Kash’s World

Today, the ruling coalition launched its manifesto. It promises security, peace and prosperity to citizens.

On the other side, most of the opposition parties have endorsed the People’s Declaration.

Your task, as a voter, is to decide which pledge you are going to accept. Even if you are voting for the person, not the party, it’s a fact that candidates will toe the party line in this country.

On paper, both documents make very pretty claims. The only way to decide then is to see their track records.

It’s easy to judge the ruling coalition’s track record. They’ve been in power for a long time. It’s easy to ask ourselves if they’ve kept their word of ensuring peace, security and prosperity to ALL Malaysians. I’ll leave you to decide on that.

As for the other side, while we cannot judge their track record as planners and implementers of policies, we can see what they’ve stood for over the years. It’s easy to see which policies they have stood firm against.

In my view, we must not just accept the words; it’s the actions that are more important.

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I want the incoming government to be a government to tackle the big issues that are plaguing Malaysia. Issues like race polarity, religious extremism and what not.

But I have also learnt over the years is that if a government cannot handle small issues, there’s no way they are gong to be able to handle the big ones.

This is why I get very frustrated when I see the following problems continue to haunt Malaysians year after year.

1. Motorcyclists beating red lights
2. Permanently clogged drains
3. Mat Rempit rampages
4. Horrific express bus crashes
5. Regular ferry sinkings
6. [insert other commonly solved problems here]

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If you, like me, is not happy with the direction Malaysia is headed towards, you know have a chance to decide if that direction should be maintained or a new course be set instead. This general election has become very important in that respect.

I suggest that you take a look at the People’s Declaration which was launched on Saturday. Here is Malaysiakini’s report. This document was put together by people who care about this country and I found that it encompasses my hope and wishes for this country.

The last I saw something like this was way back in 1999 when the Permatang Pauh Declaration was released. That document raised my hopes back then that a new era would begin in Malaysia. Unfotunately, it didn’t happen then.

Now, almost a decade later, another opportunity is upon us.

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Even the most avid of Internet surfers in Malaysia would hesitate to say that the Internet will play a major role in this influence. In the cover story of the current issue of our Surf! magazine, we spoke to Malaysian politicians and respected analysts and they almost unanimously agreed that the influence of the Internet would be limited.

I was personally surprised with the views we got from the people we spoke to, especially those from the Opposition. Admittedly I know little about politics, but when we set about doing the cover story, I had the opinion that this time round, the Internet would play a major role in the elections.

But the political experts all felt otherwise.

I’m not sure that they are correct in their assessment.

I certainly agree it won’t have an effect all over the country but I believe that it will have an effect in most places. Don’t discount the influence simply because there are no PCs in some kampungs. The Internet would have played a role, if those kampong people are given pamphlets printed of the Internet or if someone downloads some multimedia stuff and shows it to them. Or if their children and city kin talk about stuff they read on the Internet when they ‘balik kampong.’

The only areas I think the Internet will have a limited influence are the rural areas of Sabah and Sarawak where voters tend to follow the views of their community leaders.

Why then do the eminent people we spoke to not believe in the Internet as being a powerful new media tool.

After all, these are the very people who use the Internet to get their message across.

History may have something to do with it.

In 1999 and again in 2004, many were guilty of overestimating the influence of the Net. Especially in 1999, people thought that the many ‘Reformasi’ sites that had sprung up would change the political balance.

It didn’t happen and now many think it won’t happen again.

But some dynamics have changed. The internet today is vastly different from what it was in 1999 and 2004. Today, there is a wave of social networking sweeping the country. Powerful tools like YouTube and Facebook were not around then.

Even the key players have changed. Long gone are the anonymous websites that just seemed to pour out vitriol continuously. Today, the major sites are run by known individuals and some have reached the kind of editorial quality previously seen only in traditional media. Sites like Malaysia-Today have seen their Internet traffic rise sharply especially over the last one year. News sites like Malaysiakini have established themselves as credible media and even senior ruling party people are willing to be interviewed by their news and video journalists.

 

In the famous book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell, writes about a curious social phenomenon. Sometimes, he wrote, change happens before we recognize that it had already happened.

Even as all the political experts say that Internet will not have too much influence, the reality could very well be that it is already having a massive influence. We just haven’t recognized it yet.

In other words, we could be guilty of underestimating the power of the Internet this time round.

Some other stories on this same subject

Yahoo News

The Edge via Malaysia-Today

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