The Possum Bistro

Wait for it...wait for it...ah, yes - one can hear the magical words 'moral equivalence' that apologists for Iran spout to justify such brutalised executions!
(Warning: this video might be offensive to some)

As far as I'm concerned, within society itself there are several distinct categories of people who do keep themselves updated with current affairs, be it through the mainstream news media as most working class people rely on the speedy chunks of bite-sized information being processed as politically expedient soundbites and binarily characterised arguments that fail to account for positions of compromise and deliberated discourse; or blogs for those who have chosen to see the MSM for what it truly is: a complicit associate of the Left and the enemies whom transnational progressivists, apologists and partisans have coddled up with. I, for one, can without remorse declare that I do not read the local publications here, or at least I do not depend on them for information with which I believe is useful for actual, open, uninhibited discussion.

The reason is two-fold: firstly, the media is state-controlled throughout radio channels, television and print media. That alone might already prove sufficient an explanation for avoiding such limited analysis and introspective criticism of the government and its policies, but to simply dismiss off-hand all things associated with Big Brother here would be to fall into that exact trap of binary characterisation that leads to blind partisanship and demagoguery. Although parochial politics here has not been segregated into a clear spectrum consisting of Left and Right as in Western circles in Europe and the US, the dichotomy exists between government and those critical of government. To be fair, the process of slowly introducing elements of democracy and refining the constitutional framework to allow greater freedom of expression and political activism has been grudgingly undertaken by the ruling elite, but the overbearing and paternalistic demeanour with which it attempts to hold on to power and control defeats the suggestive connotative dimensions of the former.

Every step forward is accompanied by a step backwards in another aspect of public life, and with that the societal psyche has been conditioned to accept this outcome with cynicism - each concession not only fails to convince the populace that the elite are conscientiously and genuinely interested in achieving expansion of individual rights and freedom of public activism, but symbolises the absence of greater emancipation. It increasingly appears to me that each action carried out by the state in backtracking on its concessions and laxation of regulations represents a public show of forceful intervention to consolidate control, which it is apprehensive of losing. Remember that in authoritarian systems, control must be complete - slippery slope arguments that favour diffusion of power, however gradually, will eventually undermine and decimate the political legitimacy sustaining the regime as the monopoly of state-sanctioned force is whittled away.

Here I would like to point out two aspects of the issue of the parochial political scene that should be clarified before we go any further, to avoid miscommunication and misinterpretation: one, make no mistake that the state apparatus is still very much in control in terms of silencing or at least disincentivising political dissidents through various means, and in no way should any act of seizing the initiative to negate any political reforms be foolishly mistaken as desperately grasping the last vestiges of power. Underestimating the competence and ruthless determination of the state in preserving its ideological superstructure - supported by economic and material comforts - and legitimacy is one of the most reckless moves one can make. Two, note that the state is apprehensive of devolving power, but not fearful - this is due to its awareness that allows it to bask in quiet confidence at its ability to manage political reform at a pace and manner of their choosing. By according the situation with a false sense of desperation and brinkhood, and by mistakenly believing that the populace is seriously considering taking up their pitchforks and torches to instigate a revolution to storm Parliament, one can expect to be sorely disappointed and prepare to face punishment. The state is far from the state of fear: to think that one could exploit the apparent vulnerability of confidence so easily, especially in the stages of infancy of the constitutional government, is foolish and should be discouraged to prevent serious backlash.

The second reason why I do not depend on local publications for commentary or news is related to the first: policy analyses, however Realist or pragmatic, are undeniably susceptible to official censorship and editing - it is entirely up to the government to use its own discretion and determine which commentaries may offend potential allies or exacerbate antagonisms with existing adversaries. Sure, one might argue that every paper, every person has an agenda, a slant with which he or she would adhere to, whether consciously or subconsciously, while scribing commentary. The government is merely protecting its vested interests and preserving the sovereignty of the state by eschewing options suggested in papers that may tend towards extremist means and ends, thereby ensuring that the legitimacy and reputation of the state is enhanced in the process - how could anyone criticise such a well-intentioned move? Obviously, that moral indignation is exactly the type of response the government intends to invoke in the common citizen: the underlying implication echoes the paternalistic slant - that the government knows best and the people are merely acquiescent subjects. Furthermore, how can one assume that what is being censored is beyond question a 'threat to national security' or a 'corruption of intellectual thought'? What you see published does not imply that anything not published is corrosive to the interests of the people.

