Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 8 December 2014 issue)

Dear Kam,
Sometimes I read the news and I can’t decide if we’re moving forward or backwards, sideways or even upside down.
Dizzy Daze

The Umno General Assembly is that time when most of us get a chance to say things like, “Did he just say what I think he said?” and “Er, really?” It’s that time when a lot of people you’ve never heard of before get to say words out loud, in public, into a microphone, that other people will hear. It’s covered widely on the Internet’s new media and, for them, it is the gift that keeps giving. Like most people, I do not make the effort to listen to the speeches. I don’t listen to any of them, let alone the speeches by the Umno VIPs. Instead, I rely on news reports and I’m going to guess that the new media will report the VIPs and a selection of the more, er, surprising ones. It is even possible that some words are quoted out of context, but mostly I think not. Most of the time I think the context is what the context is, which is the Umno General Assembly.

I try to be cautious about how I read these reports, to really listen carefully to the overriding sentiments behind the words and to take it seriously because the Umno General Assembly is one of the few public forums (perhaps the only?) where people can say what they really think without any fear.

In the past, the sentiment may have been triumphalist, even gloating. Now there is an unmistakable note of concern that things might be coming to an end. And nobody is happy about this. And they just want the criticism to stop, hence the enormous amount of effort being wasted on the retention of the Sedition Act 1948. Presumably, the hope is that if the clock can be turned back and everyone can be made to just shut up, then everything will be okay again. Maybe that’s correct, but I’ve got a funny feeling it doesn’t work like that anymore.

I always find it strange how quickly we adapt to new things, how we almost immediately absorb them into our lives and then act like we’ve always had them. Everything has changed with the advent of the Internet and its new media, and now, we have an abundance of voices, viewpoints and interpretations. But it was only a very short time ago that we only had one voice, one report and one interpretation. It was only a very short time ago that we could confidently make the cosy assumption that words spoken to one group would only be heard by that group and not by anybody else. But everything has changed with the Internet, and now, when a politician is talking to one group, they’re actually talking to the whole nation.

Dear Kam,
I want a Playstation! I realise that’s not really a question, but I want a Playstation now! And then my life will be complete.
Game Boy

I was talking to an advertising man the other day and he described to me how advertising can persuade me to change my old chosen brand and buy a different brand altogether. I thought advertising would have to tell me that my old choice was wrong. Instead, advertising wants to tell me that I was right and that the new brand will simply make me feel more right. When we read the news or surf the net, we are not looking for anything that contradicts our pre-existing beliefs, but instead are seeking out confirmations that we’re right and that we’re always right. Advertising, consumerism and even politics appear to be about individual freedom of choice, but actually we’re slaves to our own self-image. And then, I came across a simple news story.

There’s an American shopping thing called “Black Friday”. I still don’t really understand what it’s about, but I think it has something to do with big discounts on electronic goods at the end of November. The shops prey on the fact that people have just been paid at the end of the month and they want to buy Christmas presents. Black Friday attracts poorer people who would not otherwise be able to buy these goods and the frenzied event is widely reported every year in America with stories about fights over discounted Playstations and so on.

Black Friday is now being introduced to Britain and I saw that it was the headline story on two different British newspapers. Both papers had photos of crowds desperately pushing and clamouring for electronic goods. This was the ugly image of consumerism at its worst. These images simultaneously confirmed my views on the economic enslavement of rampant consumerism and it also made me feel smug because I knew I would never lower myself to that animalistic level. The story made me feel comfortable with my own snobbishness. It made me feel right.

But then, I looked more closely at the two photos and I realised that it was the exact same crowd being photographed tightly from two separate angles. The “crowd” was made up of only 10 people, but surrounding them were more than 10 photographers squeezing in to get a tighter shot, and beyond them were some disinterested shoppers quietly going about their business. The photographers had managed to manufacture a crowd out of 10 people. Instead of being a story about rampant consumerism, this was a story of lazy journalism executing a pre-written story designed to fill some pages and flatter its readers. I wasn’t right; I had been manipulated.

I had only been able to spot the emotional manipulation because I could compare two different newspapers. If there had only been one newspaper, then I would have believed it because I wanted to believe it. And if that one newspaper could convince me with one story, then it might be able to convince me with whatever other rubbish it might choose to spew. If only there was a law, maybe some ancient law from the colonial era that could limit us to one “choice”. Sadly, I don’t think it works like that anymore.

Dear Kam,
Yo! Wassup! It’s my birthday soon and everyone is getting worked up about it. I say, chillax, dudes. I mean it’s only 70. Take a chill pill.
Edgar The Elder

A friend of mine’s daughter spends all her time on the Internet talking to her friends on Skype. The daughter is 10, although she insists that she’s nearer to 11 and so should be treated with the respect due to an 11-year-old and not some immature 10-year-old. When you’re young, those few months mean a lot, but not when you get older. When I went past 40, I simply stopped adding the years. I think I might be fast approaching 50, but, well, I’m just not counting. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all 40 and I’m sure I could still get into the youth division of most political parties for another couple of decades yet.

Each extra year raises difficult-to-answer questions about what I have achieved and where my life is heading. It’s the classic mid-life crisis, but I was given a sense of hope when I overheard my friend’s daughter say to her friends, “What am I doing with my life?” If a 10-year-old, sorry, 11-year-old is asking that question, then what am I worried about?

Reprinted with the kind permission of