Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 1 September 2014 issue)

Dear Kam,
My question is simple. Sedition? Oh dear, am I being seditious by saying ‘sedition’? Forget I said anything.
Silent Night

We find ourselves in the strange situation where several politicians are being charged with sedition. Sedition is such an old law, and I think the next oldest laws are the Saying Bad Things About Ancient Sumeria Act (1948 BC) and the Frightening People With Fire Act (2567 BC). I don’t know how many people have noticed this, but by an amazing coincidence, all the politicians who have been charged with sedition are members of the opposition.

I’m not a lawyer and I’ve never understood what sedition really means. It is either very narrow in its scope or incredibly broad, either very few actions are seditious or virtually any word is seditious. Laws appear to be deliberately written so that they will make non-lawyers fall asleep. I tried reading the law, but I fell asleep. What I think I managed to understand is that the law seeks to prosecute actions and words that might “bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against” the main bulwarks of Malaysian governance: the Ruler, any government, the courts, multiracial harmony, etc, etc. It appears to cover just about everything in Malaysian life, but don’t worry because your most basic right remains and you can still complain about a restaurant’s food on Facebook.

Sedition hasn’t been a feature of Malaysian life until very recently, but I always thought that sedition was advocating the overthrow of a government and all the established institutions of governance. You know, something big. I thought that a communist revolutionary like the late Chin Peng could be prosecuted for sedition. I didn’t know that saying a rude word about Umno could be seditious. Chin Peng wanted to overthrow the whole institution of democracy and replace it with a communist dictatorship. He not only talked about it but he acted upon it. Isn’t that the definition of sedition? Trying to overthrow the entire democratic process and its legally appointed guardians? That’s the amazing thing about the law — there’s always something new to be learnt.

Dear Kam,
What is going to happen to MAS?
High Flyer

The sad story of Malaysia Airlines continues to get sadder. After an astonishingly tragic year, there is now the nauseating story of an alleged sexual molestation of an Australian passenger. If this story turns out to be true, then, well, that would be just too appalling for words. And now, the airline has been nationalised, sorry, privatised by Khazanah Nasional Bhd and reports suggest that at least 5,000 employees will be made redundant. I feel sorry for all those who will be losing their jobs, but MAS has been living on borrowed time for ages, even before the tragedies. Something radical needs to be done. A major restructuring of MAS is long overdue. A complete overhaul, a re-imagining of what an airline is. What is a national carrier? Do we even need a national carrier?

The recent tragedies have left me shocked and although we still don’t know the reasons for the disappearance of Flight MH370, I personally don’t hold MAS responsible. I’m as patriotic as the next guy and I support MAS, but I’m not going to say that MAS is the greatest airline in the world. It isn’t. I don’t mind travelling on MAS, but whenever I’ve been on its flights, I’ve sensed something distinctly ramshackle about the cabins and the quality of its services. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s as if there has been a steady degradation. It feels like a low-cost carrier but with high-cost prices. Today’s MAS is not the MAS I travelled on 10 to 15 years ago, and definitely not the one from 20years ago. The degradation affects not just the passengers but also the cabin crew who are the frontline of this service industry. To me, they don’t look happy but instead they seem testy and defensive. They have my sympathies because they are the face of MAS, not the managers, politicians and contractors. Other people, people we never see, make the decisions and the profits, and the cabin crew have to sell it.

The food, in particular, is awful. If an airline wants to be the national carrier of Malaysia, then the food must be excellent. I could probably accept sitting on the airplane version of the night bus to Gerik as long as the food is good. Unfortunately, I recently had a nasi lemak on MAS. It tasted like some rice onto which somebody had squirted a sachet of tomato ketchup. Malaysia is food and if the Malaysian national carrier cannot sell itself on its food, then what other Malaysia can it sell? Mat rempits driving up and down the aisles? I’m not against a company getting a, er, comfy contract as long as it actually provides a decent service. The food I had on MAS was a disgrace.

Do we need a national carrier? When I was young, back in the 1960s and 1970s, a national carrier was a point of pride. MAS carried the name of Malaysia around the world. A nation, any nation, simply had to have a national carrier, but now, it feels old-fashioned and tired because all those national carriers are old-fashioned and tired. How many national carriers can you think of that make you think of their respective nations with a warm, glowy feeling? SIA, Air New Zealand, a few others, perhaps. SIA has received investment upon investment for decades because SIA has always been a Singaporean priority. They wanted to promote the image of Singapore as a well-connected hub with the latest fleet of aircraft and great service. I’m not a big fan of Singapore, but I’ve got to admit that they’ve succeeded with SIA. It is a great airline.

What image of Malaysia have we tried to promote through MAS all these years? Let’s see, it employs a lot of people. The design of the cabin interiors has never been sleek and eye-catching. The service is quite good. I was on a KLM flight once and if you dared to call for assistance, then they treated you like you were morally weak, and MAS is definitely way better than that. Other than that, it’s so-so, can-do. Some people have made some money. It doesn’t have a particular story to tell.

Since the heyday of the 1970s and 1980s, MAS (and quite possibly the nation) hasn’t had a clear story to tell and promote. What are we proud of? What do we want to share with the world? I would like to see a new MAS emerge from this disastrous year. I would like to see us challenge the world with an airline that is smaller, has fewer routes, is sleeker with the best of modern design and has excellent service and excellent food. And a KLIA that is open to other airlines, making it an attractive and busy hub. I’d like to see a new airline that will put smiles onto the faces of its cabin crew because they believe in the product, its mission and its story.

The MAS as we know it is going to pass away, but it could be replaced with something far, far better. Will that happen? What do you think?

Reprinted with the kind permission of