The Ugly Truth of Consociational Centripetalist Democracy

Well folks I've been watching with great amusement at the evolving events in Malaysian Political landscape.........

Got a quick question for all you sane minded rakyat...

Should we pack all our politicians and send them on a one way trip to Timbuktu?

Let us now look at the "reality" of the Malaysian Democracy.

Before we begin we must first define the underlying parameter of analysis.

1. Malaysia is a young country
2. Malaysia is generally more divided along racial and ethnic cleavages rather than ideological cleavages.........Unker....not this cleavage OK.......
3. A huge void exist in the national common space which all Malaysians can subscribe to....
4. Our ruling government is made up a number of component parties practising the Consociational Democracy
5. Anwar Ibrahim's DNA was found inside Saiful's Ass (ever since CSI folks now wonder whether it came from pubic hair, semen, saliva, fingernail,etc la.....Ms Pornthip whats ur professional opinion on this....was it anal sex?anal rimming? One finger up the butt?)

Ok now lets go into the Theory:

What is Consociational Democracy?

Its main Theorist Arend Lijphard came out with the term after studying deeply divided societies,

"Consociational prescriptions are based on the principle that each ethnic polity should enjoy a significant degree of autonomy and a right of veto over matters directly affecting the welfare of its members. Emphasising the need for elite cooperation if democracy is to survive in ethnically-cleaved societies, consociational agreements entail a balance of power within government between clearly defined social segments, brokered by identifiable ethnic leaders representing distinct social groups"

Benjamin Reilly

Here the key word is "Elite" and "Power of Veto of Key Decisions" by Minority groups.....

As per the theory.....the Elites are tasked to represent the respective community......how did this came about.....I think all of you by now know that our leaders from the start of this young country were made up of the "big guns, big money and aristocrats" of each ethnic group....no need to explain further......

As per the level of plurality in our society......let us start from the most extreme as per the original defination by the British Scholar JS Furnival "a plural society in which the different racial groups live side by side under a single political administration but, apart from economic transactions, do not interact with each other socially or culturally"

Sounds familiar folks?........

Our PM launched his 1Malaysia yang Satu Malaysia tak paham …….which is the antithesis to "So many Malaysia"....after how many years of Merdeka? Why so ?

Look around you and judge for yourself how we stand from religious, ideological, linguistic, cultural, ethnic or racial lines and ask yourself are we not operating as subsocieties with our own political parties, interest groups, media of communication and the whole jingbeng la.

Lets go back to the theory....

“Consociationalism guarantees that each ethnic group would share political power and constrains the elite of those different groups to govern together. Consociationalism is therefore a powerful means for protecting minorities and for imposing accommodation at the political level. However, consociationalism suffers of schizophrenia: if consociation compels political elites to find a compromise between the demands of ethnic groups, it does not give group leaders any incentive to adopt a moderate discourse on ethnic questions. On the contrary, in order to obtain the support of their electorate, leaders must adopt an aggressive attitude.”

Laurent De Brey

Sound familiar again folks? Just look back at each party campaign speeches or Even the Annual party meetings rhetorics…..

Now lets us look at the other side of the coin....Centripetalism

"Centripetalism is as a political system or strategy designed to focus competition at the moderate centre rather than the extremes, and identified three facilitating components:

(i) the presentation of electoral incentives for campaigning politicians to reach out to and attract votes from a range of ethnic groups other than their own, thus encouraging candidates to moderate their political rhetoric on potentially divisive issues and forcing them to broaden their policy positions;

(ii) the presence of multiethnic arenas of bargaining such as parliamentary and executive forums, in which political actors from different groups have an incentive to

come together and cut deals on reciprocal electoral support, and hence perhaps on other more substantial policy issues as well; and

(iii) the development of centrist, aggregative and multiethnic political parties or coalitions of parties which are capable of making cross-ethnic appeals and presenting a complex and diverse range of policy options to the electorate.

Like consociationalism, centripetal proposals for conflict management focus on parties, elections, and representative institutions as the key focus of political engineering. However, the institutional recommendations made by centripetalists often run sharply counter to those of consociationalists. For instance, rather than focussing on the fair representation of ethnically-defined political parties, centripetalists place a premium on promoting multiethnic parties and cross-ethnic activity"

Benjamin Reilly

So folks how does this fit into what we are observing in Malaysia....

Take the Barisan for instance its 3 main component parties are actually Consociationalist and the Barisan National itself is the Centripetalist when they go for election la...policy making is still dictated by the Consociationalist extremist......

So what happens now when an issue that falls into the ethnic cleavage crops up? Unker stop thinking about that cleavage....how does the Elites Political Actors react to the demand of each ethnic interest group......do they move to the center to find a solution or do they go to the extreme to gain the ethnic political support......

Which now brings us to the current hot issue la

Sekolah Satu Aliran?

I’m now watching my lab rats running around in circles to navigate this hot potato…

My first question was …….Aliran = Stream

So do we have Aliran Kebangsaan, Aliran Mandarin and Aliran Tamil or is it Aliran Sains Vs Aliran Sastera…..

Is it even the right operative word to describe the Medium of Instruction of a Common Stream….since the blardy curriculum is the same is it not??

Sekolah Rendah Kebangsaan Vs Sekolah Rendah Jenis Kebangsaan Vs Sekolah Rendah Kebangsaan Menggunakan Bahasa asing sebagai Bahasa Pengantar?

Come again…..where is the aliran?

My own take on the issue is that….it is SRYMBPAYJMA152= Sekolah Rendah Yang Menggunakan Bahasa Pengantar Asing yang jelas Melanggar Article 152

Ye ke?

