The fallacy of Democrasy, and Freedom of Speech

There is a quote:

Freedom of speech is a human right and the foundation upon which democrasy is built. Any restriction of freedom of speech is a restriction on democrasy.

Deeyah Khan

Its a profound quote from an activist and believer in the democratic ideals for freedom of speech and human right. Nothing wrong with the statement and in fact, it is not disputable. 

However, such narratives expressed overzealously could fall flat in the face later. Without having to touched on the hypocrasy of the loudest propagator of such narrative; namely the United States, there are local examples recently.

One is the Minister of Communcations from PKR, Fahmi Fadzil for abusing freedom of speech in Parliament last week to divert attention and adding on with more slanderous remarks. 

Another is a humourous hypocrasy from DAP's Malay Professor, Prof Dr Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi.

Freedom to slander (for diverting attention)?

PKR potrayed themselves as the "Democrats" of Malaysia and believe in western democratic practises, including freedom of speech. It is the right to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.

Now, this is not a repeat of the often complain on Fahmi's rampant censorship on social media, blog and subtle pressure to determine mainstream media reporting (as though MSM is still relevant). That is in itself an infringement on the right to freedom of speech.

If there had been anything wrong, the law should deal on the extreme cases. Ministry of Communication should communicate effectively than using the stick and harassing writers to takedown their writings. 

Anyway, Fahmi Fadzil spoke in Parliament last week on 266 telco towers not operational after  exceeded the nine month target deadline. His picked on YTL made Berita Harian used it as headline, 'YTL paling corot, minta maaf saya terpaksa sebut'.

For 51 towers assigned out of 266 towers, only 17 towers were completed but not operational. That is not sufficient indication to claim YTL is incapable of putting up towers. They have put up at schools all over the country. 

During commissioning of telco towers, the network integration, testing, optimisation and troubleshooting can be problematic should the spectrum not assigned. Could it be it is the Ministry or agency under it is at fault?   

So the freedom of speech and protection of Parliament allows Fahmi to lay the blame on YTL for his Ministry's alleged inability to deliver and a blame was spinned on YTL just cause it is embroiled in Muhyiddin's suspected 1Bestari.net corruption scandal?  

According to Little Bird among mainstream media, Fahmi requested for the YTL headline. 

That is a dead giveaway he is diverting attention from the embarassing failure of the Deputy Public Prosecutor to submit any evidence on the 6-year old charge for IPIC settlement on Najib which was acquited last week.

It proves conspiracy by Attorney General Chambers under PH's Tommy Thomas to fix Najib with politically motivated falsified charges. The freedom of speech abused for insidious motivation.

  

What is "horrifying and concerning"?

Adding to the embarassment, Fahmi over acted in his speech in Parliment to outrightly said in the open that DNB's dealings was "horrifying and concerning". Don't just talk but what is it? What action has been taken?  

As the former Minister of Communication, Gobind replied to deny Fahmi the next day and Edge reported on its weekly issue. Extract below: 

... Minister of Digital Gobind Singh Deo told the Dewan Rakyat that due diligence had found matters of governance and financials involving DNB to be “in order”. He said the government had provided only RM500 million in equity injection in 2021, a shareholder’s loan of RM400 million by the Minister of Finance Inc in May 2023, and government guarantee on DNB’s financing.

These provisions by the government will be “taken over” or satisfied by other DNB shareholders — the telecom companies — ahead of the second 5G network rollout and will eliminate any concerns of potential losses by the government, Gobind said.

Read on in The Edge here.

Criticising "voice of conscience"?

And today, DAP's Dr Tajuddin, who regularly expouse his views on the virtues of democrasy, freedom of speech, and urging on Malays to be rational in their thinking and actions is expressing his critics on civil society.

DAP maybe the first to ride on the democrasy and freedom of speech but it is known in political circle they do not adopt the American ideals in their political practise. In Singapore as PAP, it is leader centric on Lee Kuan Yew, while in Malaysia, it is Lim Kit Siang who holds sway on DAP.

  

The irony in Tajuddin's critics of CSO is based on the same arguments UMNO expressed during their dominant days as the leading party ruling the government. 

Did DAP just realised these so-called voices of democrasy are more irritants, serve narrow interest of society, and self-centred than contributing and does not serve the bigger picture of national interest? 

His article in the Star today:  

Sins of a democracy 

Star Tuesday, 03 Dec 2024

By Prof Dr Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi

THE shock of a very right-wing Donald Trump winning a second term as President of the United States – that so-called “shining example of democracy” – made me think about what is happening in Malaysia.

