MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Globalisation's Idi Amin and Malaysia's Pavlovian dogs

MALAYSIA'S PAVLOVIAN DOGS WERE, though not in strength, at the US Embassy's Election night party at the Hotel Shangri-La in Kuala Lumpur yesterday (03 November 2004) morning, which given the time difference is not unusual. The political and official delegations, usually a staple at such affairs, were no where to be seen, partly explained by the Ramadhan fasting month and party by the fratricidal political spat within. The Pavlov's Dogs, however viewed this absence disgraceful for it denied them a chance to see democracy in action, proof how undemocratic Malaysia has become in two decades, and other similar rubbish. A good bunch of them are regulars at any diplomatic cocktail parties. The snacks were up to usual diplomatic scratch even if the soon-to-be popular 'keropok', rice porridge and vanilla ice cream were absent from the otherwise sumptious fare. The only difference I saw from the last one, in 2000, was that there was more of a crowd then.

They were there to see if Tweedledum or Twiddledee would lead the United States in this continuing war on islamic terror. There were six other candidates of whom only Ralph Nader was recognisable, but their cances of winning as as good as the lifespan of an ice cube on a hot plate. As you entered the Sabah Room, you were given the usual (and useful) booklet about the US presidential elections, a small American flag which, to prove globalisation works, was made in China and a ballot paper with the eight presidential candidates. The usual paranoid security checks, ever more stringent since 9/11– that shortform for Islamic terror now a global brand as widely recognised as McDonald's and Coke, and we were in. Groups of people hung about, often engaged in suitably 'intellectual' conversation about who would win, why the Americans are stupid not to vote Mr John Kerry, as they would if they were American citizens, the 'transparency' of US electoral laws, who would be returned for the Senate in Wyoming. These are Malaysians whose education and social and intellectual pretentions conditioned them to be Pavlov's dogs.

It does not matter who they are: engineers, civil servants, lawyers, NGOs, social climbers, business men, poliicians. Lest I be tarred Islamophobic for referring to some Malaysian Muslims as Pavlov's dogs, Dr Ivan Pavlov experimented with dogs in Russia in the late nineteenth century when he firmed his theory. Marshall MacLuhan extended this further in advertising and got consumers to buy what they did not want. But the followers of Islam in Malaysia are conditioned, like Pavlov's dogs, when they react in heat to canine idioms on humans. Look at the furore when a Singapore newspaper described the former Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, top dog. I wish I could call them Pavlov's cats or other Islamically suited animals, but it was dogs he experimented with. But when they react to every non-Muslim's description of them in idiomatic, though not in Islamic political correctness, English, they are indeed as conditioned as Pavlov's dogs.

The power of suggestion, social acceptance, self-importance in the company of the global superpower's minions and footsoldiers are set in Pavlovian conditioning. You would not expect them at a North Korean or even a Malaysian election night, where the regime's candidates in the Democratic People's Republic and Malaysian democracy have an usual tendency to be returned with 90 per cent and more of the votes cast. But the fate of the unknown victor for a state seat in Wyoming or Nebraska is grounds for a hyper-ventilating discussion. I was sitting next to a designer-clad Malaysia Baru, who like his Malay counterpark, is known not by the company he keeps but by his clothes. He asked me if I thought the Kenyan-Scottish black Democrat, Mr Barrak Obama, would become the fifth black in the US Senate since Reconstruction. I said it did not matter since whoever won that Indiana senate seat would be the fifth black since the American civil war in the 1860s. He insisted I was wrong: it was since Reconstruction. It is useless, as you would find out, to argue with a Pavlovian dog.

Others were shocked – why am I not shocked at this? – that the Malaysian government presence was non-existent. It does not understand, they said in high dudgeon, what it could have learnt from this occasion. The country is after all going to the dogs, Pavlovian or otherwise, and no wonder. It is not conditioned as they are, and it is the loser for that. But it is when they cast their votes for the little reality game show the hosts had prepared for them that they outdid themselves. It was Kerry, of course, who won. Nader came in third. They voted John Kerry as firmly as they voted the BN in March. But the US Embassy also ensured that those of their guests would not do the unPavlovian thing and write in instead some anti-American rascals for the US presidency like Tun Mahathir Mohamed for president with Osama bin Laden as vice-president. This is not as far fetched a pair as you might think. After all, President Bush has Mr Richard Cheney for vice-president.

The ballot paper has this note: "To vote for a candidate whose name is not printed on the ballot, fill in the oval and write in the candidate's name on the blank line provided for a write-in candidate." Fair enough. Only that there was no oval shaped block as against the other candidates. The rules are followed but even in this reality show the dreaded Dr Mahathir and Mr Osama should not be allowed to appear. Did the Embassy react as Dr Pavlov's dog? But what I found amongst the Americans present was their clear reasons why they thought Mr Bush or Mr Kerry should be elected. And discouraging that they are caught in the minutae to consider the impact of the elephant (pardon the pun) running riot overseas. How terrible would it be if enough guests thought so to deny Mr Kerry's (on in his place, Mr Bush's) reality victory in Kuala Lumpur.

When I mentioned this to one American, he asked me how I would like to as the next President. President Bush, I said. He must given the chance to be impeached for his misguided war on terror. President Nixon's role in history would not have been negative if he had seen the writing on the wall and not stand for re-election, as President Lyndon Johnson in 1968. The anti-Vietnam war opposition in 1968 sank President Lyndon B. Johnson, which his successor, President Richard Nixon, successfully concluded only to caught in the Watergate scandal. if he had stood down in 1972, he could not be impeached.

President Bush, in his second term, is in President Nixon's shoes. He has two years, when congressional and senate elections are next held, to sort the mess he started. The divided citizenry is not about to let go. That Osama bin Laden flexed his muscles towards the end of the presidential campaign to demand the American electorate re-elect the enemy he knows is no accident. He understands the American character well enough to be the enemy Saddam Hussein turned not to be. When I left the party, the two candidates were neck to neck, with Ohio in the balance. Mr Bush secured Ohio and the presidency. Globalisation's Idi Amin is now set to charm the world in his usual idiosyncratic way. His citizens I dare say in good time would react as Ugandans did in their time to their runaway leader. And that would leave Malaysia's Pavlovian dogs much upset indeed.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com