MARCH 25 — The government is alternately regarded as a state. As public policy specialist David Easton once called it “the authoritative allocation of values.” The government, whether due to its sins of commissions or omissions, can cause considerable pain.
As the “Princess of Reformasi,” Nurul Izzah, barely 40, invariably the Member of Parliament of Permatang Pauh, has experienced all the trials and tribulations that no average person would have gone through.
This involves seeing heavily armed police men barging into her home, while she was in her mere teens to arrest her father Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, then the deputy prime minister in 1998, and confronting the horror of seeing her dad being subjected to two, not one, scurrilous trials on the spurious charges; all of which the most previous monarch of Malaysia has indeed pardon and forgiven.
Everyone knows Nurul Izzah has confronted the beast that is the government, indeed, the entire edifice of the state, and bearing the visible and invisible scars of the pain.
Whether her defiance is as simple as resigning from the Vice Presidency of Parti KeAdilan Malaysia (PKR) presided by her mom and dad on alternate basis over the last twenty years, her most recent interview with The Straits Times Singapore shows a dignified woman who is nonetheless dejected by the slow pace of reforms.
By declaring, that this is potentially her last term as the Member of Parliament, perhaps only in Permatang Pauh, Penang, but not elsewhere in Malaysia, Nurul Izzah has also shown the all the humane need to recover, both deeply and spiritually from decades of sordid political mudslinging.
The puzzle facing Nurul Izzah is one quite similar to what her father Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim once posed when manhandled and punched by the former inspector-general of police Tan Sri Rahim Noor: “If this can happen to me, imagine what could happen to the average citizens?”
Well, if Nurul Izzah can experience a burn out, barely a year after the victorious triumph of Pakatan Harapan on that historic night of May 9 2018, imagine what every Malaysian can feel when they have to struggle with the syndrome of procrastination?
Datuk Seri Najib Razak, and his ilk, including his wife, still believe that every delay in their legal trial is a step closer to their own freedom.
But when Pakatan Harapan is inconsistent and inconsiderate in stalling on more reforms, then one cannot help but be empathetic with the inner struggles of Nurul Izzah.
Whether she is conducting herself as a Member of Parliament, Nurul Izzah is a Malaysian first and foremost. She has the front row seat of the machinations in the parliament, and beyond.
She also has a perspective that is even rarer: she knows who are directly stirring the pot to bring about the downfall of not just Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the incoming prime minister, but the incumbent Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah, who is her mother too.
By declaring that this is her last term, Nurul Izzah has underscored the extent to which power and ambition of some politicians, many of whom from her own party, has come to the fore. These are elements who cannot bear to wait to pluck the low hanging fruits of the state, either at the level of the Federation or otherwise.
The pain Nurul Izzah feels, in this sense, is that of the average Malaysians. Many want meaningful and qualitative change. The sort that is systemic and structural.
The Parliament, for example, will have a Select Committees across a bevy of issues, to hold each policy accountable and transparent. The last Nurul Izzah or many Malaysians want to see is the politics of same old, some old (s.o.s.o.).
The latter is the genre akin to a movie unlike Groundhog Day. Every day, the lead character, Bill Murray would wake up to the same old routine.
Whether it be a car zipping by a pot hole to splash the muddied waters on his trench coat, or, experiencing exactly the same the next morning, politics that acquire and retain such quality of dour sameness is nothing less than a vapid display of s.o.s.o.; even that is to put it mildly.
Nurul Izzah, like it or not, represents the majestic elegance of reform over the last twenty years.
By defending her seat in Pantai, Kuala Lumpur, a constituency that represents the best and worst of both Malaysia — due largely to the vast income gap — it goes without saying that she knows the actual reforms of closing the income differentials of the people of Malaysia has either been waylaid by the powers that be, or ambushed by the Little Napoleons in the party.
Islam does not accept one to give up. What Nurul Izzah does is not akin to the latter. Of all the politicians out there, she is probably the only one who knows that it is the people, who decide the trajectory and direction of Malaysia, not some back room scheming, much as the shenanigans may, momentarily, seem to win out.
Madcap attempts to hijack or capture the state, either by selling its assets, or stripping it clean, is but a veiled attempt to increase the size of its political liquidity — ironically at a time when Malaysian government is left with mere crumbs by the previous administration.
Nurul Izzah has seen things that has weighed down on her “unbearable lightness of being” as playwright DH Lawrence once affirmed. But she has also taken the step to warn Malaysians in The Straits Times Singapore. With or without a pay wall, all Malaysians are at least entitled to a single read.
When they do, they should wonder if the “slings and arrows of misfortune,” that once bored down deeply and mercilessly on Prince Hamlet in the Shakespearean play by the same name, is the start of another slide in Malaysian democracy; what top South-east Asianist Joshua Kurtlanzick at the prestigious Council for Foreign Relations called “democratic retreat”.
Nurul Izzah’ every decision to be in or out politics has now become a barometer of how fast, deep and healthy the democratic reforms is proceeding apace.
If she is holding back, or, stepping down, consequently voicing out, Nurul Izzah’s decision is doing the country a favour. At least she is there to sound the death knell of reforms turning awry.
She isn’t staying put just to enjoy the perks and privilege of the trappings of parliamentary office. Malaysians be warned. The winter may yet be coming for those who are hardwired to understand the spectre of the Game of Thrones.
For now, one should give Nurul Izzah the necessary space and room, to recover from any fatigue, after close to a generation of unrelenting assault against the Leviathan that is the State.
Without the Leviathan, classical philosophers argued that life “would be brutish, lone and short.” It should be added that with a Leviathan that is incapable of restraining it’s power through parliamentary checks and balances, life would just be as miserable, since Members of Parliament across both aisles are there to enjoy their moment in office, not to serve the larger agenda of improving the lot of the country in, and across, the region.
* Rais Hussin is Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia chief strategist.
**This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
