after the euphoria...

things are never quite what it seems...to be able to maintain a critical distance towards our interests, our hopes and desires, this seems to be the real challenge in the aftermath of March 8th 2008...

like most people...i was euphoric, almost gobsmacked by the electoral outcome...never would i have imagined that the ruling coalition would lose 5 states to the opposition, and the infamous two-thirds majority finally denied, not since that legendary year of 1969...but then May 13 happened, and as they say, the rest was history...history that we continually refuse to face up as a nation, as people negotiating a common identity in a shared space called 'malaysia'.

i remember remarking to friends that denying the 2/3rds majority, and actually achieving it, would be greater than malaysia winning the world cup! i used to think, there is a bigger chance for our country to do that, being world champions (which is absolutely wishful-thinking and delusory), than seeing the hegemonic political stranglehold being broken for the very first time in our 50 years as a nation...guess i was pleasantly surprised and proven wrong...the lesson is clear. one can never predict anything when it comes to social movements and political groundswells...they defy our best analysis and past experiences...

now a new challenge arises both for BN and Pakatan Rakyat...i begin to see that our trust as citizens can never be in any particular party or personality, no matter how strongly we feel attached to them, whether on the basis of rational choice or pure sentimentality. the first week of parliament has been disappointing...perhaps these are teething problems for an emerging democracy, the beginnings of greater participation from the common man...

but my fear is that the common man loses his ability to criticize, without fear or favour, either coalition...to be able to struggle for the malaysia 'yet to come', where justice meets those who are currently marginalised...and a better kind of peace, not built on violence or supported by oppressive and authoritarian powers...that is the higher or transcendental goal for all malaysians...

our uniqueness and differing perspectives, our particular ethnicities, religious affiliations or interest groups, must fight against the forces of banality and expediency, that phenomenon of 'levelling down'...the development of 'substantive' individuality and 'qualitative' subjectivity in our personal lives, the working through of the depths of tragedy and self-identity, must never be sacrificed for the sake of political parties, political solutions, or ultimately for the sake of the nation state.

once has to ask a more fundamental question, 'What is the state or government for?'...surely it can't be for its own sake...or when politicians from either side wax lyrical about programmes and agendas that are proposed for the sake of the Rakyat...is it just rhetoric, masquerading partisan politics in its base ambitions of wresting the reins of state power from another group...

perhaps we should start, taking the cue from sages of old, Aristotle or even that old farmer from Kentucky, Wendell Berry, by asking questions like 'What are people for?'...i am sure these seemingly unconventional starting points would yield results almost unheard of in the daily political discourse covered by our press and forums that major in MPs switching coalitions, price hikes, and big foots in parliament...

the malaysian project will always defer its own completion, as long as there are citizens whose hopes and dreams defy the present labels, policies and racial stereotypes...the concepts of 'barisan nasional', 'pakatan rakyat', 'melayu', 'cina', 'india', 'lain-lain', and countless other terms, are not natural and as such metaphysical 'givens'...they all have a beginning, at a certain point in our history (depending on our self-interested re-tellings), and therefore belies their temporality and constructed natures...there is hope yet for their passing and whittling away from our national psyche and self-understanding.

the makings/unmakings of a nation...march 8th 2008...a new chapter begins...but the saga continues...

the people, the rakyat, will inevitably write their own history...which begs the question, 'who are these people? what are they like? what made them act they way they did? what had they hoped for? what kind of government did they ask for?...' history will be their judge, when the actors have long disappeared...

we truly deserve the kind of government we have...at least that's true, in the aftermath of march 8th 2008.