Fear and loathing in the province of respectability

Elizabeth Wong, September 17, 2007

English, Elizabeth, Columns |

By Elizabeth Wong

Eight years ago, amidst the sound and fury of Reformasi, one of the student leaders went missing.

Let’s just, for the moment, call him “Mr. Respectable”.

He was after all, a proponent of ‘respectability’ and ‘respectable’ dressing among the student activists.

I thought it was one of those local odditities, considering it was only a few years ago when we wore what was considered then, haute couture for student activists - tank tops, dirty black jeans, Blundstones faded to a hue of purple, sometimes with a flannel shirt and a scarf around the neck, in anticipation of delights such as a hot sunny day or tear gas in downtown Sydney.

A week later, we discovered he was holed up at Armada Hotel, Petaling Jaya. Between room service and cable TV, he made furtive calls, arranging meetings with Reformists to offer anything their hearts desire, so long as they saw ‘his light’.

Little did we know that during one of those ‘respectable’ discussions with government officials, he had negotiated a sweet deal for himself. Word on the streets was that this good Catholic’s initial pay-off was an upgraded Proton model (he was driving one of those endemic French rejects), RM 40,000, an office unit in Bangsar and an eventual position in a component party or government foundation.

Half the student activists I knew swore there was a bucket of KFC thrown in for good measure.

I had hoped Mr. Respectable had put his money to good use, like investing in a Zegna tie, simply because retributive justice is a dish best served cold. He should at least look half decent when we finally get to box his ears.

Since then, I’ve relied on a most scientific indicator when sizing up a man, or a student activist for that matter. Fashion. Not words and most certainly not his gift of the gab.

I’ve yet been proved wrong.

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I thought of this scoundrel when I was sitting with my fellow panelists, speaking on the history of student and youth activism. By and large, it is a topic most mundane for any ex-student activist, since reliving youthful, glorious, hedonistic days brings on more pangs of depression than one can care for.

However, as the talk was sandwiched between the shooting of opposition supporters in Kuala Terengganu, a student meeting with members of Parliament, and this week’s news of university authorities confiscating personal items of a student activist (again!), perhaps it is an opportune moment to deconstruct the notions of petite bourgeoise respectability in a semi-feudal, semi-colonial society of early 21st century.

First some basic questions, rhetorical though they may be. I confess I have had a week’s worth of sleepless night pondering over them, and this morning I decided to discard an earlier written piece in favour of this.

Why on earth are our student activists decked in ties and hastily ironed shirts, having discussions with MPs that go nowhere, when they can be having a lot more fun protesting outside the building or better still, pulling out banners inside the public gallery?

Why on earth are they forever going to a Human Rights Commission, who won’t even jump into action despite a fistful of Viagra, and speaks with forked tongues ?

Whatever is the point of knocking on ministerial doors of Putrajaya and lamenting to those who sit on thrones of authority, whose expressed object is simply to crush you?

And why, oh why, has student activism become so unsexy and boring?

One must appreciate this mesmerising power that fear keeps a hold on the populace. We are afraid to be seen to be ‘disrespectful’; we are afraid to write rude political songs; we are afraid to burn flags to signal the bankruptcy of this country; and we are afraid to stand by those brutalised in Kuala Terengganu for exercising their fundamental rights.

We are even afraid to think, how not to repeat the same old tactics that never bore any fruit in the past. Like ‘lobbying’ (gag) parliamentarians or human rights commissioners, or praying that a dialogue with ministerial officials will cause a change of heart (not).

It is fear - a most irrational state of being, which traps us from making logical conclusions and taking logical steps to resolve deadlocks. It was only during 1998-99, when this fear turned to loathing, and the population reclaimed this tool momentarily, and as seen in Kuala Terengganu earlier this month. The government and anyone in authority, should be made to fear the people, and never the other way around.

When my university Vice-Chancellor rewarded himself a huge pay-rise, at a time when university research funds were dwindling, we stalked him. We followed him to his home and held protests and sit-ins. Once this VC refused to see the Student Representative Council over another matter, we barricaded his office. Another time, the Education Ministry refused to meet my predecessors over the issue of fees, so they went to the Ministry office, locked themselves inside until the Minister was willing to negotiate.

The only time we ever went to the Parliament House in Canberra was to protest, not to lobby (and this latter word should be banished from our lexicon of action). It was our first and only visit inside, since we were arrested and thrown out for letting loose leaflets from the public gallery and staging a protest, when the Senate floor passed the motion on the first Iraq war.

If anyone had even dared step into our student dorms with the intention of leaving with our meagre worldly possessions, be assured that person would not have been allowed to leave the building. Yet we read about this occuring in the local universities, almost on an annual basis.

So why are students allowing these university thugs rule their world when they should instead be putting the fear into each and everyone of them? What must students do, to make university authorities respect them? I imagine a memorandum or two won’t do the job.

Some time during that student history discussion, I leaned behind and whispered to Hisham Rais, “During our time, we’d be smoking and drinking wine while having more serious discussions than this, like how to take over the world …”

Maybe people like us didn’t carry a map book and completely missed the train to the province of respectability. Maybe our price tag doesn’t start at RM 40,000, a Proton and junk food (try harder, folks!). Or maybe we would much rather loath and be dressed in rags of revolutionary glam*, than to fear.

The last we checked, no government stepped down during a face-off with students in suits, clutching onto their precious memoranda. (END)

*This phrase was coined by John Hutnyk (Prof!), and immortalised in one of his books. Hutnyk now holds a respectable job as the Academic director of the Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths College.

(The writer is often caught looking rather starched and ironed but she’ll never tell what lies beneath. She’s a proponent of a theory that the twin side of politics is fashion.)

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