The  B-O-T-T-A 

Profit and power ought jointly to be considered.

No matter what ancient and contemporary political thinkers and theorists say, established, elected and entrenched government is assiduously engaged in the B-O-T-T-A (Business of Taking Things Away) through clever legislation and discriminatory policies.

Taxation, duties and tariffs remind the discerning public that printing paper money does not solve all ills. Economists jump in the bandwagon singing praises to buyers, sellers, borrowers and lenders. Credit and debt fuse.

The B-O-T-T-A is meant to prevent crime, corruption and other social ills. Top of the list, of course, is readily available access to pornography, especially in a nation that advances Islam as the official religion. See Holy Quran 23:7 for precise revelation and enlightenment.

Constitutional amendments must be fixated in the business of taking away impractical provisions that vexes the public. Deaf ears and Nelson eyes take on the SOSMA avatar.

We have no homespun constitutional fabric. Everything is imported. Thomas Hobbes published his Leviathan in May 1651 heralding the beginning of a seismic change in political thought.

In the 1650s the Dutch were making inroads into the Malay Peninsula armed with the B-O-T-T-A mindset. Thanks to the Bugis resistance, the Dutch were harassed following the Portuguese decline.

In 1756, Dutch B-O-T-T-A became a system of government when the Bugis were roundly defeated. Geopolitical and socioeconomic developments in Europe swung into action in the Far East with the gradual arrival of the British.

Imagine Malayans during that period when discovery and conquest were the pivotal factors in wealth creation. The Bugis and Sulus should have structured a powerful armada to discover and conquer Europe. Too many missed golden opportunities for the Golden Chersonese.

Charles Tilly argued: “If war made the state and the state made war, and Europeans made war, and therefore the state, better than anybody else.” Asians could have been a powerful adversary.

Law reform has deteriorated as an empty election promise. When you are asked to multiply, you are asked to increase something. How come 2 X 2 equals 4, while 1 X 1 equals 1. Law reform and unlearning, where art thou?

The voting public must learn the B-O-T-T-A techniques so that it can deprive government of many of its corrupt undertakings. This is where political science becomes useful and critical.

Our secondary schools are nothing but a breeding ground for labour – one of the four pillars of every national economy. The teaching of political science will usher in a deep understanding of economics. Government fears this trend.

The ‘social contract’ as espoused by Thomas Hobbes is the blueprint for the survival of the B-O-T-T-A regimes. It’s more of an anti-social arrangement that was indelibly inspired by the radical Niccolo Machiavelli who inspired one Malaysian prime minister.

Parameswara/Iskandar Shah concentrated on the economy without any strategic thinking of a standing army that could have shown the first European the importance of not having visas and passports.

B-O-T-T-A was never our culture until imported Westmonster chalked up a different agenda with the imported Civil Law Act 1956. Our customs and traditions stayed in the shadows of suspect jurisprudence.

Agreed, western capitalism wrought the B-O-T-T-A way of life. But capitalism has sprouted better roots in the Far East than in the Near West. True leaders run to opportunity, and flee falsehood fast and furious.

The B-O-T-T-A is hardwired into each and every culture where organised government thrives and survives. It’s sad that the so-called ‘social contract’ is nothing but a one-sided agreement.

Government telling the governed what is acceptable is not a social contract but a social cataract that blurs reality. The fools who wrote the rulebook have to be identified and disavowed through legislation or constitutional fiat.

Hobbes, Locke, Bentham. Mill, Hume, Ricardo, Rousseau, Bakunin, Paine and Marx rewrote the rulebook over 200 years ago. South East Asia went back to sleep while the European buccaneer-merchants unleashed the B-O-T-T-A regime courtesy the British East India Company.

Thomas Paine dismissed government and its B-O-T-T-A cult as a parasite. Paine argued that “society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil”.

Rousseau added to the sinister B-O-T-T-A regime by reasoning in his The Social Contract (1762) that “man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains”. The monarch and the clergy were blamed for blurring the Age of Reason, Effort and Merit.

Have we Malaysians learned anything from this European ideal of limited government? An alien system of parliamentary democracy that dictates terms to constitutional supremacy. Malaysianisation is desperately needed in these matters.

Constitutional amendments must not become a legislative imperative. ThePeople must decide by national referendum whether a particular constitutional amendment is needful or necessary.

The time has come for a Malaysian Intellectual Revolution Forum where intellectual racehorses are trained. The breeding ground is fertile. The citizenry better buckle-up, saddle-up, and get the rodeo going. Government provides the stadium only.

Qualified youths must be trained free-of-charge in special institutes to assume leadership roles. We have all the required resources but lack vision, mission and provision no thanks to government with cock-eyed focus.

Government that will succeed is that which will slowly but surely embrace the S-O-A-R (Spirit of Active Reform) tradition, custom and practice. Time is nigh to rethink profit and power jointly to jettison the B-O-T-T-A.

The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune.