Politics freely enjoys the oxygen of publicity. Mankind is drawn to it regardless of the consequences. Aristotle observed that “man is by nature a political animal”. Our animal instincts have survived intact.
“A prudent leader, must not, and cannot honour his word,” and that “the condition of man is the condition of war,” declared Niccolo Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes, respectively. A large majority of political leaders have unfailingly provided safe harbours to these and other equally dangerous dogmatic delusions.
The 21st century public is still influenced by persuasions from the grave that sowed the seeds of discontent and dissent. Government interpretation of a particular issue (dogma), and that promoted by a moral leaning (didactic) is stifling to the powers-that-be.
The inflammatory issue pivots upon why government does not listen to the public. The automaton culture is upon us because we do not know how to demand even peripheral change.
We have a Ministry dedicated to Law and Institutional Reform (dogma). But that is the function of the didactic Article 162(6) Federal Constitution granting power and authority to our judges to amend, modify, adapt and repeal “Existing Laws”.
It staggers the imagination of intelligent people who are forced to ask: Am-I voting-for-my-cause-or-that-of the-political-party. Dogma is cursed when it bares its ugly teeth to didactic persuasions.
“We throw to the winds the old dogma that governments can give rights. Before governments became fashionable, no one denies that each individual possessed the right to protect his own life, liberty and property.” Susan B. Anthony’s didactic has lost its bearings and moorings by authoritarian dogma.
Dogmatic and didactic values clash and collide in courts of law instead of colluding to render proportionality in decision-making. The personal views of trial judges, and their peers in the appellate stratosphere, come home to roost.
As a co-equal branch of government, courts of law are required to define, determine, and offer decisions that balance the values of dogma versus didactic standards.
When a court of law takes refuge in dogma, we see the thin edge of the gargantuan government wedge. Executive-appointed judges, unwittingly and inevitably, stumble and fall into the cracks and fissures in a jurisprudence of doubt and fear where patronage is a stumbling block, too.
Most written constitutions grant the Executive police power, the Judiciary deciding power, and the Legislature law-making power. All three organs of government are democratically, and constitutionally, required to be co-equal. But police power is the monopoly of the Executive.
The United States of America is the only nation today that has demarcated the three organs of state with its 2nd Amendment to the Bill of Rights. This grants people the power to right wrongs with their own police power not to be confused with taking the law into their hands.
In maddened America, the 2nd Amendment has doped the minds of crazies who believe wielding an assault weapon is freedom of expression like that crazed fool in Butler, Pennsylvania, who fired several shots at Donald J Trump.
In Madani Malaysia, the devious dichotomy of dogma and didactic values gain raucous expression when race and religion enter the fray. Numbers count. The majority, right or wrong, gets to decide. Infantile democracy is unhealthy!
Can government with a two-thirds majority make a law to outlaw elections and remain in power perpetually with police power (read: Ops Lalang) to stifle and quell dissent? The Federal Constitution is comfortably silent on this issue.
“Fundamental Liberties” become a comforting constitutional adornment when courts of justice advancing didactic values become courts of law parroting dogma. Meanwhile Article 162(6) Federal Constitution waits anxiously to be summoned.
“Fundamental Liberties” enjoyed by government at the expense of the governed is a whole new terrain well defined and chartered.
The dispensation of law and justice by the co-equal Judiciary, as the final bastion and bulwark against tyranny, must necessarily have its own police power outside the control and restraint of the Executive. Parliament, after all, has its sergeants-at-arms.
The Malaysian Judiciary is coming of age as we witness meaningful judgments that bridge the abyss between dogma and didactic persuasions. The Federal Constitution, as a lens micromanaging legislation, needs constant consultation and application.
Ibn Khaldun warned that “government prevents injustice, other than such as it commits itself”. That got a few kings heads lobbed off during the English Glorious Revolution, and the French Revolution. Today, they call it assassination in a nation full of asses pretending to be three wise monkeys.
“Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed,” remarked Mao Zedong. Almost everyone who is politically awakened will agree with Chairman Mao because that’s exactly what politics is.
The freedom of legitimate choice, lawful action and expression by the people are seldom mentioned or even implied in written constitutions. That opens up the floodgates of didactic politics. It puts unmitigated fear in political leaders.
Madani mindsets must mend the mess by methodically and meaningfully ministering to the people who voted them into power in the first place. Madani must become the people for the people.
In the grand scheme of things, every dogma has its day, and every didact has his say. Government may one day get it right. Until then we are forced to enjoy the Kafkaesque drama.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.
