Bizarre is the way we treat our Yang Berhormats. We queue on the side of the road before they even arrive, we bow before them, we kiss their hands. Why?
Aren't we technically their bosses? Shouldn't THEY be kissing our hands and begging for our votes?
Speaking of begging for votes, why is it that politicians across the board seem to have a profound love of using divisive language, as if they don't need votes from the 'other side'? Why?
Their lips are too heavy to use the phrase "taxpayers' money" instead of the conventional "duit kerajaan" and they don't seem to care much about transparency and accountability. As long as the job gets done, anything goes. Why?
Is it because the government of the day has been in power for so long they forget that they owe that to the electorate? As for the opposition, have they been in the shadows for so long that the opposition mentality has become and integral part of their identity and language?
Or maybe despite all the advancements that we achieved as a nation, we are still a feudal society. We simply accept the authority of the ruling class without question. We simply accept the harsh reality that is power is not equally shared among the different sections of our society.
I've been reading Azzam Tamimi's 'Rachid Ghannouchi - A Democrat Within Islamism', in which there's section that explains Malik Bennabi's definition of Democracy which I find very interesting. He doesn't define Democracy as it is commonly understood (a mere system of governance), rather he defines it as a process :-
"We must consider any project aimed at founding a democracy an educational enterprise for the whole community, a comprehensive program that encompasses psychological, ethical, social, and political aspects.
For democracy is not - as is superficially understood in the common usage, that is within the limits of its etymology - a mere political process. Nor is it simply a process whereby powers are handed over to the masses, to a people whose sovereignty is recognised by a specific statement in the constitution.
But it is the generation of attitude, and of objective and subjective responses and standards, that collectively lay the foundations upon which democracy, prior to being stated in any constitution, stands in the conscience of the people. The constitution is nothing but the formal outcome of the democratic enterprise once transformed into a political reality indicated by a text inspired by customs and traditions, and dictated by an attitude generated in a given circumstance. Such a text would have no meaning if not underpinned by the customs and the traditions that inspired it, or in other words, the historical justifications that necessitated it.
Hence is the naivete of the constitutional imports borrowed today by some governments in developing African and Asian states that seek to establish a new order in their countries in emulation of the deep-rooted democracies. Such borrowing may be necessary at times, but it is definitely not enough on its own if not accompanied by appropriate measures to spread and establish what is being borrowed in the psyche of the borrowing country's population."
Exactly, Bennabi.
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