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Editorial: In search of dialogue

Sunday, 05 July 2009 08:22am

©New Straits Times (Used by permission)

IT is probably just as well that talk of a broader-based unity government has remained just that since the country is not in a situation where no group is able to govern alone, or where war or other crises demand that everyone rallies around the government of the day. However, since democracy should be about creating open spaces for the discussion of matters of public interest, any and every possibility for dialogue which disposes us to view the political passions of the day from a wider and less dogmatic perspective should be pursued unremittingly. We need no reminder how deeply and bitterly political and other issues divide Malaysian society. Certainly, political discourse should not be conducted from the most parochial or partisan of positions. We also need no reminder that the malaise in Malaysian politics is that there is too much noisy claptrap and too little reasoned discussion. The manner in which our members of parliament scream and shout at each other suggests a need for a more civil political discourse. There has to be correctives to the too-simple, too-loud political monologues which prevent one side from speaking and hearing what the other has to say.

In this context, talk that the youth wings of Umno and Pas have agreed to engage in "intellectual discussions" with one another would seem to provide a way in which to mend their bellicose and belligerent relationship. But then again, if it is simply a continuation by other means of the earlier challenge for a debate over whether Umno has "deviated" from Islam, it is the kind of discourse, cerebral or otherwise, we could do without because it begins by regarding every person whose way of thinking is different from theirs as an abominable exception. If there is to be dialogue, it should not be about taking the higher ground but about allowing differences to remain and excluding any pretensions to the absolute truth.

It would seem, then, that much work has to be done, both practically and intellectually, before dialogues across the political divide can become part of the way that politics works. Any attempt to change the face of the political discourse will be long and difficult. It will require stamina and perseverance and a willingness to give up the comfort zone of partisanship. But the pay-off may be found in a higher standard of politics and a true bond of national unity unfettered by the constraints of narrow vested interest. One can only hope that such dialogues will get the proper hearing that they deserve.

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