Does a tacky logo point to the return of authoritarianism in Malaysia?
When institutional failures are commonplace, institutions are expected to fail. This cynical expectation may be passed off as sarcasm, but it is intrinsic to a growing sense of political detachment between the Malaysian government and the people. Worse, the authorities have a vested interest in maintaining, rather than closing, this gap, to deter more direct political participation.
Kuala Lumpur’s new logo, recently released by the city council Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL), was never destined to be popular. Rather, it is the public’s reactions that give it currency.
When it was first unveiled online, the logo prompted ridicule. Within the span of a week, a free template was created, in addition to several step-by-step tutorials , allowing netizens to make their own version of the logo with just a few clicks. Social media was immediately awash with parodies and caricatures, with netizens customising the logo with personal or corporate names, repurposing it for reasons other than its own initial intent.
While one could however laud the creative aftermath of this controversy, the reactions in fact display more cynicism than optimism. The parodies are suggestive of a growing detachment between the Malaysian government and the people, one that amounts to acredibility gap. But this gap should not be understood solely as a problem. Rather, it is an ideological façade perpetuated by the authorities to consolidate their power.
After the negative reception of the logo, DBKL responded that the design cost RM15,000, inevitably creating a greater stir. The logo received its second wave of media coverage when Visit KL, the Tourism Unit of DBKL, released a video on YouTube(removed from the official Visit KL channel, but re-uploaded by a private organisation) showcasing a row of tin ingots gradually crackling and breaking apart to reveal the logo. The tin ingots are supposed to symbolise Kuala Lumpur’s history “as a major tin mining and trading centre”, whereas the serif font selection is supposed to display “an Islamic scripture character with a modern twist”.
Nonetheless, any clarification provided by DBKL will never suffice. Be it RM15 or RM15,000, the reactions will be the same. In Malaysia, cynicism has been thriving during most of Prime Minister Najib administration, escalating with the 1MDB fiasco. It is a symptom that has developed over an extended period of time and out of repeated institutional failures. That these failures have become a norm means that not only are failures commonplace, they are expected to be so.
The expectation of failures feeds into cynicism and the credibility gap. This phenomenon should not be underestimated. Within the broader contemporary state of affairs, cynicism becomes integral to the political economy of the nation-state. To the Malaysian authorities, failures are ideologically productive: failures, again and again, produce cynical expectation, deepen political detachment and expand the tolerance for more scandalous failures.
If the banality of repeated failures cultivates cynicism, cynicism furthers the banalisation of failures and completes the crisis of political detachment.
Far from being a standalone problem, this crisis should be read against the context of the privileging of the personal over the public domain. It is a moment where political actions become more about the individual rather than the collective. . Parodies of the controversial Kuala Lumpur logo point to this direction. Amid the breakdown of the public political realm, accruing personal cynicism can only be satiated through further individualisation of political expression. That is, in this case, through the personalisation or customisation of the logo.
The credibility gap has effectively disempowered the public and has deterred the possibility of more direct political action. The Kuala Lumpur logo controversy and the subsequent reactions are but a sign. Resistance is now impelled to operate in a separate discourse of politics, which can resist and react accordingly without the gap ever closing, because it has been decoupled from the hegemonic operation of power.
The response towards the Kuala Lumpur logo has taken up a form that fuels political detachment. Increasingly, resistance has to capitalise on this detachment for more radical advocacy. Yet, it is on the very same detachment that the hegemony of power thrives. It is in this fashion that authoritarianism in Malaysia is returning.
Through the maintenance of credibility gap and political detachment, institutional failures are constantly rehearsed to accustom the public to expecting failures with amusement rather than anger. The crisis of institutional credibility has become so ordinary that recurrent failures sit within one’s comfort zone. And as the cronies do what they do best, resistant politics can only react more radically by deepening the sense of political detachment, and implicitly, by making failures ever more tolerable.
Tan Zi Hao is a postgraduate student in the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. He is also a conceptual artist whose artworks can be viewed at www.tanzihao.net. As both artist and writer, he is interested in the arts, language, cultural politics and mobilities.
The maturity level of most Malaysians is very low, but when mixed with crony capitalism, it becomes infantile. No Malaysian is immune from this pattern.
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Malaysia is FUBAR.
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Peter Cohen – any chance you could post at least ONE POSITIVE comment about Malaysia, and Malaysians ??
