October has become a quiet month in which to reflect on September's shrieking, and ponder what is to come in November. The October rains are gentle this year. In this eerie eye of the storm, this narrow zone of calm between towering walls of uncertainty, there is surfacing the realization that this story is no longer about Anwar Ibrahim. It may be partly about the Reform Movement that now exists under his name, all but asphyxiated beneath a media blackout. But it's no longer about justice, or politics, or the economy, or notions of leadership. This is about a national revulsion.
An accumulation of insults, building up to an overburden of cynicism and disgust. The centre still holds, but it is now surrounded by a vacuum; cut off from the people by a gulf of disbelief. It can be simple to manage a nation of marginalized, confounded, ignorant people, but not if they KNOW they are. Based not on what they know, but what they don't know, Malaysians are losing the last shreds of faith in their Government, its media and its instruments of authority.
The former deputy prime minister is sitting in a cell somewhere, awaiting the Nov 2 commencement of his trial on ten charges of corruption and perverse sex. We hope he is not being treated too harshly. We hope that justice will take its course, be done, and be seen to be done. But while the venerable Latin phrase "sub judice" now serves to silence all public discussion of the judicial process as it pertains to Anwar, the silence itself is allowing the quiet voice of conscience to be heard.
To a certain extent, this is about that Reformasi thing. Somewhere in the stated principles of that movement, all that earnest poetry on human values and such, there are things everyone believes, or wishes to believe. But even those who haven't got the time of day for Reformasi of any kind, even those who wish Anwar had just shut up and got lost, even those convinced of his guilt, are troubled and disquieted by what is happening to their nation.
And no one -- without exception, and without fear of contradiction, NO ONE in this country -- is happy about it. Ugliness has surfaced. Brutality has happened. Unspeakable lies have been told; unforgivable things have been said. Farcical, embarrassing moments have flashed in the faces of the world media. People who believe themselves to be good & decent know they have behaved deplorably. Malaysia wonders, how could this have happened at all, let alone the way it did?
How could it all have gone so horribly wrong? There has been revealed an emptiness at the centre; a debasement at the heart of the Malaysian Dream. There is a national disgust at the backs of our tongues, and if it could find a way to speak it might say:
We are ashamed.
We are ashamed of ourselves. We are ashamed of the way we do things here; of the compromises we have made that have allowed our basest traits to thrive. In the name of cultural preservation, in the name of racial dominance, we have preserved what should have been allowed to fall away generations ago. The cult of leadership. The rewards of loyalty. The supremacy of one community, politically defined, over others, racially defined.
This has been a national convulsion, felt by every individual Malaysian in his or her own way. The Reformasi Movement itself may seem a thin and feeble voice right now. It may fade into oblivion if Anwar is found guilty. A majority of Malaysians may be relieved if it would. Such revolutionary movements, spraying slogans into the air, are unwelcome to many Malaysians. But this does not mean we will not change.
Change happens instead by seeping softly down into the soil like the October rain, into our roots, to be incorporated into the fabric of our identities. It will be an organic transformation, determined by the way Malaysia's children are born and raised; by what they will learn and know from us. Thus will these changes fully manifest themselves, in time. Perhaps even by 2020 after all.
Until then, may God help us all.
Wassalam.
Rehman Rashid