Philip George
Malaysiakini
Aug 28th, 2015
COMMENT Being a politician is like playing a game. This is especially so in developing countries, where politicians have the ability to shape the history of a nation and determine how it may progress in the future.
Therefore, the use of rhetoric by leaders trying to persuade and garner support of the public, so that they may be able to implement their vision, is part of the game. But as the times have changed, so much the rhetoric used to convince the populace who have entrusted their futures and the future generations into the hands of an elected few.
Rhetoric can no longer be used in the same way it has been in the past. This lesson is noticeably being learnt in Malaysia.
With a growing urban population strengthened by the extension of 21st Century media, Malaysia is showing gradual signs of an evolving participatory democracy, vaguely resembling the evolution of the British democracy in the 19th Century. Continue reading “The politics of division – a Malaysian rhetoric”