this rut today; if we only had a prosecution service that stood its ground on prosecutions instead of being allowed to be used as tool to persecute, we would not be in this rut today.

If we only had a police force that was professional in its discharge of its duties instead of being a force used by the avaricious to bully the people into submission, we would not be in this rut today; and the list continues. Why have we become the serfs to these avaricious creatures? Has money and materialism blinded us so much that we don’t care any more?

Why are we worried about the security of tenure when one’s positions seems to be at the pleasure of the avaricious creatures that rule? What is the use of a constitution? What is the use of reporting corruption to the authorities, when the authorities seem hard bent on hunting the whistle blower instead of the corrupt? What is the use of hard evidence, when all one has to do is to deny and keep denying?

Why must the avaricious worry or fear when it is so easy to fix cases and get justice to be twisted and turned in their favour?

Seeped in so deep

The serf mentality has seeped in so deep that one wonders if we’ll ever recover and start anew again. The serfs are everywhere, the judiciary, the prosecution services, the police, the anti-corruption agency, the law enforcement agencies, in fact they dominate the entire civil service and the government linked private enterprises that do the bidding for the avaricious lords.

It is of no use to continue in this path but pretend to be holier than thou and then continue with the old ways again. If we are happy being serfs then we ought not to blame the avaricious lords for their avariciousness but if we are not, then we have to come out of this mould and begin to question our leaders.

If we can’t question our leaders, then we are not a parliamentary democracy. If we can’t express ourselves even in the social media, then the state is the one that is committing an act which is a threat to Parliamentary democracy.

It is because of this serf mentality on part of the drafters of legislation in the Attorney-General’s Chambers that we have laws like S 124B of the Penal Code talking about ‘activity detrimental to Parliamentary Democracy’. If we only had a system of checks and balances, such legislation will not see the light of day.

The young are increasingly not buying the propaganda which the elitist mavericks would like them to believe. They have begun to question and what better platform to question than that of the social media in the Internet.

Yes, there are plans to muzzle the little democratic space that we seem to have in the social media but will it work? It may backfire, Malaysia’s image as a moderate Muslim majority nation will be at risk and so will be its attractiveness to foreign direct investment for without which we will not be able to support our young, restless, inadequately educated segment of society.

There must be space to vent, it is now the age of information which is easily available at the tip of our fingers so threatening the people with arrest and prosecution is a sign of a very desperate and sick regime which has lost all its respect which it had garnered for almost six decades by simply destroying the system of checks and balances which we had built into the system of governance left by the British.

Will the people be able to think in the first place?

We now have those who talk that the opposition must be mature and not instigate the people to come to the streets, citing Britain as an example. But with the serf mentality, will the people be able to think in the first place? Talking back, asking questions and refusing to accept no for an answer are traits which our education system doesn’t instill in our youth.

With such a situation, we create more serfs as oppose to a thinking population. If the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief did not have the serf mentality, he could have taken the inspector-general of police to task for simply raiding the offices of the MACC and its lawful officers who were only doing thier duty as graftbusters.

If the Attorney-General’s Chambers did not have the serf mentality, it would not have taken the sacking of the attorney-general without any notice, sitting down. Therefore it is in this mentality in which the fate of this nation lies, do we want more serfs or do we want capable human capital and trustworthy leaders?

If we allow for a system of prime-ministerial dominance in a parliamentary democracy that we practice to take root without question, then we are indeed heading to the path of a rogue state that doesn’t believe in good governance but instead governance by convenience to protect the elite and avaricious and their vast and insatiable appetite for money and power.  

The serf mentality must be shed for the sake of the future of this nation, we have been allowing those who exercise raw power to simply do as they wish without question. There has been a good number in our local non-governmental organisations that have sought help from interested groups and nations abroad, they have come to this option because there is no room for expression of their causes here. When all the doors in this nation are shut tight to the grievances of the people why won’t the people welcome those from abroad who lend them an ear?

Race, religion and political affiliation will be used to stifle the growth of knowledge about governance which the people are now getting very interested in, it may have not been due to education but more due to the fact that we have the smartphone and a reasonably constant flow of the Internet. But come what may and for the sake of this nation, we have to stop being serfs and start being citizens who will stand up and speak out and stop this rot.