HOPE is a commodity, especially in these times of crises. The word itself conjures many images, which for better or worse, are stereotypical due to our capacity for imagination as much as the length and time we have been bombarded and exposed to particular images that we associate with word.

For instance, the sun (the star that our planet revolves around) is probably the most persistent image we associate with “hope”. I guess you could trace the sun as a consistent symbol to this since the beginning of time (at least from our perspective as human beings) in holy texts as much as its omnipresence in our daily lives.

The other most popular one might be the white dove uncaged – a favourite among public events because of its spectacle and cliché. The white dove is also associated with the ideas of peace, love, and femininity, and its roots as the symbol of the Holy Spirit in Christianity.

It is also popular motif used in John Woo films although he doesn’t discriminate and includes other white feathered birds as well as part of his cinematic trademark.

I also recall my first time in Australia as an adult and noticing from the distance a flock of white avian creatures hovering above and around the city and pavements, only to be disappointed that it was just the ubiquitous scavenging seagull, which is as common as the crows in our neck of the woods. So much for the symbolism.

Moving on with these popular symbols of hope is one from our own species: the leader. Napoleon Bonaparte, the erstwhile French political and military trailblazer, once famously quipped that “a leader is a dealer in hope”.

While I’m sure his quote has been used many times by many a leader in the past to blow their own trumpet, the quote’s tone is probably the romanticised notion we associate with leaders, primarily political ones, and drilled into us in our collective consciousness through the effective use the media (through juxtaposition and video editing skills).

Remember Barack Obama in 2008? That was probably the most popular example of harnessing notions of “hope” from an individual figure, which ironically was replaced by its absolute polar opposite in Donald Trump two terms later.

My question is this: why are we such suckers associating “hope” with political and business leaders?

As the saying goes, history repeats – and repeat we do. Haven’t we learnt that it is an exercise in futility to pin hopes on a single human being because, after all, isn’t it human to err?

Politicians err quite a lot not because of their profession of choice, but because they are human. Direct the microscope on any human being and their flaws and quirks will come to the fore quicker than Milo powder in a glass of cold water. Maybe it’s not so much the idea of “hope” that is the problem but the notion of a “leader” that is at the root of our repeated stumbling.

We don’t have “leaders” anymore in our epoch; we have “dealers”. With this in mind, “leaders”, whom Napoleon dubbed “dealers of hope” seem to have greener pastures ahead of them given the current state of the world.

Back in good ‘ol Muhibbah Malaysia, there seems to be not much to “hope” for and by this logic it should be good business for “leaders” to offer us their blessed hand and pull us out of this muck.

Everything seems to be shot to hell and bleak if the news (real and fake) is truly reflective of what’s really going on. The common word bandied around by politicians and their like is “negotiations” – a dry, sullen word, bereft of any romanticism and emotion, a proof that our world has entered its next phase of evolution: the golden age of bureaucratisation.

The use of the word “negotiation” (along with other equally non-committal words favoured by politicians and corporate figures alike) in Orwellian terms would be described as “newspeak” from his always current novel 1984.

“Newspeak” suggests that whoever controls our vocabulary also controls our ability to think and articulate ourselves. While one may argue that Malaysians are making our country proud on Twitter with our touchpad verbosity, we also need to not rest on our laurels to take a hard look at ourselves as a society, especially in our increasingly diminishing ability to articulate ourselves beyond language – notably in the arts.

The arts has been hijacked by similar “newspeak” notably its supposedly common sense associations with the “industry” in everyday discourses (for instance music, film and creative).

This “hijacking” is a form of bureaucratisation by our “dealers” – because dealers don’t have to be participants or even from the community – they are the middlemen and the middle often takes a cut of everything, sometimes too much.

And this cut is not necessarily financial – it’s more dangerous because the cut is ideological. And the fact that most are oblivious to it is a mark of the success of the dealer’s bluff.

Existentialists define hope as no more than a fatal illusion that paints a false image of the world around us and of our expectations.

I don’t disagree with this notion, because sometimes merely “hoping” alone fails to achieve anything. The will to act is important, crucial even, for hope to have any meaning or substance. If I merely “hoped” (which is also articulated in the popular phrase “pray for…”) that the empty cup of Milo staring at me right now would miraculously fill up, please rob me of my right to vote for I’m not worthy of it.

“Hopes” need to be acted upon by ourselves in our daily lives, no matter how small, not only through our “dealers”. – June 25, 2021.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.