Mansor bin Puteh
I don’t think many people including those who openly and snidely support the opposition hate the government. They hate themselves because they are confused with issues and cannot manage anger.
Worse, the respectively ministries have all failed to play their parts independently or in a group with interaction from other agencies and parties and also NGOs that had caused the unnecessary skirmishes and physical harm and expression of coarse words in public protests and others in the social media.
Fortunately, there are very simple and easy ways that the authorities and government can do to overcome this.
There was a time when Malaysians were accommodative and supportive more than they do now. That was when most Malaysians were not endowed with much knowledge, skill and education or who could have the means to travel abroad or even within the country.
If your car breaks down, you can easily get many who are there help you out and if need be, also offer money and food and drinks, to ensure that your car is back on the road again.
But today, such a bad luck, is a good source of income to others, who are glad to tow your vehicle at huge costs, and more so if the incident happens late evening or at night, or worse, during public holidays, and be cheated even more.
And watching television was from just one channel, RTM, that broadcast programs mostly imported from America mostly and Hong Kong with few local programs that gave early Malaysians into the world outside their sphere of thinking, that fed their psychology and fantasies.
Now Malaysians lead the life of plenty; and unfortunately, of the plenty of things that Malaysians now have, they also have plenty of issues, mostly unnecessary ones, all being imposed upon them by the many types of media outlets and notably Blogs and Facebook which have replaced gossiping in the traditional style.
Worse, Malaysians had for so long been fed with a lot of negative energies by what no one had ever mentioned before, which is Malaysian television dramas.
No one had ever mentioned this before because in Malaysia there is no one who is qualified to do a serious study on this, with the filmmakers who are mostly practitioners and not philosophers and psychologists, which is on the effects of watching local dramas and their content and what they could do to the weary.
A lot can be said about this, but suffice to say here that most of the local television dramas which often harp on so few pseudo-social, psychological and political and economic issues have tended to cause a lot of consternation amongst the viewers, especially the young who have now grown into adults and the cycle is repeated with their children now exposed to what they had been exposed to for many years in their adulthood and manhood and also during their pension.
Most of the television dramas are produced by the same type of people who mostly do not have proper training in screenwriting, directing and production; so they do not crave to infuse their productions with artistic qualities or values.
So much so till now there are now some common factors that a serious researcher could see, which is the use of the negative emotions with heightened drama and repetitive energies and acting style, with the characters who are constantly angry with themselves and at the others.
This may look or seem to be petty; but to a serious researcher, this is the reason for the anger and confusion that many Malaysians now have in them that they have taken to the streets, to their Blogs and Facebook, and also art, by producing cartoons and other caricatures and also releasing balloons, purely to release some pent up emotions and personal hatred on some individuals or groups and even the government and Higher Authority who are now not spared of their personal contempt.
The Bersih protests to me are nothing but Street Theater which to others are legitimate expressions of some political and economic issues and concerns. They are not. They are mere Street Theater like those that their organizers had seen being performed in the streets of other major cities in the world, especially America and Europe where they had been performed properly; but not in other Third World countries that had led to public disorder and worse, the collapse of their own governments.
Malaysians do not know how to differentiate between protests, demonstrations, gatherings and conferences where most of the views that they want to express in the Street Theater could be discussed intelligently and with the proper decorum, that do not lead to counter protests and demonstrations and more Street Theater.
So that they now have ample time to finally express whatever feelings that they had that were all shaped by their overexposure to watching such dramas all their lives, and behaving carelessly without thoughts to what they say and feel.
Some Melayu who tried to find some measure of solace and acceptance or repentance spend a bit of time attending political and religious ‘ceramah’ or gatherings have become even worse when those they thought who could reeducate them to become better persons have now become more crass and crude in their ways.
Many have become too individualistic, yet, there are many who have become groupies, and who do not care with what they say or do and who would post incriminating videos on YouTube for all to see, because their private bubble had become so small that they have no shame at all to exhibit whatever feelings they have that they had suppressed in the past, when they were working in the government and private sector, now that they are on their own basically, with political and religious teachers now acting at their unconfirmed leaders.
There are simple ways that the government and ministries concerned can do to over come this. Unfortunately, the action involves some ministries, that of communication and Multimedia and Culture, Youth and Sports and Education which can be done only in enclosed areas and not in public.