Here I shall accord the government with at least the decency to eschew the Fairness Doctrine and reject the more audacious commentaries and lousy-excuses-for-analysis that the Left and its transnational progressivist bedfellows churn out day after day in pure logorrheic fashion. It is comforting to note that anti-Semitic pieces being emblazoned on the Daily Kos frontpage, or those calling for concessions to be given to terrorists to appease death cults like those of the Palestinians due to 'illegal occupation' by the Israelis, or the rare paper that indulges in historical revisionism of the self-serving kind ever enters the commentary section of the local papers. My main gripe is that though foreign policy conducted by the government has always adhered to a pragmatic paradigm - a necessary condition encouraged by shifting alliances and unpredictable balance-of-power algorithms - that has served us well for the forty-two years of independence so far, when the fundamental basis of that foreign policy is anchored in the preservation of the sovereignty of the state at the expense of the intellectual infantilisation and ideological acquiescence of the citizenry, one must ask introspectively: is public and foreign policy analysis all that objective and Realist, untainted by ideological spin or parochial concerns with commentaries that invoke the Constitution and its association with the people?

Pardon that digression of thought, but I felt it was necessary to explain my personal misgivings about relying entirely on the MSM for information. In fact, more often than not, it is undoubtedly easier to receive misinformation especially when it is intended to be disseminated and propagated to influence the people and their perspectives through surreptitious manipulation; in the local context, this is encouraged by the fact that a substantial community of citizens are still receptive to such misinterpretation, be it conscious or otherwise - perhaps inspired out of fear of the shifting winds of change and the tumultuous nature of world affairs, or the threat of terrorism that forces people to seek comfort and security in the suffocating embrace of the state. The government has indeed sought to pursue and dilligently maintain the preservation of sovereignty of the nation in international relations, especially in ASEAN. Perhaps I should take comfort in the tenacity and unmoving stance of the government in taking control of state affairs in its own hands and preventing other bigger states from dictating what the limits of our behaviour or scope of action should be, according to their national interests. Perhaps I should be glad that our government has not succumbed to the temptations of the progressivist movement, of devolving authority and initiative to a transnational regime accountable to no one. And perhaps I should feel grateful that these corruptible arguments of the progressivists have not gained a foothold in the local intelligentsia or any sort of substantial currency within our universities or institutions.

Allow me to digress momentarily - the question of identity has always plagued us as citizens of this nation: what about your country that makes you proud? I think I have found the answer, albeit a paradoxical one that challenges the very argument that we are trying to make: the ferocity and stalwart manner with which we protect our sovereignty despite the potentially crippling malaises that have certainly descended upon the nations of Europe and the US. And yet I find myself troubled by this revelation, because it is the core factor contributing to the crawling pace of political reform. Not to suggest that throwing our nation to the transnational dogs would immediately gain us untrammelled liberty and emancipation from oppression - that would in one fell swoop herald the destruction of all we hold dear in our civil society and its tenets - but it has become increasingly clear that the government does not have the stomach to reform itself substantially, and has maintained a stoic face weathering international criticism of its domestic policies. The longer the conservative order is convinced of its longevity, the less receptive and amenable it will be to external pressure.

Taking a page from history, the Westphalian peace dictated the sovereignty and inviolability of state borders since 1648. European states were once fully convinced of the importance of maintaining sovereignty, proud of their uniqueness and separate identity. Prior to 1914, Great Britain prided itself on its great overseas Empire and the seemingly unsinkable navy; an emboldened, militaristic Germany flexed its firepower as the dominant continental power; France as a colonial power had Paris as the central cultural node of Europe. The Great War displayed for the first time how stubborn rivals could become, engaging in endless battles of attrition and trench warfare with lines that stretched to the sea, bent on protecting their borders and fighting for the right to sovereignty, as well as hoping to disabuse those of the notion that sovereignty was merely an airy concept. The Russians alone lost an unprecendented, unrivalled number of men during the Great War - and they would do so again in the Second World War. That second continental war allowed the Axis to test the resolve of the defenders of sovereignty, which they suspected was lacking in substance or willpower - and they were proven right, at least till 1945.

