Doubling the Standard Or Double Standard?

Malaysians are very good at complaining. We complain about almost everything in our lives. We complain about people, their race, their existence...

When we complain, what is happening in our minds is that we think that we are right, and others are wrong. We are the knowledgeable and others are ignorant. We are good and others are bad. Never occurs to us that it could be the other way around. As we think of ourselves as perfect and others are not, we pick up the habits of looking at things in double standard.

“For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.”
- Noam Chomsky, Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World

“One person's 'barbarian' is another person's 'just doing what everybody else is doing.”
- Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others

“You cannot negotiate with people who say what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable.” - John F. Kennedy

The quotes above explain the meaning of ‘double standard’ well. In a much proper explaination, ‘double standard’ means application of different sets of principles for similar situations, or by two different people in the same situation.

Unfortunately, this, is always the case with the Malaysians especially, when it comes to politics. Politics to us is all about attacks and defense, about we being right and others being wrong. Therefore we always in the judging ‘mode’ even when there is nothing to judge about.

A light talk about the wet weather could be turned into an attack about the leaders not getting the blessings from God for the heavy rain that flooded the town.

You see, PAS can call UMNO ‘kafir’ because the government is still using the English Common Law which is secular and unIslamic, but PAS vows to uphold the same law if they ever rise to power with PR, and PAS will still be Islamic.

The Chinese can have their own schools and separate their kids from other races, but Malays cannot have UiTM exclusively for Malays because that would spell racism.

The Chinese can advertise job vacancies in their companies stating ‘Chinese Only’ or ‘Mandarin Speaking a Must’ because they pay taxes, but the government MUST open all posts in GLCs, especially the top posts for Chinese with no written or unwritten conditions, or the government will be condemned as ‘marginalizing the minorities’.

BN leaders cannot use jet-planes for travelling because that would mean a waste of tax-payers money, but the Opposition leaders can use jet-planes for election campaigns because that would mean ‘class’.

BN leaders cannot have luxurious cars because that would mean corruption, but Opposition leaders can have as many luxurious cars as they like because that is their rights.

BN cannot afford to allow the slightest weakness in the election process without being threatened by BERSIH who will march down the streets protesting an unfair election, but Oppositions can have their voters missing and untallied ballot papers or unreliable computer system to count the votes, and it will still be a fair party election.

Oppositions can have the water tariff in their ruling states raised up to 100% and still claim themselves to be a ‘concerned government’ but BN cannot raise any tariff without being called a tyrant.

The most recent development is even more interesting whereby the Oppositions just have their leaders salaries increased up to 373% that takes 66.2% of the Selangor state budget, but BN leaders cannot even have their wives buying new handbags.

I was expecting a cry of dissatisfaction or anger from the opposition supporters but I almost choked on my coffee this morning as I noticed how the Oppositions supporters and leaders’ social network are all switched into defense mode automatically as the new salaries were announced.

I mean, what the ....?

Why can’t we see things as it is or say things as it is? Wrong is wrong and it can never be right no matter who did it. Why must we gulp down all the nonsense when we know it doesn’t make sense?

Come on Malaysians! Raise your standard of thinking. Really, there is no ‘standard’ in looking at things in double standard.