Members of Pikeda are illiterate Malay thugs who have delusions of grandeur and nothing else. They are irrelevant and have even less influence than Isma and Perkasa. Ms. Lemiere sanctification of a bunch of losers is absurd. Pekida members don’t wear baggy pants with undies showing; they don’t carry stopwatches chained to their belts; they don’t wear modeled hair; they usually don’t have tattoos; and they most certainly do no communicate in gangsta Malay or coded street metaphors. Ms. Lemiere’s analysis accords a loose collection of part-time thugs and Ketuanan Melayu wannabees, a status they hardly deserve. They are, irrelevant, and have about as much Omerta as the Addams Family.
There is only a few country that can instill expulsion for their respective citizen proven guilty beyond reason thus skirting punishment.
DNA or not the Thai system of justice that favor prosecution and often the burden of guilt or not is placed on the accused.
when citizenry of Myanmar are valued by ALL equally outside or inside Myanmar this topic will not end as ‘What goes around will come around for the Thai and Malaysian government’.
I think the author really need to differentiate between the actual “Malays” and the pseudo “Malays” aka “Indian Muslims” who now profess to be Malays (courtesy of Mahathir)
Locally, they are known as “Mamak” and they are physiological very distinct from the “Malays. In effect, they are Indians, not Malays but with the past two decades of twisting by Mahathir, most of the Mamaks are now Malays. More significant is the fact that they are the ones actually controlling the country. They are also the ones who are always at the fore-front at demonstrations “defending the Malay Race”
Appreciate your interest. Also a great opportunity for me to clarify that this is an open competition and there isn’t a preferred candidate. The point of advertising the position is to find an outstanding person to appoint.
Best wishes to all, and best of luck to all applicants,
Aha, the fix is in!
However, should you need an experienced online copy editor in the fields of politics, security and human rights I am just the person for you.
– Australian citizen
– Ten years of teaching in Indonesia and Malaysia (MBAs & DBAs)
– Former Assistant Professor in Australia
– Too lazy to figure out how to attach my CV for a position that already has a preferred candidate
Cheers
Karlos
Bogor, West Java
Human rights and UN investigated and said that she was lying. I wouldn’t believe them either. We have the priminister’s wife works for The Red-cross, who will be working for UN and Human rights? Look at the Cambodia now? This lady has many enemies across Asia. Most foreigners don’t know what Cambodian government is capable of?? This lady has a choice, either to remarried with another foreigner, then be a housewife or save the sex slaves. Overall I think, she employed the wrong person in her organization, that is why thing went wrong. Now who will save those victims?? I guess, there will be no one, apart from her.
Etymologically, of course, as Sophie points out, “connive” and “connivance” come from a Latin word meaning to shut one’s eyes, avert one’s gaze. To choose not to see.
There was a notable episode some years ago when a high official in the Malaysian Customs Department got caught in a scandal that involved somebody ordering somebody to “tutup mata sebelah”, to shut one eye –– and so to let something pass by unchallenged.
The same thing.
Perhaps one might speak not just of “connivance politics” but also of “complicity politics”.
Well done, Sophie! A great start to what promises to be a very interesting series.
I shall read the ensuing parts with great interest. And will accordingly not offer much comment until I have read the whole thing.
But at this early stage, just two general points.
First, you talk about the shadowy groups, and their members, of the “Pekida network” as constituting a part of civil society.
Inasmuch as these are largely clandestine actors, actors of questionable character, and actors who are playing for dubious sectional ends and purposes, it is perhaps a misnomer to see and designate these people as part of “civil society” in the modern sense.
I do not wish to be too prescriptive and “precious” about that term, its uses and referents. But it is one with a history and a meaning. Its modern meaning refers to groups that operate openly in the realm between, on the one hand, the private and familial and, on the other, the public political realms, and which do so to promote general, not sectional, interests (some part of “the ideal interest of all members of society, cast in an ideal form”).
Civil society groups promote certain specific agendas as part of, and as a contribution to the advancement of, some notion of the general or some universal social interest. Even though they espouse specific goals, they are not sectional players. They are part of, and are committed to, a socially “aggregative”, not a sectional and divisive, politics.
“Civil society” is not a term that can be simply or unproblematically applied to decidedly sectarian, especially ethno-sectarian, organizations based upon shadowy networks of dubious character.
So what at they? What term are we to apply to such groups?
