Anger is an Energy...

Technorati tags: Anger, Energy, Rise, Music, PiL

It may be that we've not found a way to tap it, say, to heat up your shower water, but anger is definitely an energy.

It's a type of energy that once ignited, is difficult to diffuse. And at this present time, the people are angry about a number of things.

Like the fuel price - but in fact, even if the people don't really realize it, it's not really about the fuel price, per se, that the people are angry about. It's actually anger towards how our economy has been mismanaged, and how accountability has been anything but important. There are much more dire issues than just the fuel price. And that's what the anger really is about, if you peel away the superficial layers of obvious appearance.

And then there's anger about the lack of justice in today's Malaysian society - about how the judiciary has pretty much lost its integrity (or perceived to have, which is equally as damaging). Related to that are the draconian laws, long beyond their useful shelf life, that are still being applied by the government.

One of these is the Internal Security Act, or ISA. It was introduced long before Malaya gained independence from the British, as a means to fight communist insurgency. But it's an unconscienable law, by any measure, and by any religious benchmark imaginable. It goes against the Rule of Law, and in its stead champions a Ruly by Law.

More importantly, it has time and time again been used for one primary purpose - to silence political dissent.

But here's the thing - many of the same people who mindlessly claim that Malaysia is an Islamic nation, actually support the ISA. Even though, in principle, ISA is extremely un-Islamic. These same people may lambast Guantanamo Bay, and the act of imprisonment of people supposedly associated with terrorism. But these same people support the ISA.

Hypocrites, the lot of them. And Walski doesn't need to remind you how Islam views hypocrisy...
(anger, its energy, and more, in the full post)

And when concerned citizens who rise up, non-violently, to oppose inhuman laws like the ISA, face police harassment, the people's anger multiplies.

Perhaps not yet multiplying exponentially, but give it time. And more harassment. Anger, once out of control, however, is not something that's at all pleasant. It can lead to a lot of unnecessary actions.

In doses, though, anger can actually be constructive - like what happened on March 8th, when it was clear that the Malaysian people had just about enough. It was an example where the energy that anger emits was chanelled through a democratic processs.

And let Walski make it clear once and for all, Malaysia limits democracy and processes that are democratic. Like freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of assembly. And for what? For the purpose of perpetuating a status quo, no matter how rotten, or good, that status quo is.

One way the government can diffuse this anger - repeal those laws that put limits on democracy. Like the ISA - don't just review it, trash it once and for all. Only then can you even start to claim to champion Islamic tenets. Until then it's nothing more, and nothing less, than sheer hypocrisy.

Never underestimate the energy that anger can generate, even though we've not found ways to use it light up a bulb. Yet.

Walski ends this somewhat obtuse post with an equally obtuse YouTube music video. SiPM style. If you wish to sing along (and analyze the words), the lyrics can be found here.

Think about it - nothing is being done today to appease the people's anger. Not in any real, tangible or credible sense. What the lay person on the street is hearing sounds like politics, more politics, and on top of that, politics. And what is being done to quell the energy of anger?

Not a lot. The only obvious action is to act against those who are angry, which in turn causes more anger to rise.

And Rise it will....

Walski's bitter PiL musical explanation post footnote: The video clip is from a group called Public Image Ltd (PiL for short), founded by ex-Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon - better known in his SP days as Johnny Rotten. And the song is called "Rise". It is from a line in this song that the title of this post comes from...