I remember hearing “Suara rakyat suara keramat” (the voice of the people is a sacred voice) during those days of the call for “Reformasi” led by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim following the Permatang Pauh Declaration in 1998.

I was then, and have been since, a strong proponent of democracy. But today, I have actually begun doubting whether we, the rakyat, actually have a “suara keramat” or a “suara keparat” (voice of a scoundrel).

The idea of democracy is said to have begun with the ancient Greeks; the word itself is formed from the Greek words demos (people) and kratos (power or rule), meaning “rule by the people”. All free men participated in decision-making by voting for their representatives in assemblies – one man, one vote.

Free men meant those who owned property, were not slaves, and who were willing to defend their country to the death. These were obviously educated men who knew what was at stake in their small world. And, no, women were not allowed to vote.

So some 2,500 years on, we have the same idea of one person, one vote (women were finally allowed to vote just a little over a century ago). But the people who can now vote are quite different from that small group of educated men.

Now voters may not be educated, may not own property, and may be too old to defend the country. Also different from the Greeks, we now have social media, through which one vote may influence thousands of other votes. I’m not so sure it is still one vote, one person anymore.

Also different from the Greeks, we, the people, experience an industrial style of education without any philosophical, creative or even critical thinking. In this, we are very different from the ancient Greeks, who were known to highly value philosophy.

There are three things I worry about in today’s democracy – what I consider the “sins” of a democracy.

Firstly, as I have written before, the voters have no grounding in politics and how a country works. Thus, left floundering, many give in to instilled fears and choose along racial, religious and populist lines when it comes time to vote. If one is a Malay, one votes for a Malay or Malay-dominated party; the same thing happens with other races. This I call “the sin of tribal preference”.

The second sin I see emerging from civil society: The idea of civil society is to be the conscience of the nation by airing views and protests – in a calm and dignified manner, mind you. What I can see now is some well-known civil society organisations (CSOs) demanding many reforms in a reckless, demeaning and unfair manner. What do I mean by unfair? Well, people who criticise the government for not carrying out reforms must understand that the government cannot act in a vacuum. CSOs must understand the context of the culture of politics and entrenched administrators as well as the views of a majority race. Politics is about managing all these views; CSOs have the luxury of only managing their own conscience and self-righteousness.

Secondly, I am disgusted to see civil society using derogatory means to make their points by grandstanding on issues while shouting or writing as if ministers do not have any feelings. I have seen expressions like “the minister doesn’t seem to have a clue”, “the PM does not seem to care at all about other rakyat of different faiths” or “the PM deserves a D grade”.

These criticisms fail in three important ways: Firstly, the criticism is usually unclear in scope and expectation. Change what? How to change and which part exactly?

Secondly, the criticism does not take into account administrative procedures and – most importantly – party politics. Party politics among different coalition partners is a real thing and cannot be ignored, and there is, I’m sure some sort of private quid pro quo dealing going on. That is unavoidable. I am not justifying it but it is silly and naive not to understand that it exists and has to be dealt with.

Finally, I feel that “grading” a prime minister is rather childish and clearly doesn’t work because grading requires the grader to have been in the position of who the grade is for; grading requires moderation from different sources. Since just one CSO takes on this task, what practical use is it?

Also, I personally feel it’s rather rude. The Islamic way of advising leaders, and I believe that it is also the Asian way, is to speak privately, with carefully selected words – with hemah, or wisdom and tact. Not having their grouses splattered all over the media.

The final democratic sin is one that we, the rakyat, commit when we refuse to check the facts of an issue and simply make them go viral on Internet platforms, complete with all the lies, propaganda and misinformation. When the facts of the matter are established, the damage is already done.

If this country fails and falls into poverty and chaos, I would no longer blame the politicians or the administrators but point the finger back at ourselves, the rakyat, for refusing to learn to change, for allowing knee-jerk reactions and bad manners to threaten unity, and for making untruths go viral willingly and joyfully. We would have only ourselves to blame.

Prof Dr Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi is Professor of Architecture at the Tan Sri Omar Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Studies at UCSI University. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.

Finally he realised the weakness of democrasy. The so-called freedom of speech should not be taken out of context and given bigger prominence than as one voice to be heard. At the end of the day, the need to have a stable, working and effective government to lead the nation supercede the interest of the few.

The practical reality is that without a dominant member leading the government, there will be lack of leadership and it only weakens the administration. And the country and majority of the population end up at the receiving end of the suffering.