Bringing democracy live

Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
My View - The Sun Daily
April 13, 2016

HE prospect of a so-called “public debate” on the Taman Manggis issue appears to be heading in the right direction with both parties seemingly eager to tell their side of the story. And to call each other’s bluff. The last time a similar attempt to debate an issue of great national interest fizzled out although the parties concerned were all geared up.

The president of 1MDB, who is also its group executive director, made a statement then that he was willing to spar his loud-mouthed nemesis in what was termed as a “no holds barred” televised debate.

Unfortunately, this was scuttled by the speaker of Parliament who was mindful of what he considered would prejudice the then investigations involving the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), of which one of the “debaters” is a member. Threatening to resign, if the debate took place, the speaker quipped: “If the government wants to proceed with the debate, I will not involve myself in this matter and I will step down as speaker.”

Eventually the matter was unceremoniously dropped, although “informal” debates loom bigger in all ways and manners to no end. Worse, it caused more confusion, cynicism and mistrust.

This time, however, the outlook is starkly different. The Taman Manggis debate points to all systems go. No sign to scuttle it yet. Instead the communications and multimedia minister allegedly approved of RTM facilitating the debate, as requested by the other side. It is through a programme called Democracy.

While this sounds very encouraging, it does beg the question if other similar slots, especially the monologues with a tendency of “talking down” to the listeners and viewers, fall short of democracy. Would it be wrong to regard them as less democratic when only one viewpoint is made to prevail without in-depth critical analyses and comments to boot. It therefore makes the Democracy slot more awaited, hopefully setting a new benchmark for RTM if not other media outlets as well.

Given the announcement that the slot for the debate will be “without an audience to ensure that the programme runs smoothly” as reported by Bernama, it is a bit of a red herring.

Foremost, why single out the audience, when there can be many factors that can affect the smooth running of the programme?

As all politicians must know, “real” democracy operates best in the presence of a “real” audience; in fact most would insist on a large crowd for maximum democratic harvesting so to speak. In short, without a “live” audience, the so-called democracy could be deemed as good as “dead”. Unless, of course, if one endorses the notorious former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s (remember him?) infamous saying: “Democracy is messy” when it has nothing to do with democracy per se.

As a truly participatory process democracy is bound to be messy although not on the scale of what “Eye-raq” was made to be when Baghdad descended literally into a bloody mess marked by indiscriminate chaos and violent. Some analysts point to leadership failure on the part of Rumsfeld and his band of war-mongers in the Bush-led administration. Others put the blame squarely on the sheer lack of diplomatic skills when they forcibly meddled into something largely built on lies and hypocrisy disguised as democracy.

After all, was it not Rumsfeld who said: “I don’t do diplomacy”? Which is oxymoronic to what democracy and democratic processes stand for. Even more so, when Rumsfeld used to warmly shake hands with Saddam Hussein.

Such hypocrisy casts a long dark shadow over what sort of person Rumsfeld actually is. He might have cowardly receded from the scene but his dumb-felt madness is as murderous for over a decade now.

Fortunately Taman Manggis is no Baghdad. It has its own version of lies and hypocrisy, which we will no doubt hear throughout the proposed debate. On hindsight, however, it is more about scoring political brownie points in a dire situation where public “mistrust” is fast becoming huge liabilities on both sides of the political divide.

But in true spirit of democracy, let us give Democracy (sans audience) a chance, without any prejudice. Let it prosper the culture of healthy debates and dissents in the interest of truth through a matured democratic process
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In this it can check the practices of adopting the least democratic postures after being elected when it comes to protecting their vested interest. The democratisation of public debates can spearhead more open discourse in highlighting even more pressing issues. Not forgetting that the PAC has tabled its report to the Parliament, which means that we can now look forward to the much touted “no holds barred” debate that has been long overdue, hopefully with a “real” audience please.