No One Would Riot For Less

In Iran, the apparent issue had a name: Shah. The actual issue has a name: Shariah. In Malaysia, the apparent issue has a name: Corruption. The actual issue will have a name: Shariah. 

Three decades ago a fundamentalist posing as a moderate conducted a social reform movement so popular that everyone from the beguiled illiterate to the atheist with the religiously inclined in between, enthusiastically helped him overthrow The Shah. Then, as he garnered enough power, he ‘threw his friends under the bus’ and thrust upon the nation a radical theocracy where low drop hangings, amputations and stonings underscored its implementation. Now, the people of Iran romanticize and reminisce the rule under the previous government. They realized too late that the toss was between a corrupt but secular dictatorship and a fanatical ideology that used the premise of social reform as a ‘Trojan horse’. Several dictatorships in the vicinity have learnt a valuable lesson from their neighbor and are understandably, resisting their own groundswell clamoring for reform. 

In Malaysia, the apparent issue has a name: Corruption. The actual issue will have a name: Shariah. The vibrant multi-cultural-religious fabric, is a perfect example of a dangerous reformation in flux. With the veneer of political correctness removed, its present situation is analogous to Iran of the past. Down the pike, the ruling party in Malaysia is a secular dictatorship in disguise while the opposition coalition, premised on a platform of democratic social reform, represents unwittingly, an ideological streak detrimental to the fabric. 

Political expediency is no excuse for naiveté. Is the coalition having trouble reading the lips of its Islamist’ partner, which shouts repeatedly that it wants to ‘Islamize’ the nation, or has it not come to terms with its motives, that point to a dogma that is anathema to the secular constitution? The degree to which the coalition partner is underestimated is the degree to which its dogma is misread. If the aspiration of the coalition to form the next government comes to fruition with the partner who is not disciplined or defanged, Malaysians will, in the near future, romanticize and reminisce the secular but re-formable dictatorship of the ‘previous government’. 

No One Would Riot For Less. 

Words, Videography, Action - Tommy Peters


Afterword: This commentary was first published in Malaysia in The Sun on September 9 2008. The video was taken in outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, from the writer's car, on March 12 2011. The song is sung by Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, taken from Cassadaga - a signature Alternative. 

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