I find it ironic that Anwar labelled 5 percent of the civil service as lazy and slow.
He even blamed them for being the reason why foreign investors are wary of coming to Malaysia.
I find it Ironic, because I am pretty sure that when it comes to being hardworking and fast, Anwar isn’t exactly on the top of the list. Also, I am more than sure that if foreign investors are wary of investing in Malaysia, it has more to do with Anwar’s leadership than it has to do with the “slow and lazy” civil servants.
The problem with Anwar is that since taking power, he has been sounding more and more like he is a part of the exploitative elites who he claims threw him out of power and put him in prison once upon a time ago than the grassroots population and blue-collar workers that defended him when he was thrown out of power and put into prison.
When he was thrown out of power and thrown into prison, he spoke to us like he was a part of us. At that time, he sounded like he was proud of being a part of the “lower caste” of workers and grassroot. With every word that came out of his mouth, he would insist that it is unfair that we are being exploited, oppressed and subjected to injustices just because we are deemed to be inferior by the exploitive elites and proclaim that in order to free ourselves from the yoke of oppression and exploitation, we must unite to fight against the forces that takes joy in oppressing and exploiting their fellow human being.
Now that he is back in power however, his language is changing. Now, he sounds more and more like the exploitative elite that threw him out of power in the first place. Instead of sounding like he is one of the people who was persecuted by the exploitative elites because he dared to stand up against them and proclaim that people are equal to the elites, now he sounds more like the exploitative elite who persecutes people who dare to stand up and ask that the elites be subjected to the same laws and treatment that the rest of us lesser mortals are subjected to. Ask Chegubard for example. He is being persecuted for saying what Bloomberg says, although Bloomberg itself is not being persecuted for what it said. It is as if Anwar is saying that the elites, like those who run Bloomberg or Zahid Hamidi or Najib Tun Razak, is not subjected to the same laws or treatment that "lesser people '' like Chegubard should resign themselves to.
Language is important when it comes to the elites. The elites are to an organisation what the mind is to an organism, and it is through their language that we can understand the mind of the elite.
If an elite uses language to communicate simply, directly and with clarity to the people, then and only then can we say that the elite is at the core, one of us, who sees their position as an elite as chiefly a responsibility or a job, and not as a form of identity in and of itself.
When an elite uses language to manipulate, deceive or confuse the people however, that elite is likely an exploitative elite, who doesn’t see themselves as being a part of the people, but as a person who is superior to the people for some irrational reason like birth or destiny, and thus they have the right to exploit the people for their pleasure and self-interest, just as how human being uses such lesser creatures like horse, buffaloes or an elephant, for our pleasure and self-interest.
When a responsible elite communicates with the people, there is a consistency and self-awareness in their use of language.
What this means is that if you are a member of the elite who belongs to a leisure class and doesn't even clean your own house or make your own bed, you are not going to go around and brazenly call the workers who do the world’s work, lazy and slow. You won’t, because you will have the self-awareness of knowing who you and other people are. You will realise that even if a civil servant is “lazy” and “slow”, it is not you, but some other member of the civil service, that has the right to call them that.
What this also means is that if the country is unable to attract foreign investment, you are not going to blame the civil servants for it but yourself. You would realise that if the country had a better leader than you who could be trusted to keep their word and provide stability, clarity, order and justice in the country, the country would be able to attract foreign investment, even if the civil service in the country is so slow that it takes 2 days to do what can be done in 1 day in other countries. After all, it is not like foreign investors will deal with the civil service on a daily basis when they choose Malaysia as their investment destination of choice. If Malaysia was a more stable, fair and trustworthy country, I am more than sure the foreign investors would not be put off by having to deal with a mere 5 percent of the civil service who are “slow” or “lazy”.
If respect-worthy foreign investors don’t want to invest in Malaysia, it is because they don’t think they can generate any real value here, on account of the suspect rule of law or governance by reason practised in the country. Without the rule of law or governance by reason, the only type of investors you will attract is the sort that is interested in extracting wealth via exploitation, not by creating any real value.
If we cannot attract foreign investment, not only from respect-worthy investors, but even exploitative ones, it is actually the leader of the government that is to be blamed, not the civil service, people or workers. Even exploitative investors will only "invest" in the country if they are able to rub shoulders with the leader of the country, and if even exploitative investors are not coming, it is because the leaders of the country are too “slow” or “lazy” to rub shoulders with them. Either that, or they are “too slow” or “lazy” in removing the old exploitative elites that have already infested the economic landscape of the country, and clear the space for new exploitative elites to take their place.
In either case, if Anwar is looking for someone to blame for the inability of the country to attract foreign investment, he should look no further than the mirror.
There are two types of elites in the world. The first is the sort that believes that it is morally wrong for them to cast a stone at others when they themselves are not free from sin. This sort of elite believes that being an elite is just a job, not an identity. By identity, they don’t see themselves as being any different from those they rule. When their job is done or when they can no longer do their job, they will leave their position without fuss and rejoin the people who they see themselves as belonging to. These sorts of elites are the ideal leaders of democracy, who believe that the government is nothing more than an institution “of the people, by the people, for the people.”
The second sort of elite is the exploitative ones, whose presence can be palpably felt in every basket case and third country in the world. Where you find a nation swarming with exploitative elites, as sure as night follows the day, you will find a country that is already a banana republic, or it is heading towards being a banana republic. These sorts of elites believe in the concept of “do as I say, not what I do.” Following this principle, even the laziest and slowest of the exploitative elite, will have no qualms in rebuking the fastest and most hardworking member of the grassroots worker, and expect the grassroots workers to just agree with the blatantly duplicitous things that they are saying, or expect rewards to be denied to them or punishment to be meted out.
Whenever I hear Anwar speak these days, I have to say that I am not at all sanguine at the prospect that this is a man that is going to bring about a change.
To bring about change, you must “hate the sin, not the sinner.”
It is doubtful however as to whether Anwar hates the sins, or whether he merely hates the “sinners” from the ancien régime, who he blames for throwing him out of power and into prison two and half decades ago.
From my vantage point at least, it appears to me that Anwar might actually just envy the old “sinners”, in the sense that he might just resent them for depriving him of the ability to commit the “sins” that they exercised for two and a half decades.
Now that he is in power, and from the language he is using, I have a sinking feeling that the only change that he might be bringing about, is where he will be changing the old “sinners” who were against with new ones who will be for him.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is the author of “While Waiting for the World to end”. He was a columnist at FMT and a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, The Star, Malaysia-Today, MalaysiaNow, MalaysiaKini and Focus Malaysia.
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