Read carefully Article 152

“Teaching or Learning any other Language IS NOT EQUAL to Teaching or Learning IN any other Language”

Well is this my own armchair Constitutional Interpretation…….maklumlah gua bukan lawyer kan…..

No folks this is part of Mark Koding Case Judgment yang si Cinapek DAP dok kata NO ONE CAN QUESTION VERNACULAR SCHOOLING

The question therefore arises as to the true interpretation of proviso (a) to Article 152(1). Having regard to the words used in the proviso, viz. “teaching or learning any other language” as opposed to “teaching or learning in any other language”, I tend to agree with the restricted meaning enunciated by Abdoolcader J when dealing with schools or other educational institutions. In my view, under proviso (a), although the National Language shall be the Malay language, the usage of any other language other than for official purposes, is guaranteed; so is the teaching or learning of any other language in schools, be it Chinese, Tamil, Arabic or English. But there is nothing in proviso (a) to justify the extension of the protection to the operation of schools where the medium of instruction is Chinese, Tamil, Arabic or English. This strict interpretation is consistent with proviso (b) which guarantees the right of the Federal Government or any State Government to preserve and sustain the use and study of the language of any other community in the Federation. Thus, the preservation and sustenance of usage of language of any other community is guaranteed. So is the preservation and sustenance of study of any other community’s language, but again there is no justification in extending the guarantee to the preservation and sustenance of study in the language of any other community in the absence of specific words to that effect. Any other interpretation of proviso (a) would result in abusing the words used in the proviso. It is absurd for instance to think that the proviso gives constitutional protection to teaching or learning in school where the medium of instruction is Russian or Japanese. To my mind, the protection only extends to language but not to medium of instruction in schools. In other words, no person shall be prohibited or prevented from teaching or learning Chinese or Tamil or, for that matter, any language which is not the national language in any school as a language subject, but such protection does not extend to the teaching or learning in a school where the teaching or learning is in any other language. As correctly stated by Abdoolcader J the omission of the preposition “in” after the words “teaching or learning” in proviso (a) makes the distinction necessary. In the event, it is my finding that the Accused is not guilty of sedition when he advocates for the closure of Tamil or Chinese schools. Whether or not such closure is advisable or feasible is, of course, another matter to be decided elsewhere and not in this court. There is nothing unlawful in allowing Chinese or Tamil schools to continue.

PP Vs Mark Koding

I agree wholeheartedly with his judgment there except for the "There is nothing unlawful in allowing Chinese or Tamil schools to continue"

First of all Education is the Official Business of the Federation especially Government Funded Education which decides on whether one is Mental or not.......BTW folks I also think that our sekolah rendah is the filteration process for budak2 mental.....remember the strange kid at school that mysteriously hilang during sekolah menengah .....

Let us look at the logic now........lets say the Kertas Ujian Sekolah Rendah for UPSR.....

Can the Government Official Documents be in Mandarin or Tamil? If cannot what does that say about the Validity of the UPSR Results of the SRYMBPAYJMA152

Can the Government Text Books be in Mandarin or Tamil?

By the way how does the Government Communicate Officially with the SRYMBPAYJMA152 surat bahasa Melayu or surat bahasa Mandarin/Tamil?

Think about it folks.....

Now that the Pandora's Box is open and the man in charge have taken the Centripetalist stand out of the Vernacular rabbit holes comes the extreme Consociationalist ethnic groups.....asking for a Multi Nation State....come suck my (kids close your eyes!) paip cuci jamban la apek

It would be pretty interesting now to watch how the Centripetalist in BN handle their respective far right Consociationalist colleagues

If you are wondering what the haphazard marriage of convenience Centripetalist Wannabe Pakatan are thinking.......look at the history first....

Shall we see the repeat of 1969 act by DAP? by the way folks they are the extreme consociationalist wolves dressed in the sheepish centripetalist Malaysian Malaysia bullshit

If you are wondering what Tok Guru yang sudah nyanyuk would say...have a look here and see if he will remain consistent......even the James Brown wannabe Lifetime President of MIC was positive to the discussion then......

As for Anwar......he will play the middle ground which is the status quo and hopes that Porntip does not find the 'Anwar was here' graffiti up saiful's ass

For me watching this from tanah seberang......I could only hope that every single one of us can put aside our differences and move towards the center to fill the void in the common national space........I can understand the sadness embedded in Tun's statement....remember even the Wawasan school was rejected outright by the Extremist......

It is time to depoliticise Education and think along National Interest. Every Single Education reports have identified common themes of

1. The Strategic Importance of National Unity,
2. Move towards Single Education System based on National Language of the Federation
3. Consideration of Minority Interest in a Multi Ethnic Nation (This is the major area of misrepresentation and political exploitation)

Show your support for the Satu Sekolah Untuk Semua Movement, find out more about the Memo and the proposal in the FAQ Sections

Rise my fellow Malaysians.....rise........(fuh macam pidato poyo aje!)

Sorry before gua lupe......we are all in this mess is because of the Decay in Our ruling Elites...(this i hope will be the topic of my future post kalu gua semangat la)... don't have to go to far back just start from Year 1 AB (Anno Badawi)

lastly Jib.....kalu mung nok tahu gapo bendo rakyak jelato ni nok mung nok keno buak pungutan suaro......toksoh dok kelih menate SMS polling tu Ambo pun buleh buak SMS spam....mung jangan pulok gi baco menate Survey hok paka statistical sampling weh......mung keno turun ko rakyak kelih sendiri gapo bendo hok dok tengoh jadi .........

Folks for further readings on the Theory of Consociational Centripetalism go here