Let Malaysians become desperate...

...and then they will rise up and overthrow the "rotten government" themselves. Reading Rustam Sani's post on this makes me wonder if such an approach will work, or even desirable, in our country. For the record, Rustam is not the one proposing such a revolutionary approach. Rather he is telling us what a friend of his had told him, and made him toss about in his bed.

If you look at the history of the world, hunger, destitution and desperation seem to be key ingredients in causing a mass uprising, often led by a few key intellectuals who could articulate the desperation of the masses and provide revolutionary solutions to their problems. It doesn't matter if those intellectuals more often than not were not experiencing anything close to what the masses they led were. Our closest neighbour, Indonesia, faced something similar in 1997/98 when during the height of the Asian financial crisis, Suharto was finally forced out by mass protest of students backed by masses who were facing unemployment. Like in any revolution, the ugly side of that time was that the Chinese Indonesians were unfortunately dragged into the mess as scapegoats (though there were some reports that the attacks were organized and perpetrated by special security forces). But out of that turmoil of 1997/98, Indonesia, 10 years on, does seem to be going on the right track. At least on the FDI count, they're attracting more than us for the first time in many years.

However, looking at the basket case of Zimbabwe where the 2nd richest African state was turned into a totally failed state due to one crazy man's desire to hang on to power, I couldn't imagine that Zimbabweans are not desperate enough to not have a massive uprising and hang Mugabe at the end. The state apparatus still seem strong enough to quell any uprising thus far, and there are no signs that the people with the guns would turn the barrels toward their current boss any time soon. Observers have opined that desperation seems to be confined mainly to the urban areas, but considering there is almost zero harvest, I cannot understand how the rural folks where Mugabe gets his support could not be any more desperate than their urban countrymen. By the time the rural folks get as desperate and Mugabe is overthrown, Zimbabwe would be so plundered and barren that whatever attempts to return it to its former glory would be failures.

Which is what I fear could happen to Malaysia if we are to wait for desperation to work itself through the masses. I very much would prefer that our country could change for the better in a constitutional manner, and in the right timeframe. A revolution even at the scale of May 13 1969 would not do any of us any good. And there is no telling if such a uprising would be easily crushed and suppressed by the state apparatus (police and army). That could even make the government have a more repressive mood. However, if we leave it too long waiting for meaningful change to come through constitutional and peaceful means, there is also no guarantee that we will not be like Zimbabwe where Malaysia will by then be so plundered and barren that whatever attempts to revive it for the better would be impossible.

I think the most feasible and viable option for us is still to disseminate information and raise awareness among the intelligentsia, and deliver the same to the masses. We have not been able to do much with information and its delivery being monopolized by the government. Now we have the tools, albeit the reach of the delivery mechanism is still wanting. But this is the first step in a journey which I hope is not too long. The coming general election we will see blogs play a role on a scale which we've not seen in the previous election. Granted it will still be mainly confined to the urban areas, but as long as internet penetration in Malaysia, especially broadband, continues to grow I am optimistic that Malaysians will wake up and realize that a change for the better must happen. And we could avoid the revolutionary path chosen by others.