There is an older armoury of political science terms that seem to apply more appropriately to these covert actors. Among them are “pressure groups” (a term that acknowledges the specific, and primarily political, as opposed to more diffusely social, nature and purposes of these groupings), “front organizations”, and “street enforcers”. Though what they do may be co-ordinated or licensed from a higher political level, they are the players of a kind of “lumpen politics” of so-called “ressentiment”. This is decidedly politics, not “civil society” that we are dealing with here.
Second, beyond the terminological point, one needs to consider the circumstances under which this kind of politics thrives, flourishes, and can prove “serviceable” to those who license it.
Reading about these Malaysian brokers, or licensed sub-contractors, of violence –– the agents of this kind of authorized but officially “distanced” and disowned and always deniable mayhem –– some things, or parallels, come to mind.
This kind of politics is reminiscent of the situation that was analysed by Anton Blok in his classic study of the “Mafia” of Sicilian village.
How, and under what circumstances, does that kind of covertly organized “enforcement politics” thrive?
Under conditions where the physical remoteness of the state and state authority, or else of its craftily distanced and hidden hand, allows the “front-actors” in this kind of “connivance politics” –– a great term, that one! –– to assert themselves, within limits and parameters and under terms that are set, or at least tolerated, from above.
Under these conditions of state remoteness, state abdication or the veiling of state complicity, it is the local “bully boys”, the “bully-and-brigand” gangs, that provide (however dubious and rough-hewn the product that they deliver) decisive arbitration and enforcement.
These groups, their role and activities, and the decisive political effects that they deliver take shape in the vacuum or penumbra of state power.
In that sense –– even though the state’s part is advisedly a “hands-off” and deniable one –– the conditions and operation of this kind of power are state-provided, state-enabled, state-facilitated and ultimately state-endorsed.
“State” here means, of course, and alludes to, the dominant ruling elements or “governing bloc” within the state.
It is the politics of “the unseen guiding hand”, or the permitting “wink”, conducted, in its details –– so far as its ultimate sponsors and protectors and beneficiaries are concerned –– on a “need-not-to-know” basis.
The role of these sponsors and beneficiaries must be hidden (often obscured by a beguiling display or “passion-play” of populist enthusiasm), always indirect and plausibly deniable.
After all, those in power must be seen as being “far above that sort of thing”.
Thanks Surya. Indeed the phenomena isn’t new and has been studied in Indonesia for a long time. The work of Ian Wilson on Preman, one among few, has been very helpful for my own study on Malaysia. I wish other researchers would have a look on the Malaysian case!
I have yet to read the book, but the extensive review reminded me of an article written by some of my colleagues and me a few years back on the ethics of doing research in conflict zones: Sascha Helbardt, Dagmar Hellmann-Rajanayagam and R├╝diger Korff: War’s Dark Glamour.Ethics of Research in War and Conflict Zones, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 23:2, 2010 349-369, where we discuss precisely the problems discussed here with the added poignancy of possibly endangering informants without an exit option.Nordstrom et al. have described and discussed similar scenarios. One of our strong conclusions was that though academic detachment has to be striven for under all circumstances, neutrality is not possible and sometimes not even permissible in all cases. Working with the Kachin in Myanmar has led me to believe that this maybe similar in the cases discussed in the volume under review.
Ultra Malays have been on the prowl since 1980 and made their intention known through their ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy concept) in the late 1990s and made their mark in the political and social scene in 2000 onward. Sophie’s observation is spot on. That is why many Sabahans and Sarawakians are now considering and exploring ways to get their two countries out of Malaysia…to leave Malaysia. The country call Malayisa is rotten to the core as ruled by UMNOputras. Many people point their figures at Mahathir, the former prime minister. He is the main culprit.
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For Indonesia’s oligarchs, the party isn’t over
The Wayang continues in Indonesia. Those who thought it would somehow end with President Jokowi accession to the Presidency, were naive at best.
Gangsta to the roots: Gangsta beyond stereotypes
Members of Pikeda are illiterate Malay thugs who have delusions of grandeur and nothing else. They are irrelevant and have even less influence than Isma and Perkasa. Ms. Lemiere sanctification of a bunch of losers is absurd. Pekida members don’t wear baggy pants with undies showing; they don’t carry stopwatches chained to their belts; they don’t wear modeled hair; they usually don’t have tattoos; and they most certainly do no communicate in gangsta Malay or coded street metaphors. Ms. Lemiere’s analysis accords a loose collection of part-time thugs and Ketuanan Melayu wannabees, a status they hardly deserve. They are, irrelevant, and have about as much Omerta as the Addams Family.
