By P Ramasamy
Malaysian police are effective in small things and not on matters of national importance. Why spend so much time to monitor the activities of Parti Sosialis Malaysia to the extent of banning its eight-hour programme on Marxism?
PSM is not a powerful political party that is considered as a threat to national security. It is a small political party that believes in principles. Its strong point is to support the struggle of the working masses in Malaysia.
It might not be a centrist socialist democratic party like the DAP. However, it cannot be considered as revolutionary political party either, because it seeks to gain political power through constitutional means.
Why fear PSM? Or a simple rudimentary course on Marxism, a course that will explicate broadly the ideas of Karl Marx and Engels and those who came after these two intellectual giants?
I don’t think the PSM is going to preach about the greatness of Marxism, but rather, from what I understand, conduct a course about ideas and how these ideas have changed over time.
This is the basic problem with our government agencies, including the police. Just because they engage in bringing about certain desired changes in the way people think and act, a way to sustain those in power, these agencies think that others also do the same thing.
Umno and PAS might not see things similarly, but they constantly engage in acts that are normative in nature. In other words, actions aimed at bringing about desired change in the mind-set of their respective target population. These normative acts are invariably linked to power and influence.
But I don’t understand how a rudimentary course on the ABC of Marxism would spell disaster for Malaysia.
Countries that once embraced Marxism or its particular variants have given up and have now come under the influence of liberalism and capitalism.
In Malaysia, the Malayan Communist Party fought for the establishment of a communist state of Malaya for a number of years. However, the party gave up its armed struggle in the 1989 through a peace agreement with the Malaysian government.
The communist principles established by Marx and Engels are worthy of consideration and respect but these, by themselves, do not tell how to establish a communist society at a pragmatic level.
What is terribly wrong for a few Malaysians to attend this course so that they can open up their minds to a set of ideas that they might not have known in the first place?
Our universities and colleges are bad examples of educational institutions where ideas are never given prominence. These institutions are mere appendages of the government in power.
Of all the government agencies, the police force is in a sad state of affairs. Being beholden, lock and stock barrel, to those who wield political power, they have run out of ideas.
While the police are good at apprehending those responsible for petty crimes, however, those responsible for mammoth crimes and financial scandals are left free to room the corridors of power!
P Ramasamy is Deputy Chief Minister II of Penang.
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