A LOT has been said about the “new normal” – a supposedly different world than it used to be due to the pandemic – but the term itself rings shallow.

It was and still is bandied around, albeit lesser now, than when the pandemic was in its first year, a kind of “soft” term to allow us to collectively brace for a changed world. 

“Change” you see, is harder done than said. It’s comforting when it’s bandied around in fancy fonts in a dimly lit conference room bathed in the soothing glow of a PowerPoint layout or the comforting constructed catharsis of a TED Talk.

In fact, if we were to juxtapose contemporary Malaysia with the word “change” (or even “new normal”), you’d be hard pressed to notice any “changes”, let alone progress.

Let’s take a look at the longest running series in the Malaysian media: Malaysian politics.

If there’s one positive “change” in terms of politics, it is the crumbling of the facade of paternalistic political leadership.

What has been revealed is a dithering, silver-spooned bureaucracy underneath the fancy suits and media grooming – regardless of whichever side of the political divide they come from.

These too are the people who disdain new ideas. And they are these same groups for whom “change” and the “new normal” are both a boon and bane.

We’ve changed national leadership (aside from the fact whether it was by our choice – the citizens’ – or not is another argument) in the last three to four years and in both instances,  the word “dithering” has to me been the defining word more than others.

To quote American stand-up comedian George Carlin, “this is the best we’ve got.”

Our lack of leadership and, more importantly, generational succession is a glaring problem.

We might have changed on the surface – the political coalitions and what not – but look closely at the actors and you’ll see a bunch of familiar and similar faces.

These are faces with a postmarked history at best, dithering in their stances and dispensing “new normal” to fit into their political marketing spiel and actions.

“Change” in this context takes on a negative and facetious meaning. Change equates “not keeping to your word” as a lot of political memes revealing “before” and “after” statements by our politicians have come to attest.

In studying the media, transposing any headlines from the recent or even distant past will reveal that little has changed.

Start analysing the subtext in media texts and images, and nothing much has changed.

Focus your lens on the finer details such as advertising and marketing. Again, nothing has changed… except one thing: the valorisation of youths.

Youths weren’t romanticized when I grew up in the ‘90s. In fact, we were treated like a plague and the only thing the government came up with was the Rakan Muda programme, which didn’t really amount to anything back then.

Heck, even our youth ministers back then were “old”.

According to the Youth Society and Youth Development Act 2007, a “youth” is defined as any person between the ages of 15 and 40 years old. By that measure, we’ve regressed since our current Youth and Sports Minister is way beyond the national definition of youths.

I also always wonder why “youths’”and “sports” are always lumped together but I’ll save that for another day.

So, I’m not surprised by the archaic paternalistic attitude that permeates from our power structures that rewards old furniture. Our public universities are chock-full of them right to the top and stifling new ideas and “change”.

Globally speaking, youths are major consumers, while producers are from the Middle Ages –  the ones who make the profit and will eventually be the establishment.

Youths are also the major consumers of ideas since ideas are, well, free. In every generation, it is youths who rally and call for changes – until they themselves become part of the establishment and the cycle continues.

In times of desperation, one can’t afford to experiment or take chances – and we had that opportunity for the past decade and a half in spite of our dithering political culture.

Maybe we actually can afford to experiment or take chances – just not economic ones: it can take the form of ways of thinking to shift our individual paradigms or in the forms of how we express our dissent.

With this in mind, the most creative dissenting voices aren’t coming from the supposed established musical or film “artists” out there (myself included): they’re coming from the youth.

And why them? Well, it’s because they have a more natural ability to communicate using the present technologies and reaching their intended audiences.

But on the same token with any generation, many are also caught in the distraction of popular culture and consumerism. This is a given, so don’t point your old fingers at the young.

The dithering elders are afraid of the young because they are dangerous to their hegemony over things because of the detrimental culture of rewarding seniority over ability.

We need to reclaim the word “change” for our youths. Don’t let it be hijacked by clichéd notions of “change” by pretenders.

The young are dangerous to demagogues, the ancient and the corrupt, and rightly so. It’s time to go shopping and change the furniture. – August 13, 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.