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©New Sunday Times (Used by permission)
by Tunku Abdul Aziz

LET me begin this Sunday morning with a confession. I have an instinctive, and some say pathological, disdain for politicians, though not politics as a science.

That, I suppose, is why I have always given political parties of all persuasions a wide berth, and remained politically independent.

I have never allowed myself to be tempted by the promise of power and untold riches, and certainly not the way these are perceived to be acquired.

I am at least my own man, unencumbered and uncluttered by such notions as "my party right or wrong".

In some political circles, emotional public declarations and demonstrations of undying loyalty to the party leadership are highly prized, preferably those made before a gaggle of TV news reporters.

Shades of feudalism in a so-called age of intellectual liberalism, but then it is part of a politician's survival kit. By comparison, the ancient art of governing the peasants looks positively enlightened and liberal.

As we all know, personal loyalty in the party political sense is a rare and fragile commodity, and, like all commodities, the economics of the market place are the only valid determinants of its true value.

Loyalty is also freely transferable for a consideration. Any politician who is naive enough to be persuaded that loyalty to him or her is an immutable condition of political life at the top of the pile, has a few unpleasant surprises coming his way.

He has only to look at the history of politics in our country and elsewhere to realise how exposed and vulnerable he really is. Even the much loved and revered Tunku Abdul Rahman was not spared.

Personal loyalty is unreliable and totally unpredictable at best; it is downright cynical and soul-destroying at worst.

All of this leads me to a consideration of the current state of the social, economic and political affairs which is becoming a source of grave concern to the people of our country.

The government is, rightly or wrongly, perceived to be in a state of inertia and paralysis. It seems to have become unduly preoccupied with party matters and the threats, real or imagined, to the leadership.

This self-centred indulgence has to stop because our citizens have every right to proper, intelligent representation. This they feel they are not getting from their elected representatives on both sides of the floor.

Some oafs masquerading as honourable members with a limited vocabulary are back at what they do best -- scoring debating points by resorting to unbelievably uncouth language.

I was watching the afternoon Malay news on RTM the other day when my 7-year-old girl came home from school and saw a scene of utter disgrace with much screaming and shouting.

One particularly obnoxious character, gesticulating madly, uttered that most inelegant Malay word "barua" repeatedly as if his life depended on it.

My daughter, poor innocent child, wanted to know the meaning of the dreaded "B-word" and for once, I was totally speechless. How do you explain to a curious child keen to explore the world around her what the word meant?

When I lied that I did not know the meaning, she wanted to know if the rowdy behaviour that she had just witnessed was in a court of law. I rest my case.

The country has just lost a perceptive prospective parliamentary candidate. It is no place for those raised on normal values and value systems.

The political drama being acted out based on a complex chain of conspiracy theories is turning out to be a never-ending saga. It is an unnecessary distraction at the best of times, but is particularly ill-advised at a time when with the economic situation taking a turn for the worse and Malaysians need to be convinced that the government is in control of events.

On the premise that the opposition has a positive role to play under our parliamentary system in ensuring that the interests of the people are non-negotiable, I expect that they are not opposing for the sake of opposing, irrespective of the merit of a given government-sponsored programme.

In spite of claims to the contrary, we live in uncertain times, and the authorities cannot be expected to be taken on trust any more than they can expect the public to be blind to the events unfolding before their eyes. They see the police, for the first time in the history of this nation, carrying out combined exercises with the army.

What all this suggests is that the army will be called out of the barracks to deal with threats to internal security, and given that it is not trained to deal with civilians in the same way that the police force is, the perception is that the army, which is basically to protect the country against external aggression or threat, will now be ranged against demonstrating citizens.

We have seen the effects of this strategy in other countries, and the government must think this through very carefully. It is not a pretty sight to have armed troops in full battle dress confronting civilian demonstrators.

More than ever, the country needs ethical leadership on both sides of the political divide and at all levels of our institutional hierarchy. It does not take much to plunge a peaceful and prosperous country into anarchy if we are not prepared to come clean.

My plea to all politicians is not to allow their political, personal ambitions to blind them to their sacred duty to uphold the dignity and sovereignty of the nation and protect life and property of all of our citizens.

The time for principled governance is now. Tomorrow might just be too late.

Politicians of all political stripes and spots must learn to gauge the sentiments on the ground, and to listen to the silent cries of despair for our beloved country.

You have decided, by offering yourselves for elected office, to perform your public duty in the public interest, first and last.

Stop playing silly political games and get on with making this a better Malaysia for all. Surely, that cannot be too much to ask.

The writer is a former special adviser to the United Nations secretary-general on ethics and member of the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operations and Management of the Royal Malaysia Police. He can be contacted at tunkua@gmail.com

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