Koh Tao trial another litmus test
There is only a few country that can instill expulsion for their respective citizen proven guilty beyond reason thus skirting punishment.
DNA or not the Thai system of justice that favor prosecution and often the burden of guilt or not is placed on the accused.
when citizenry of Myanmar are valued by ALL equally outside or inside Myanmar this topic will not end as ‘What goes around will come around for the Thai and Malaysian government’.
Gangsta to the roots: A Gangsta’s paradise
I think the author really need to differentiate between the actual “Malays” and the pseudo “Malays” aka “Indian Muslims” who now profess to be Malays (courtesy of Mahathir)
Locally, they are known as “Mamak” and they are physiological very distinct from the “Malays. In effect, they are Indians, not Malays but with the past two decades of twisting by Mahathir, most of the Mamaks are now Malays. More significant is the fact that they are the ones actually controlling the country. They are also the ones who are always at the fore-front at demonstrations “defending the Malay Race”
Want to work for New Mandala?
Thanks Karlos,
Appreciate your interest. Also a great opportunity for me to clarify that this is an open competition and there isn’t a preferred candidate. The point of advertising the position is to find an outstanding person to appoint.
Best wishes to all, and best of luck to all applicants,
Nich
Want to work for New Mandala?
Aha, the fix is in!
However, should you need an experienced online copy editor in the fields of politics, security and human rights I am just the person for you.
– Australian citizen
– Ten years of teaching in Indonesia and Malaysia (MBAs & DBAs)
– Former Assistant Professor in Australia
– Too lazy to figure out how to attach my CV for a position that already has a preferred candidate
Cheers
Karlos
Bogor, West Java
Gangsta to the roots: A Gangsta’s paradise
Think of it as Malaysia’s “Downtown Abbey”.
What’s the truth behind Somaly Mam?
Human rights and UN investigated and said that she was lying. I wouldn’t believe them either. We have the priminister’s wife works for The Red-cross, who will be working for UN and Human rights? Look at the Cambodia now? This lady has many enemies across Asia. Most foreigners don’t know what Cambodian government is capable of?? This lady has a choice, either to remarried with another foreigner, then be a housewife or save the sex slaves. Overall I think, she employed the wrong person in her organization, that is why thing went wrong. Now who will save those victims?? I guess, there will be no one, apart from her.
Gangsta to the roots: A Gangsta’s paradise
Out of curiosity, why is the New Mandala doing this episodic thing?
Gangsta to the roots: A Gangsta’s paradise
Etymologically, of course, as Sophie points out, “connive” and “connivance” come from a Latin word meaning to shut one’s eyes, avert one’s gaze. To choose not to see.
There was a notable episode some years ago when a high official in the Malaysian Customs Department got caught in a scandal that involved somebody ordering somebody to “tutup mata sebelah”, to shut one eye –– and so to let something pass by unchallenged.
The same thing.
Perhaps one might speak not just of “connivance politics” but also of “complicity politics”.
Gangsta to the roots: A Gangsta’s paradise
Well done, Sophie! A great start to what promises to be a very interesting series.
I shall read the ensuing parts with great interest. And will accordingly not offer much comment until I have read the whole thing.
But at this early stage, just two general points.
First, you talk about the shadowy groups, and their members, of the “Pekida network” as constituting a part of civil society.
Inasmuch as these are largely clandestine actors, actors of questionable character, and actors who are playing for dubious sectional ends and purposes, it is perhaps a misnomer to see and designate these people as part of “civil society” in the modern sense.
I do not wish to be too prescriptive and “precious” about that term, its uses and referents. But it is one with a history and a meaning. Its modern meaning refers to groups that operate openly in the realm between, on the one hand, the private and familial and, on the other, the public political realms, and which do so to promote general, not sectional, interests (some part of “the ideal interest of all members of society, cast in an ideal form”).
Civil society groups promote certain specific agendas as part of, and as a contribution to the advancement of, some notion of the general or some universal social interest. Even though they espouse specific goals, they are not sectional players. They are part of, and are committed to, a socially “aggregative”, not a sectional and divisive, politics.
“Civil society” is not a term that can be simply or unproblematically applied to decidedly sectarian, especially ethno-sectarian, organizations based upon shadowy networks of dubious character.
So what at they? What term are we to apply to such groups?
There is an older armoury of political science terms that seem to apply more appropriately to these covert actors. Among them are “pressure groups” (a term that acknowledges the specific, and primarily political, as opposed to more diffusely social, nature and purposes of these groupings), “front organizations”, and “street enforcers”. Though what they do may be co-ordinated or licensed from a higher political level, they are the players of a kind of “lumpen politics” of so-called “ressentiment”. This is decidedly politics, not “civil society” that we are dealing with here.
