For the past year, I have listened to angry outbursts from friends about the state of affairs in Malaysia. They are frustrated by slow reforms, a perceived merry-go-round of corruption cases with little or no punishment, and a rising cost of living squeezing the M40 class while the well-connected evade taxes or fines.
They point to a list of heavy penalties imposed on ordinary, hardworking small people while nothing happened to those who committed similar ‘crimes’. They lament that the country feels more divided and prone to selective prosecution than when we were children learning our ABCs.
Because they love this country deeply, the lack of immediate progress hurts.
This anger has triggered a dangerous traction during recent state elections, extending toward GE16: a call to punish some politicians by ‘not’ voting, spoiling ballots, or backing conservatives and corrupt figures out of sheer spite.
“PUNISH THEM! Let them lose and never come back!”
Hearing this made me cringe.
I had heard those exact words before—in Tehran, 32 years ago.
At a private dinner party, I was treated to the most sumptuous Persian rice and kebab dishes I had ever tasted. The warmth of the family was infectious. When a traditional music tape was slipped into the tape-player, men and women alike stood up to dance. Their fingers snapped to the rhythm. Arms undulating like waves as the women moved their hips sideways with a cultured elegance.
I was completely surprised.
The official briefing on Iran had painted a picture of a stiff, joyless society dominated by dark colors and long, monotonous sermons that demanded total obedience. Yet, after removing my long, black mantoh (coat), I found myself surrounded by women in short French-lace dresses and elegant, modern necklines that revealed the feminine beauty. I was the only one in a conservative black long-sleeved blouse, long skirt, black socks. No make-up.
When the family realized I had been instructed to dress conservatively even inside a private home, they laughed jovially.
“Before 1979, our culture was this way,” one of the women told me. “Women could dance, sing, and wear vibrant colors. There were poems, paintings and expressions of happiness. After 1979, our lives split into two worlds. Outside, we obey the regime—wearing dark mantohs, no makeup, no singing, no dancing. Only have thoughts of religion.
But inside our homes, we can live in the world of Omar Khayyam (the legendary Persian polymath, mathematician, astronomer, and poet whose work profoundly shaped both Islamic science and world literature.)”
The year 1979 was the ultimate defining line for Iranians. Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile, Emperor Shah’s regime was overthrown, and an ultra-conservative government took power.
For the rest of my stay, every explanation of Persian culture was whispered softly and divided into "before 1979" and "after 1979."
Sometimes, those whispers gave me chills: “Get me out of here. Bring me to Malaysia… You are so lucky.”
When I bravely whispered back, “Che-RAH?” (Why?), the most common answer, accompanied by sad giggles from older people, was simply, “Chon mah ah-magh boo-deem (Because we were stupid)!”
The Shah had wanted to rapidly modernize Iran, promoting science, Western culture, and secular education. In the 1960s, women wore miniskirts and danced in cafes. But while urban elites thrived, millions in rural areas remained mired in conservative poverty. Public dissatisfaction grew over cronyism, unequal wealth distribution, serious lack of press freedom, and a ruthless secret police force quelled dissent. Religious conservatives slowly capitalized on the public anger.
At another dinner, an Uncle in his late forties recalled his days as a hot-blooded, educated professional in 1979. When the Shah hosted an ultra-luxurious, multi-day celebration at the ruins of Persepolis in 1971 to showcase his wealth to foreign dignitaries, watching it on TV made Uncle furious.
Having studied social justice, he answered the call to protect Iranian traditions and distribute oil wealth fairly. He took to the streets, joining the students.
“Throw the Shah out, punish him, let him never return!” he recounted, whispering the words in Persian with remnants of that old anger. The Shah fled Iran, and the Islamic Republic was born.
The family's elderly patriarch described the aftermath like a movie. “The night before the Supreme Leader Ayatollah arrived, businesses that held government contracts threw massive parties, celebrating a new era. We small businessmen thought we would finally have room to breathe. We thought we were just punishing the Shah a little, and a better future would come.” He sighed deeply.
His wife and aunties echoed his sadness. “Then, within weeks, more and more strict religious rules were declared. Hijabs became mandatory outside. Singing and dancing in public, on the radio, or on TV was banned for women. Only religious music could be played in public. Don’t follow? Go to prison.”
Under the new regime, corruption and cronyism only worsened, enforced by a brutal religious police force. The anti-Western sentiment was so extreme that my museum guide was nearly jailed just for explaining Persian calligraphy in English.
“We jumped from a lion’s mouth straight into a bursting volcano,” the family said in unison.
The music tape was turned off. Silence filled the room.
The elderly patriarch relaxed, taking a sip of fragrant tea through a sugar cube in his mouth. He introduced me to an ancient Zoroastrian philosophical concept that modelled Iranian history as a swinging pendulum between two cosmic forces: Asha (truth, righteousness, and justice) and Druj (chaos, deceit, and destruction).
A ruler’s legitimacy relies on maintaining Asha. When a government becomes corrupt and abuses power, the cosmic balance tilts toward Druj, triggering unrest to force a correction.
The Shah had pushed the political pendulum to a secular, Western extreme in a fast pace. In reaction, the pendulum violently swung to an ultra-conservative extreme.
“The pendulum has not swung back to Asha because the current forces hold it tightly,” the old man remarked with a faint smile. “But someday, it will swing back to the middle.”
“How long must we wait?” Uncle asked in English. The room fell completely quiet.
In the years since that trip, I have met several Iranian exiles who envied the peace and prosperity we take for granted in Malaysia. Lake Esfahan which was very beautiful when I was there is now dry due to bad water management. Iran will be facing severe water shortage very soon. Economic mismanagement causes high inflation, so high that the Tehran bazaar owners, the supporters of the present regime, revolted last year. Press and speech freedom is severely curtailed. Two teenagers who videoed themselves dancing with the song, "I am happy', were jailed.
It has been 47 years since 1979.
Every time I read news about Iranians struggling for personal freedoms, I am reminded of the silence in the Tehran living room.
Is it not a profound warning for us in Malaysia?
Change is a necessary part of growth, but when choices are driven entirely by blind anger and the desire to "punish," the pendulum can easily swing out of control. True progress is not achieved by burning the house down to fix a leak, but through the patient, steady preservation of balance and the democratic spaces we already possess.
We must pause and look ahead to life after GE16. When the ink dries on our fingers, will we have steered our national pendulum closer to the justice, reform, and balance we crave? Or will we look back with regret, realizing that in our eagerness to punish the present, we accidentally swung the pendulum out of our control?
I prayed that I will never have to whisper to a foreign friend, “We lived like this before GE16”, “this is how we are after GE16………..”
And silence. Because I will be too afraid.
Chong Sheau Ching (sheauchingc@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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