Response to "A dearth of democracy"

Note: This is a response to the article published by a friend, Tong Soprach, who is a social-affairs columnist for the Phnom Penh Post's Khmer edition. Link to the article "A dearth of democracy" here: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012111259675/National-news/a-dearth-of-democracy.html

Dear Soprach,

I have been following your travels (thanks to FB) and equally delighted that this trip ends with a deep reflections on your own country/democracy.

To be fair let me share a bit of our democracy (others can add, too): Malaysia "survived" a 22 years Prime Minister (1981 – 2003). We now have a political coalition that rules since independence - and we are not China, mind you.

Following the legacy left by our colonial master’s “divide and rule” policy, our political coalition consist of mainly 3 race-based political parties: Malay, Chinese, Indian. The mandate of current government ends April 2013 – so watch out for your neighbors, Malaysia J

If USA has “swing states”, Malaysia has “fixed deposit states” – East peninsula states of Sabah and Sarawak (Link: http://aliran.com/10230.html). And we are not sure if Malaysia is a secular state – I get confused myself, sometimes. Language is another challenge we have yet to overcome as a nation: although forcing people to learn English/Bahasa would not help, too. The failure to manage Malaysia’s rich diversity (nature, ethnic, race, religion, culture) proper can only cost us the real potential – now it has become a question of survival (let alone Singapore – other neighboring countries is equally competitive, if not better off, now).

Anyway, I think democracy is when the majority (especially rural citizens) is aware of these (and other) facts and what it means (implication) to them and our nation’s future. What they do with these informations, as they say, is their freedom. Rather than questioning the flaws in our democractic system, I’d focus on personal motivation and experience instead. This is when I realized how little we were educated on democracy, encouraged/given easy access to participate in the democratic processes and well, speaks openly about any subject at all (example, link: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/youth-arrested-over-facebook-posts-on-johor-sultan).  

But the most important message I want to convey in this email is: Thank you for your email, my friend, that keeps us together. I will definitely cheer for Cambodia (and Malaysia) in acquiring their very own democracy!

Beste,

@KC@