Second, beyond the terminological point, one needs to consider the circumstances under which this kind of politics thrives, flourishes, and can prove “serviceable” to those who license it.
Reading about these Malaysian brokers, or licensed sub-contractors, of violence –– the agents of this kind of authorized but officially “distanced” and disowned and always deniable mayhem –– some things, or parallels, come to mind.
This kind of politics is reminiscent of the situation that was analysed by Anton Blok in his classic study of the “Mafia” of Sicilian village.
How, and under what circumstances, does that kind of covertly organized “enforcement politics” thrive?
Under conditions where the physical remoteness of the state and state authority, or else of its craftily distanced and hidden hand, allows the “front-actors” in this kind of “connivance politics” –– a great term, that one! –– to assert themselves, within limits and parameters and under terms that are set, or at least tolerated, from above.
Under these conditions of state remoteness, state abdication or the veiling of state complicity, it is the local “bully boys”, the “bully-and-brigand” gangs, that provide (however dubious and rough-hewn the product that they deliver) decisive arbitration and enforcement.
These groups, their role and activities, and the decisive political effects that they deliver take shape in the vacuum or penumbra of state power.
In that sense –– even though the state’s part is advisedly a “hands-off” and deniable one –– the conditions and operation of this kind of power are state-provided, state-enabled, state-facilitated and ultimately state-endorsed.
“State” here means, of course, and alludes to, the dominant ruling elements or “governing bloc” within the state.
It is the politics of “the unseen guiding hand”, or the permitting “wink”, conducted, in its details –– so far as its ultimate sponsors and protectors and beneficiaries are concerned –– on a “need-not-to-know” basis.
The role of these sponsors and beneficiaries must be hidden (often obscured by a beguiling display or “passion-play” of populist enthusiasm), always indirect and plausibly deniable.
After all, those in power must be seen as being “far above that sort of thing”.
What’s the truth behind Somaly Mam?
This is a global issue, sex slave around Asia.If Somaly does something to stop this from happening, who wants her to be there?
Gangsta to the roots: A Gangsta’s paradise
Thanks Surya. Indeed the phenomena isn’t new and has been studied in Indonesia for a long time. The work of Ian Wilson on Preman, one among few, has been very helpful for my own study on Malaysia. I wish other researchers would have a look on the Malaysian case!
Review of Red Stamps and Gold Stars
I have yet to read the book, but the extensive review reminded me of an article written by some of my colleagues and me a few years back on the ethics of doing research in conflict zones: Sascha Helbardt, Dagmar Hellmann-Rajanayagam and R├╝diger Korff: War’s Dark Glamour.Ethics of Research in War and Conflict Zones, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 23:2, 2010 349-369, where we discuss precisely the problems discussed here with the added poignancy of possibly endangering informants without an exit option.Nordstrom et al. have described and discussed similar scenarios. One of our strong conclusions was that though academic detachment has to be striven for under all circumstances, neutrality is not possible and sometimes not even permissible in all cases. Working with the Kachin in Myanmar has led me to believe that this maybe similar in the cases discussed in the volume under review.
Gangsta to the roots: A Gangsta’s paradise
Thanks Surya.
Could you provide some links or citations?
Could it be possible that UMNO is learning from Indonesia?
Gangsta to the roots: A Gangsta’s paradise
not much new here. 🙂 see the many analysis on indonesia’s pemuda pancasila. 🙂
Gangsta to the roots: A Gangsta’s paradise
Part 2, Tuesday
Part 3, Wednesday
Part 4, Thursday
Gangsta to the roots: A Gangsta’s paradise
Ultra Malays have been on the prowl since 1980 and made their intention known through their ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy concept) in the late 1990s and made their mark in the political and social scene in 2000 onward. Sophie’s observation is spot on. That is why many Sabahans and Sarawakians are now considering and exploring ways to get their two countries out of Malaysia…to leave Malaysia. The country call Malayisa is rotten to the core as ruled by UMNOputras. Many people point their figures at Mahathir, the former prime minister. He is the main culprit.
Gangsta to the roots: A Gangsta’s paradise
Great read. Where is part 2, 3, and 4?
Still in the editorial process? When are they coming out?
Rohingya and national identities in Burma
Sorry about “doubling up” on the Karens! I meant Kachin, Karen etc.