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This is quite a unique way of understanding Malaysia’s political quagmire. Penetrative but a little cynical. What is the way out?
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Probably sooner, rather than later, PEOPLE POWER would assert itself, like a volcano demanding release of suppressed heat, with explosive force. The more PM Najib and his ‘institutional abettor’ press the Malaysian people to cease and to desist from demanding accountability (of the PM) re the 1MDB scandal . . . the more the build-up of the people’s anger and outrage.
International business news headline today: “U.S. Sues To Recover Funds Allegedly Stolen From Malaysian Government Fund”
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/20/486755672/u-s-sues-to-recover-funds-allegedly-stolen-from-malaysian-government-fund
Excerpts:
” U.S. officials say a total of $3.5 billion, raised through bond offerings made by the investment fund 1MDB between 2009 and 2015, was laundered through a series of sham transactions and shell corporations by “high level officials” of the fund and their associates. The U.S. is seeking to reclaim only about $1 billion right now, because that’s how much officials have been able to trace through the system. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, seen with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, says monies misappropriated from the 1MDB fund passed through U.S. financial institutions . . . The money was allegedly used to purchase, among other things, artwork by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, a $35 million jet, high-end real estate real estate and rights to the film The Wolf of Wall Street, U.S. officials said in a statement. One suspect, referred to in the complaint as “Malaysian official 1,” allegedly received hundreds of millions of dollars from the fund. That person has been identified in several published reports as Prime Minister Najib Razak. The Wall Street Journal has detailed how money from the fund ended up in an account controlled by Najib, who is known in Malaysia for his lavish lifestyle and expensive tastes. Najib has insisted the funds were a legal political donation from members of the royal family of Saudi Arabia. The complaints do name the prime minister’s stepson, Riza Aziz, who co-founded the film company Red Granite Productions and who is identified as ‘a relative of Malaysian official 1.’ Also named is Low Taek Jho, a/k/a Jho Low, who helped found the 1MDB fund.”
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“Malaysian Official #1”, the unnamed person of interest mentioned in the very recent US Justice/FBI authorities move to recover $1.0 billion stolen-laundered from 1MDB (headed by the clown in this article), is quite a very cute way of insulting the Malaysian clown-currently Prime Minister Najib.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/21/us-1mdb-lawsuits-link-malaysian-pm-najib-razak-to-stolen-money.html
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PM Najib Razak’s stepdaughter Ms Azrene bluntly told her mother not to throw her US-based brother Riza Aziz under a bus “so that you and your husband can get off scot-free”. She added: “If Riza signed his soul to the devil to own what does not rightly belong to him, consider his debt with the devil collected and more due for collection. Similarly, all family members who have signed their soul to the devil… Your time will come.”
Entertaining times coming ahead on Malaysia’s fractured politics and governance arising from PM Najib’s corruption 1MDB rampage.
http://news.asiaone.com/news/malaysia/najibs-stepdaughter-speaks-out-against-family-1mdb-crisis
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OUTRAGE! – Najib’s Secret Deal With China To Pay Off 1MDB (And Jho Low’s) Debts!
http://www.sarawakreport.org/2016/07/outrage-najibs-secret-deal-with-china-to-pay-off-1mdb-and-jho-lows-debts-shock-exclusive/
A whistleblower, who has supplied full details of the project, described the plan to Sarawak Report: “The Malaysian Government is planning to award an overvalued project to launder money in order to fill the loophole of 1MDB. The plan is to award the East Coast Rail Project to a Chinese Company, China Communication Construction Company Limited (CCCC). The initial budget for the project is MYR 30b, but they have overvalued the project for another MYR 30b, making it MYR 60b. The extra MYR 30b will be use to launder out cash to 1MDB related companies.
The project has been proposed to the cabinet on 25/7/2016 and will be approved by the cabinet on 27/7/2016 with total value of MYR 60b. The Chinese company, which is backed by the China Government, will help pay off the 1MDB dept in advance and progressively. In return, this Chinese company will be rewarded with high profits and land, and of course extra influence with the Malaysian government”.
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What happened to your Saudi Arabian friends Najib? But I’ll grant you this Najib, going to the Chinese is veree veree cunning … just don’t let daughter Azrene get a whiff of the puke-inducing odor of this China deal!
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