Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 8 August 2016 issue)

Dear Kam,
My husband and son are always arguing and they want me to take sides. I don’t know what to do because I think they’re both wrong. Can I do some kind of protest vote?
Mom in the Middle

Is it ever safe to make a protest vote? I have an American friend who finds himself in a voting quandary. He supported Bernie Sanders to be the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton won the nomination but he does not like her, although he likes Donald Trump even less. But he is still sore that Sanders lost and he wants to make some kind of protest vote. He is a registered voter in a part of the US that always votes Democrat, so he is wondering if he can perhaps make a protest by voting for Trump.

I think my friend is being insane because of the experience of the Brexit vote and the most recent Singapore general election. Before the disastrous Brexit referendum, the banks, opinion polls and voters all thought that the Remain vote would win and Exit would lose. Many have since regretted their stupid vote to leave the European Union but they thought at the time that they were simply making a clever protest vote and that everyone else would vote to remain. Thousands enthusiastically attended opposition rallies before the recent general election in Singapore and there was a mood that they would do well at the polls but the People’s Action Party (PAP) went on to win in a landslide. The feeling afterwards was that voters got cold feet precisely because the opposition rallies were so well attended. They may have wanted to vote for the opposition but they did not want to overturn the old order. They thought that everybody else would vote for the opposition. It turned out that everybody else voted PAP as well.

And opinion polls cannot be trusted. People do not give honest answers. Opinion polls before the last general election in Britain suggested that the result would be close between the Conservatives and Labour but the Conservatives went on to win convincingly. It turned out that many people who were traditional non-Conservatives wanted to vote for the Tories but were not prepared to admit it to the opinion pollsters, and that young people simply lied and did not vote anyway. If we think that our choice is in some way wrong or even stupid, then we won’t admit to it. At the moment, Hillary Clinton is apparently leading in the polls but I think that Trump actually has many secret supporters and she may not even have a lead at all.

It is dangerous to assume that everybody else will behave in a herd-like manner and do what they are supposed to do and to think that you are the only clever and independent-minded one around. So, I think my American friend is being ridiculous.

Fortunately, we Malaysians may never have to face these difficult choices ever again but we should be able to retain the power to choose whether or not we really think that kitten is cute enough to deserve our “like” on Facebook. So, think long and hard and do the right thing.

Dear Kam,
I’m very worried about my son. All he does is play Space Invaders on his phone. In my day, we went outside and did actual things. But when I tell him to go outside, he says that I won’t let him because it is too dangerous. Kids these days have an answer for everything. In my day, we used to respect our parents … [letter edited because it drones on and on].
Big Daddy

Today’s youth need to be constantly reminded that things were better in the past and that the 1980s was the best age of all. I had a great time in the 1980s. The bands, the hairstyles, the giant shoulder pads — everything was better in the 1980s. It was a time when life could still be lived because not everything had been regulated and controlled out of existence. But the good news is that you can still show your children a slice of what life was like in the 1980s by taking them down to the Immigration Department to get a new passport. They can have the excitement of getting up really early to start queuing at 5am and then they can witness the uniquely Malaysian experience of numbers running out. Your children’s modern education has taught them that numbers are infinite but they need to know that in Malaysia, after 10am, they rarely go above 200. You can pack food and make it into a day out for the whole family because it will take a whole day and you will need the children to stand in line when you go to the toilet. So, go and get a new passport to experience the 1980s all over again, and be sure to take your Walkman and wear your “Who Shot JR?” T-shirt.

Dear Kam,
My dad is always droning on about the past. He’s really old, like 50 or something. I’m never going to be old like him.
Neil Young

I have just turned 50, and it is okay. There was something hellish about the years leading up to turning 30 because it meant that youth would officially be over and yet I still had not done all the things I was supposed to do. I thought that I would explode or disappear on my 30th birthday but when it came and nothing happened, I wondered what I had been so worried about. I think I have experienced my 50th with a sense of contented realism. It is what it is, no big deal.

And part of that realism is that I am going to simply accept that I can’t keep up with modern technology. I know the basics of how a steam engine works but every technological leap after that is a mystery to me and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. I don’t understand computers, I don’t know what “coding” is, or “snapchat”, and I’m not going to try. Sometimes my computer does not work and people tell me, “It’s very simple. All you have to do is … ” I hate it when people tell me it is very simple because it never is. What is simple is if you simply make the problem go away. I’m very happy to have turned 50. It is what it is, no big deal.

Reprinted with the kind permission of