The "culture" of Obedience in Malaysia

Although the results of the Malaysian General Elections in March 8, 2008 shows that Malaysian voters and, perhaps, Malaysian Society has reached a tipping point in tolerating the political dominance of Barisan Nasional, there are deep patterns of obedient behaviour that remain.

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I am not saying that we have to be disobedient. I am highlighting one phenomenon of obedience which is INDOLENCE.

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Three factors are offered here. Firstly, the Malay adat is still strongly observed. This is manifested is the daily conduct of the Malay to respect their elders and to defer to their greater wisdom. It is submitted that this attitude also manifests itself towards authority figures such as political leaders. This is a feudal attitude that the Malay community still clings to.

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Secondly, the Chinese traditions of respect to their elders are rooted in the Confucian tradition. This is coupled with the immigrant ethos, echoes of which are very likely to have been passed on to newer generations, to respect the local authority to avoid causing any trouble. Furthermore, contemporary Chinese Malaysian communities are either politically marginalized or content with the status quo of middle-class indolence and apathy. Is this middle-class apathy starting to disappear?

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Thirdly (I stand to be corrected), in orthodox Islam, it has been noted that a citizen has a duty of allegiance to the government. Citizens are, generally, required to be bound “to hear and to obey, in hardship and in ease, in circumstances pleasant and unpleasant” the calls of the government. This is based on the Tradition narrated by the Companion, Ubadah ibn as-Samit, as recorded by Al-Bukhari, as follows:-

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“The Prophet called us, and we pledged our allegiance to him. He imposed on us the duty to hear and obey in whatever pleases and displeases us, in hardship as well as in ease, whatever our personal preference, and [impressed on us] that we should not withdraw authority from those who have been entrusted with it, “unless you see and obvious infidelity [kufr] for which you have a clear proof from [the Book of] God”.

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It is not a simple thing to oppose an established authority. In any event, it is difficult to establish “obvious infidelity” and obtain “clear proof”. Thus, it is submitted, the tendency is to obey.

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I shall let Viscount James Bryce explain it by extracting from his seminal work Studies in History and Jurisprudence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1901)(2 vols). I have placed emphasis in BOLD of passages that deserve particular attention:-

The Grounds of Obedience in General

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Political obedience is not a thing by itself, but a form of what may be called Compliance in general.

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The grounds or motives of Compliance can be summed up under five heads. Putting them in the order of what seems to be their relative importance, they may be described as the following—Indolence, Deference, Sympathy, Fear, Reason. Let us consider each separately.

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By Indolence I mean the disposition of a man to let some one else do for him what it would give him trouble to do for himself. There are of course certain persons to whom exertion, mental as well as physical, is pleasurable, and who delight in the effort of thinking out a problem and making a decision for themselves.

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There are also moments in the lives of most of us when under the influence of some temporary excitement we feel equal to a long succession of such efforts. But these are exceptional persons and rare moments. To the vast majority of mankind nothing is more agreeable than to escape the need for mental exertion, or, speaking more precisely, to choose only those forms of exertion which are directly accompanied by conscious pleasure and involve little fatigue.

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In a great many exertions of thought resulting in determinations of the will there is no pleasure, or at any rate no conscious pleasure, or at any rate no pleasure which is not outweighed by an accompanying annoyance. Such exertions may relate to things in which we have slight personal interest, and therefore no desires to gratify, or to things in which our personal interest is so doubtful that we shrink from the trouble of ascertaining which way it lies, and are glad to shift the responsibility from ourselves to whoever will undertake it for us.

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The ascendency of one of a married couple, for instance, or of one member of a group of persons living together, is usually acquired in some such way. It is not necessarily the will really strongest that in these cases prevails, but the will which is most active, most ready to take a little trouble, to exert itself on trivial occasions and undertake small responsibilities.

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Persons of a resolute and tenacious character are sometimes also hesitating and undecided, because they cannot be at the trouble of setting to work, for the little questions of daily life, their whole machinery of deliberation and volition. In five persons out of six the instinct to say Yes is stronger than the instinct to say No—were it not so, there would be fewer marriages—and this is specially so when the person who claims consent possesses exceptional force and self-confidence.

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In other words, most of us hate trouble and like to choose the line of least resistance. In tropical Africa the country is covered by a network of narrow footpaths, made by the natives. These paths seldom run straight, and their flexuosities witness to small obstacles, here a stone and there a shrub, which the feet of those who first marked them avoided. To-day one may perceive no obstacle. The prairie which the path crosses may be smooth and open, yet every traveller follows the windings, because it is less trouble to keep one’s feet in the path already marked than it is to take a more direct route for one’s self. The latter process requires thought and attention; the former does not.

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Nor is the compliance of indolence less evident in thought than in action. To most people, nothing is more troublesome than the effort of thinking. They are pleased to be saved the effort. They willingly accept what is given them because they have nothing to do further than to receive it. They take opinions presented to them, and assume rules or institutions which they are told to admire to be right and necessary, because it is easier to do this than to form an independent judgement. The man who delivers opinions to others may be inferior to us in physical strength, or in age, or in knowledge, or in rank. We may think ourselves quite as wise as he is. But he is clear and positive, we are lazy or wavering; and therefore we follow him.