The tendency to preserve state sovereignty, to see the Nation-State as a shining beacon of salvation and the best guarantee against the state of nature (to borrow a Hobbesian term), to feel proud of the principles which the nation promised to uphold at any cost: all these expectations were beginning to fester and degenerate since the first war; it was utterly vanquished in the aftermath of the second war. Britain had to relinquish its Empire when faced with a faltering economy, the shattering of the myth of Western superiority by the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia (the fall of Singapore represented one of the worst military defeats for the British) and the acquiescence of the decolonisation process in its former colonies. France was similarly mired in economic problems, not to mention a crushing defeat in Vietnam that signalled the beginning of the end of its Empire. Germany was shattered, defeated and rendered a pawn in the beginning of the confrontation of the great powers - the division of Berlin represented the actual microcosmic representation of a divided Germany, with its citizens reeling from the actual shock of the defeat that Hitler had so expertly attempted to disguise, postponing the effects of war which were felt by the German populace. The after-effects of the Depression, the perpetual feeling of dread and the spectre of another war loomed large in the backdrop of the late 1940s and the 1950s. Nationalism lost its appeal, while the Nation-State was mistakenly scapegoated for the outbreak of the Second World War.

What most revisionist accounts fail to perceive is that the Nation-States of Europe post-1918 put too much faith and importance in the League of Nations, that Wilsonian construct that was doomed to irrelevance by the hypocritical nature of the President's own unwillingness to defend the right to sovereignty and self-determination. No nation truly believed in honouring the conditions of the Versailles treaty, and the first to exploit this equivocation was not Germany but the United States, who refused to pledge military support for its continental counterparts across the Atlantic as it was still basking in its 'splendid isolation', to borrow a British term at that time. Britain followed suit as it placed the recovery of the German economy over backing France against the threat of German revanchism and militarism; Hitler then masterfully manipulated his way through Austrian anschluss, the dismembering of Czechoslovakia and finally the invasion of Poland and territories beyond. The Nation-State wasn't the reason why the Second World War erupted as it did - in fact, it was probably the only safeguard against total war, but respective European statesmen came to the wrong conclusion that they could count on each other to collectively defend against external threats, when in actuality they were eroding the capacity and will to secure peace from within.

In the present, the elites of Western Europe are more or less rather pleased with themselves for having succumbed sovereignty to the Eurocrats in Brussels, thereby gaining for themselves the tendency to absolve themselves of all responsibility by feigning ignorance or helplessness at the dictates of the bureaucracy of the European Union. Thus, statesmen have been toying around with the privilege of enjoying all the perks of representation of their nations, but without all the issues of accountability and responsibility that would otherwise sabotage their prospects of promotion and re-election. This practice isn't unprecendented - in fact, it already thrived in the wake of the European Monetary System: as Tony Judt opined in Post-War, 'then, if the state could no longer square the circle of full employment, high real wages and economic growth, then it was bound to face the wrath of those constituents who felt betrayed' - the middle classes.

This practice has to be stopped - and Europeans everywhere are making their voices heard. Along with admirable bloggers such as a jacksonian, baron, dymphna and fjordman, I have too espoused an unyielding resistance against transnational progressivism and the erosion of the Nation-State - past expositions can be found in the archives, and you can be sure that we will continue to publicise and further attempt to bring light to the severe implications of the regression of sovereignty of the Nation-State.

Here I apologise if my musings today have been traversing across several issues, but this is what I feel is necessary if one is to put forth resistance whenever possible to the issues that threaten to engulf us, be it the paternalistic or demagogic slant of the MSM, or the issue of transnational progressivism. There is still much to work on, and I pray we have the spirit and perseverance to continue and contribute to intellectual discourse that does not force us to compromise our principles that we have sworn first and foremost to defend - unlike the Left.