The poor and wealthy peasants were not merely having an argument; they were having a fight. Under the circumstances, the fight was less a pitched battle than a low-grade, hit and run guerrilla action. The kind of 'fight' to be described and analysed here is, I believe, the typical 'garden variety' resistance that characterises much of the peasantry and the subordinate classes through much of their unfortunate history. More specifically, we are dealing with the undramatic but ubiquitous struggle against the effects of the state. (James C. Scott, "Weapons of the Weak: Everyday forms of Peasant Resistance")

Published in 1985, Professor James C. Scott's work looks at the everyday "garden variety" forms of confrontation between the rich and the poor, the state and the masses, in Malaysia in the late 70s and early 80s which often took the form of cautious resistance blended with calculated conformity.

His thesis was simple: that in a country like Malaysia where the state had consolidated its hold on practically every sphere of social, economic and political life, there were few avenues for the expression of anger, frustration and resistance against the abuse and accumulation of power at the centre.

Those who perceived themselves (rightly or wrongly) as the victims of state oppression, corruption and abuse of politicians or fundamentally unjust legislation had little choice but to rebel by other non-confrontational and non-violent means.

This led to a popular culture of passive revolt and routinised rebellion which expressed itself in terms of regular boycotts, foot-dragging, delays in production, acts of sabotage or simple non-cooperation.

Scott has been attacked by many quarters for some of his ideas and arguments. There are those who have accused him of deliberately glossing over the hard and brutal facts of power and domination in the neo-feudal states of Southeast Asia, by deliberately making "passive resistance" seem more trendy and more effective than it really is.

On the other end of the political spectrum, conservative academics have attacked him for allegedly making respectable forms of anti-social behaviour that are actually detrimental to social cohesion, nation-building and the enforcement of law and order.

But Scott's critics have often overlooked the fact that he was examining a particular society that was shaped by particular factors and circumstances that were not universal. Scott notes, for instance, that "oppression" in the case of Malaysia does not mean the same thing as it does in Indonesia, Thailand or the Philippines.

The poor and underprivileged in Malaysia are not the victims of death squads, vigilantes or para-military forces working at the behest of the state. Peasants and labourers do not end up dead in ditches or thrown in the river.

Scott was sensitive to the fact that the accumulation, manipulation and expression of power in Malaysia was and is far more subtle. Bearing in mind the neo-feudal political culture that permeates all of Malaysian society and which lays great emphasis on the form and expression of power, Scott understood that "power" in the Malaysian context was more often expressed than exercised.

The ruling elite in the country have always attempted to show that they were in charge, that they know best and that they are the only ones in a position to lead: a typically feudal attitude which dates back to the pre-Islamic era of rulers as Dewa-Rajas (God-Kings).

"Power", in the Malaysian context, has therefore been expressed in terms of the will to control and dominate. This is why the highly-centralised state machinery in the country is also one which adopts a maximalist approach.

The state intervenes in practically all areas of the citizens lives and justifies this intrusion into the private space of civil society on the grounds that it is playing its paternalistic role as moral guardian, mentor and protector of the nation's well-being.

Nowhere is this better expressed than in the way in which the state controls the media in Malaysia today. The state justifies this control - direct and indirect - by claiming that it is trying to "tell the truth" to the masses and that the people must be "protected" from the lies of the opposition and the foreign media.

Such a paternalistic and condescending attitude is manifest in the official rhetoric of the government and elite of Singapore as well. By assuming the moral high ground and elevating themselves to the status of the guardians of Truth, the leadership of the country hopes to be

in a position to effectively control, dominate and police the space of public discourse in the country.

Now, as before, the Malaysian public's response to this culture of normative and routinised control and policing is double-faced. Affecting the guise of calculated conformity, Malaysians have rarely confronted the government head-on. This is due to the simple reason that they are mature enough to know that such actions would be futile and counter-productive.

Instead they have chosen to respond to the over-accumulation and centralisation of power by shifting their focus and attention elsewhere. Malaysians have shown, time and again, that they are able to create new civic spaces for discourse and social activity that are always outside the control of the state apparatus.

This is why there exists in this country many layers of subculture from the backstreets of the capital to the hidden recesses of the internet.

The latest expression of this popular form of passive rebellion is the nation-wide boycott of the mainstream media in the country. That such a boycott could have come at a time like this is understandable, though few have considered its long-terms implications. (Where might it lead

to, for instance, if the Malay English-speaking middle class abandons the pro-UMNO New Straits Times and turns to the Islamic party's newspaper Harakah for good?)

But one could argue that the boycott started long ago, when sales of NST, Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian began dropping by the end of 1997 and early 1998. The boycott that has been launched recently has merely given concrete, organisational form to something that was initiated by the Malaysian people themselves, who acted unilaterally without being ordered or directed to do so by any opposition party or social movement.

It is for this reason that we need to understand the present boycott of the media along the terms set out by James Scott 15 years ago. The mainstream media boycott in Malaysia is not some "evil plot" by the opposition, foreign agents or the Western media. It began as a spontaneous, decentralised effort that was not orchestrated by any particular group.

In the same way that peasants in Kedah stopped relying on government handouts and aid in the 80s in order to be more independent and self-sufficient, ordinary Malaysians have rejected the mainstream media on their own because they are fed up of being told that they should live only on the diet of "truth" spoon-fed to them by their leaders.

That such a shift in perceptions and understanding could happen at this stage in the evolution of Malaysian society is neither a threat or a problem - it is, in fact, part of the normal evolution of any developing society as it struggles to discover its own identity. The onus therefore falls on the mainstream media in Malaysia to learn the lesson that they need to be more objective and balanced in their own reporting, and that their readers are not passive consumers of propaganda who need to be "protected" from the "lies" of the opposition.

FARISH A. NOOR is a Malaysian political scientist who is currently studying the development of Islamist movements and parties in the Malay archipelago. He is also the secretary-general of the International Movement for a Just World. He can be contacted at: korawa@hotmail.com