Blatant
racism, religious bigotry, school culture degenerating, public display of
hatred, urging this or that kind of jihad at times for reasons unknown, the
vigilantes taking over when law and order seem to be at a critical breaking
point, mass feeding of the public with stories that hath no educational value
and even devoid of moral sensitivity, frequent public protests plagued with
character assassinations rather that the focusing on issues to be collectively
addressed as a nation, parang-wielding robberies in broad daylight on an almost
weekly basis, rising number of cases of children missing, political moves
crafted and executed in desperation that weaken due process in democratic
culture sorely in need of sane progression, politicians producing statements in
arrogance on pressing devoid of intellectual depths, the intensification of
effort by fascist groups to incite violence progressively in hope that the
bloody riots of May 13, 1969 is to be re-enacted on a larger scale perhaps.
The
media as a technology of consciousness shaper both at the level of Grand and
Subaltern Narratives have been successful in playing the role of creator of
peace and destroyer of it, as if there is no difference between good and evil
in the way we use the materials to build this nation.
Citizens
are using social media to raise consciousness and to promote peace, harmony,
and social justice but at the same time, more are using it irresponsibly to
destroy each other and the do irreparable damage to the moral fabric we are
patiently weaving to build a nation of pride, tolerant, and dignity.
Because
Malaysians do not read much but read well visual images, consciousness of such
a need for nation-building and sanity is both created and destroyed by
manipulation of images to affect psychological changes.
Daily
we see public and cyberspacial images of visuality altered, manipulated, and
doctored being nursed into the consciousness of the people who have become
patients in a nation straight-jacketed by its own need for economic speed,
racing fast and furious on the superhighway of doom, build by the filthy rich
working in tandem with the filthy powerful.
Even
the government had admitted that it cannot control the Internet, and the ruling
regime has lost the war on perception waged in a perpetually intense
mahabharatta in cyberspace.
But
what is the most damaging is the education of the public in matters profane and
how children and the younger generations are being destroyed of their ability
to compose themselves as rational and self-censoring beings when our Open Sky
Policy has probably turned our children and teens into beings exposed to the
delights of pornography and educational materials of the lowest and ugliest
libidinal value rather than of the highly cerebral.
Maybe
there is a correlation between the rising cases of perversions in society,
incest, teenage pregnancy to the insatiable appetite of the public on things
pornographic available as freely as the Malaysian vegetable kangkung sold in
the marketplace and in pasar malam alleys.
Hence,
in our excitement over everything cybertechnology, over media and wanting to
act as if we are blessed with a First World mentality, we have forgotten to
introduce a systematic programme of critical media education in our schools or
even in our universities.
We
are a sick nation
Where
do we go from here? I have a microbe of a multitude of questions in my
lamentation on the future of this lovely nation.
What
are we doing as a nation?
Where
is law and order?
Where
is ethics?
Where
is sanity in the way we ought to build a nation?
Where
is tolerance?
Where
is shame ?
Where
is humility?
Where
is the taming of gluttony and greed we ought to have mastered as a nation that
prided itself as a “gentle nation with good eastern values grounded in the
asian way of doing things?”
What
have we become? What do we wish to become? Are we losing it?…
What
hath our education system done to us; a system that hath produced a generation
of people that is speeding up the degenerating process?
What
kind of virus have we introduced in the body politics and in the educational
vein of the conveyor belt of progress?
Why
are we seeing all these crudeness and the hideousness of a generation that does
not see to care what the name “being Malaysian” should mean?
I
do not really care who shall win in any by-election, or even in Kajang. I’d
like to see the winning party proclaim a commitment to a radically improved
education system, law enforcement, the electoral process, work on cultural
preservation, fiscal management, and in everything we hope for in building
nationhood.
We
need to see a stop in the rot that is happening at this rate and to save future
generations from becoming a nation of Hutus and Tutsis, of Zimbabweans, of
North Koreans, of Iranians, of Syrians, of the peoples of Myanmar, and even of
that brutal and barbaric segment of American society that are trigger-happy
even in schools, churches, malls, and in Boston marathons.
We
need a Kajang Declaration on National Sanity! We are losing our mind. We are
not just sick – we are critically ill.
DR
AZLY RAHMAN, born in Singapore and grew up in Johor Baru, holds a Columbia
University (New York City) doctorate in International Education Development and
Masters degrees in four areas: Education, International Affairs, Peace Studies
and Communication. He has taught more than 40 courses in six different departments
and has written more than 350 analyses on Malaysia. His teaching experience in
Malaysia and the United States spans over a wide range of subjects, from
elementary to graduate education. He has edited and authored four books;
Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present, Future (2009), Thesis on Cyberjaya:
Hegemony and Utopianism in a Southeast Asian State (2012), The Allah
Controversy and Other Essays on Malaysian Hypermodernity (2013), and the latest
Dark Spring: Ideological Roots of Malaysia’s GE-13 (2013). He currently resides
in the United States. Twitter, blog.
