Liberalism: that weapon of choice

For some odd reason, social liberalism has been made the bogeyman of the Malaysian government, and honestly it's a bit off.

We are a liberal country, historically. One can just take a look at any newspaper archive to see our prime minister's father as well as Tunku Abdul Rahman grooving and grinding to joget in the past.

There were no arguments over the skin tight laced kebayas or even horse racing and alcohol consumption.

People could be pious, people could do whatever they wished as long as they didn't break civil law, or even made it openly known that they were breaking civil law.

Liberalism, to paraphrase Fatboy Slim, was giving Malaysians the weapon of choice.

Not so much a dancing Christopher Walken, but more the ability for individual Malaysians to decide what they wished to do, how they wished to act, as long as it offended no one.

Perhaps here is where it gets gritty. Malaysians have started getting judgmental about others. I'm not sure when it began, but surely as a nation we have become a somewhat holier-than-thou comparison of a society.

Add that to the the birth of the Internet and social media, and they could share their holier-than-thou beliefs to cater to a mob.

What was once limited to newspapers and gossipy Malaysian neighbours now can be shared around the nation and internationally without a qualm.

The clash between liberal and conservative ideologues has suddenly not only turned political, but has now become mob versus mob in cyberspace, coupled with anonymity and trolling.

Of course trolling can be quite innocent since most of us writers have been accused of being ignorant, misquoting and even being stupid. Those are acceptable even to me.

But in the case of Aisyah Tajuddin or going back further to Azwan Ismail, both received death threats. Aisyah was even threatened with rape.

Why? Because we disagree with her point of view?

Liberalism allows such instances to take place, but to a certain degree. There shouldn't be any threats of bodily harm.

Disagreements will be aplenty because we were not all brought up in the same cookie cutter household. There is no one absolute right way because in this country, not everyone professes the same faith. Not everyone professes the same ideals and obviously, not everyone believes and votes for just one political entity.

This is why we have the concept of discourse, agreeing to disagree and ruling by achieving a consensus or a majority. It was through this consensus of community leaders that Malaysia gained its independence.

And quite frankly, it was only through finding common standings among the various communities that the government came up with the Rukunegara after 1969.

Of course, I would contend that the first out of five tenets needs to be revisited.

Furthermore, we practise the most liberal of all social experiments every five years: the weapon of choice that is a general election where every registered voter gets to pick who they want to lead the nation for another term.

This is what a democracy means, and there is nothing more liberal than the freedom of choice. It's not perfect, but as Churchill himself once said, it's the worse until you look at the others.

Should it be expanded to include public referendums for states as well as local council bylaws?

I would hope so.

Because judging by what our parliamentarians are doing and saying, sometimes they may not represent my thoughts or opinions as it stands, yet mention themselves as my representative.

But most importantly, liberalism in society allows us individually to explore our cultures as they are, to question and probe governance without fear and, for the better part of it, to advance ourselves to greater debates.

This is what we need and what we want, is it not? – March 31, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.