Malaysians are, by and large, non confrontational people. We don’t like conflict and we seem content to play safe. One proof of this is our insistence on electing the same party to power for more than 50 years.

However, now that one highly anticipated confrontation has been put on the back-burner for fear of “protests near the debate venue”, perhaps we need to ask if we are, after all, easily triggered into unrest and violence.

Politics being our national pastime, there will undoubtedly be supporters on both sides of the fence at the proposed debate between former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad and Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Aziz.

If the gathering is large enough, there will undoubtedly be a few rowdy elements. However, that’s no reason to cancel a meeting of minds as eagerly awaited as this one.

Debates are a great tradition of democracy, an opportunity for duelling ideologies to stand on an equal footing so that the members of the audience can each judge which ideology dovetails better with his own.

In truth, however, many of us have been amused by the humming and hawing that’s been going on over the past couple of weeks over whether Mahathir and Nazri should meet in verbal combat. We sort of expected that it would not happen. It’s not as if previous attempts to organise debates between government and opposition figures have always been successful.

Still, it’s a shame that we are again denied the opportunity to experience an essential aspect of democratic life. Without debate, we are robbed of an avenue to determine the validity of an idea and compare it with its antithesis so that we may draw our own conclusions.

Why must intellectual discourse, especially between competing politicians, so often be regarded as a threat to security? How else can we see the true measure of our politicians?

Scott Ng is an FMT columnist.

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