“THAT is no country for old men. The young in one another’s arms, birds in the trees – Those dying generations – at their song…”

(Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats)

After reading “The real issue is system of governance” by Ravinder Singh, I have to categorically state that it has undeniably downplayed the voices of young Malaysians at large.

I am surprised that a senior citizen like him could have the impertinence to point fingers at us, young Malaysians, with such nauseating vituperation shrouded with uncouth phrases which I will highlight. I will smash up his ignominious assertions.

Ravinder said: “Going by the saying… have not eaten enough salt… do not have enough years of experience to be able to wise up to the real issue in the next ‘mother of all elections’.”

The promoters and supporters of #UndiRosak have every right to spoil their votes. Who is Ravinder to say that they are inexperienced? The proponents of that movement are voters just like Ravinder, you readers, and I. All of us have choices to make and opinions to give.

Ravinder said that the young ones had not personally seen Malaya and then Malaysia from the 1950s to the present, and that they lacked the benefit of hindsight to make educated comparisons of the 1950s and 1960s with the present.

I am rather perplexed by his grotesque reasoning. Do all of us Malaysians have to had lived through the pre-Independence era to have the right to voice out and to be safe from Ravinder’s castigation? This is absolutely preposterous! How many of us Malaysians today lived through the Merdeka period? How could Ravinder patronise the young ones of Malaysia and dismiss them as lacking the benefit of hindsight?

We live and worry for today and tomorrow, not the yesteryears! This is utter poppycock.

“Poor boy. He is throwing tantrums.” A boy cannot legally vote in the general election twice in his lifetime and Ravinder is in no position to malign Hafidz Baharom and those who uphold his belief of vote spoiling.

“The existing… or the time-tested Westminster-type democracy that we started with and which had been hijacked.” Our beloved Malaysia’s existing system of governance is of the time-tested Westminster-type democracy. Ravinder must substantiate to us readers that our country’s governance has been hijacked. Otherwise, all of us have to dismiss him as a loose cannon.

“By campaigning… knowingly or unknowingly trying to keep voters under the tempurung.”  Voters aren’t cretinous human beings. I am sure they are well informed and have brains to think for themselves. Ravinder need not depict us voters as an easily influenced lot.

“A change of government cannot make things worse, even if the new government is unable to repair the damage done over those decades in a single term… So if the new government does not live up to their expectations, they can vote it out at the next election. This will set in place a rotational system as in the United Kingdom and other working democracies.”

Despite having lived through the 1950s and 1960s , Ravinder is still as naive as an innocent schoolboy by declaring that a change of government cannot make things worse. Most of us know that it can make things worse.

Look at Libya, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and South Africa: when Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Hosni Mubarak and F. W. de Klerk, together with their ruling political parties (except the absolute monarchy of the Pahlavi Dynasty) were around, citizens of these countries led a peaceful and stable life without needing to be refugees. The good lives that they led ended when revolutions (read: change of governments) started to consume their countries.

Look at them today. Many have had to flee their motherlands, they have issues of human rights abuses, crime rates are at all time high and most expectedly, poverty flourished like never before. We cannot afford to experiment just to test the waters, for Malaysia needs stability very much especially in this testing times.

Malaysia is not like Britain or other working democracies, for we are sui generis and have sovereignty. That was why our forefathers clamoured for independence and got it. If Malaysia was not a “working democracy” as alleged by Ravinder, then I believe that Ravinder, Hafidz Baharom, and I would not have the opportunity to express our thoughts about issues like this publicly.

“They should be encouraged to vote, not to spoil their votes.” I am against vote spoiling, but that does not mean that I will not respect the proponents of the vote spoiling movement’s decision to spoil their votes as the action to spoil the votes is to vote.

“While leopards cannot change their spots, leopards can be tamed.” I think it’s too late to tame the leopards when they have the upper hand upon all of us, for we will be their repasts! I don’t have to be a zoologist to say that old leopards will remain wild no matter how you train them to be tame. We can’t even vouch for people who successfully taught old dogs new tricks, let alone tamed old leopards.

Ravinder wrote that the general election was a golden opportunity to bring back the system of democracy. So what about the previous thirteen general elections in Malaysia? Weren’t they the epitome of the system of democracy?

Malaysia is already a democracy system, more so after having achieved independence from Britain. It is unprecedentedly obvious that Ravinder behaved undemocratically by having sullied Hafidz Baharom, proponents of #UndiRosak and the youth of Malaysia in general.

Refrain from downplaying and denigrating them in a perspicuously patronising manner, Ravinder, for the young ones of Malaysia will assume positions of importance in our country sooner or later. That fact is undeniable. We are the present, we are the future. – January 30, 2018.  

* James Saw Song Kai reads The Malaysian Insight.

* 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.