I need to take this blog to somewhere it hasn’t been. To boldly go where every other Malaysian blog has already gone–into politics.
This is my blog, it’s my hobby, I don’t depend on it for my survival, I don’t rely on it for anything other than the satisfaction it provides me. Therefore, I get to do with it what I want, and today I want to talk about politics.
I’ve resisted talking about politics, there are hundreds of Malaysian blogs that already do it, but the political situation we’ve found ourselves in is just too ridiculous to sit on the sideline and pretend nothing is happening.
We have a government that has procured spying software (twice!), blatantly censored the internet (more than once!) and looks set to sign the Transpacific Partnership agreement. These are things I’ve spent the last 3 years blogging against, and yet here we are, with all my post achieving next to nothing.
Between the privacy violations of having 3rd-parties run surveillance software on behalf of the MACC, the disregard of the MSC bill of guarantees when the Government censored SarawakReport and the complete lack of transparency of the TPP–how can it possibly get worse?
Even if you accept that it was a political donation (yea right!), and maybe you think that censorship and Government surveillance is OK. Are you OK then with Malaysia having an education system that ranks in the bottom third of PISA and TIMSS, are you OK that for a country as blessed as ours we are giving our children an education that isn’t that much better than Palestine according to International benchmarks, that our very own Education blueprint trust?
And I haven’t talked about the exchange rate, or GDP–partly because it’s a bit stale, but mostly because I don’t understand how modern economics work. What I understand is technology, and privacy, and censorship, and science–and in all these respects, the Government has been so fucking abysmal, there has to come a point where a tech blogger has to say enough is enough, and fuck you Mr. Government but you need to leave.
We really need to get rid of the government, and I don’t just mean the Prime Minister. And mind you it’s possible.
We live in a Constitutional Monarchy–key word there being constitutional. And in our Constitution lies mechanisms to remove a Prime Minister from power, specifically a vote of no confidence in Parliament. The no confidence vote was designed to be hard thing to execute–a country needs political stability, and if a Prime Minister could be voted out on any whim, then no stability would be possible.
But it is POSSIBLE, and 100% legal and Constitutional. The constitution gives us this ‘exit plan’ in order to avoid a situation where the country can be held hostage to an asshole in power for 5 long years.Because even the constitution admits that we could be wrong and end up with the wrong PM, and a country shouldn’t be held to a mistake it already admits to. A country should be allowed to change their leader with due process, and the constitution allows this.
But there’s a catch, in order for the exit plan to work, you need to get THEM on board.
Who is ‘THEM’ you ask?
THEM refers to the Members of the Malaysian Parliament whose name do not begin with N and end with ‘ajib’. THEM refers to our very own Malaysian politicians who must collectively put aside their petty fucking differences and come together to save Malaysian from a borderline tyrant who has decided to hold onto power with every slimy fingernail he has. THEM refers to the only people who stand between us and another 3 years of hell-hole we’re in.
But will ‘THEM’ act?
Depends.
THEM are elected members of the House.
THEY rely on a votes to keep their job, and THEY need the people to be on their side.
If somehow THEY knew for sure, that the Malaysian people would not give their party another shot in power, THEY would switch sides quicker than a Road Runner on Wil E. Coyote avenue.
But can WE send THEM a message?
OOOhhhh, I don’t know. Something like 100,000 people in Dataran Merdeka camped overnight, all wearing yellow in solidarity. Something like a protest of sorts to send a strong message to THEM (not HIM), that if They stick to him, they’re going to be there when the shit hits the fan.
Just saying.