masterwordsmith-unplugged: Is Anomie Here to Stay? Reverse Takeover?

Is Anomie Here to Stay? Reverse Takeover?

Posted by Unknown On Monday, May 6, 2013 1 comments

I have not updated by blog till now because I am, like many like-minded Malaysians both near and far, outraged and in deep grief because of how our country has been raped beyond recognition (as so eloquently expressed by my dear friend Stephen Tan Ban Cheng in THIS POST.

It hurts and pains me to even think about the events before and after 5.5.13.

To write about it is akin to open heart surgery minus anaesthetics.

I changed my Facebook profile photo to this one because I felt all topsy turvy within, as if the music of hope playing within my soul had turned discordant...upside down treble clef, quavers and other musical notes out of synch with each other...

My very old friend - Rev David Loo was the first to respond and he said:

Indeed, there STILL shall be Music despite the darkness, the Music of a New Dawn yet to burst...

To which I responded:

Thanks, Pastor David. I do agree with you that we must never lose hope that a new dawn will descend on this land. In a country where music of different ethnic groups harmonised in beautiful synchrony, today, discordance and cacophony abounds as voices of discontent swell vocalizing the outrage within their hearts. I believe, however, one day, all that discordance will 'poco rit' into joy and thanksgiving for all that this nation has had to endure....May God bless Malaysia and Malaysians with true democracy.

Another friend wrote:

Danse Macabre !!!

My response:

......to remind us of the fragility of life...the vain glories of life sought after by the Darth Vaders of this world will fizzle into nothingness when justice prevails.

Sometimes, words are not enough because our pain, disappointment, anger etc cannot be verbalised, vocalised because within, we are just too traumatized. But hope must never die within us as long as we are alive. Justice WILL prevail.

I am not going to echo what others have expressed so eloquently or passionately but I just want to emphasize the complete absence of core values in many segments of our society.

That we have progressed into a nation where some lack or have no scruples at all about cheating others or to defy what is morally and legally correct is shameful.

What are the younger ones learning from us?

In an ambiance of hatred, lambasting, criticizing one another etc. hatred is festering dangerously.

Seriously, many if not all, have to look at how messages are being framed. In our eagerness for change, have we forgotten important social mores, honour, respect and integrity?

The ability and desire to respect one another must be there for us to live in harmony.

The willingness to do what is right, the courage to face the voice of the rakyat and for those who are in the force to preserve law and order or any organization - the willingness to do what is right and to stand up what we know in our hearts is right - must be there.

Otherwise, whatever we tell whichever God we believe in would be empty clanging symbals.

Meaningless overtures that seem to have minor functional value.

Anomie would set in.

Normlessness.

Hopelessness.

And we will eventually see how when the moral fibre of society has been ripped apart by greed, we will wither away...and the framework of what used to be a nation that all can be proud of is but the shadow of a page in history.

Has anomie crept into our society?

Will we be witnessing the reverse takeover of our country one day when illegals can be given identity cards and the right to vote when they have none?

According to Durkheim:

Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, introduced the concept of anomie in his book The Division of Labor in Society, published in 1893. He used anomie to describe a condition of deregulation that was occuring in society. This meant that rules on how people ought to behave with each other were breaking down and thus people did not know what to expect from one another. Anomie, simply defined, is a state where norms (expectations on behaviors) are confused, unclear or not present. It is normlessness, Durkheim felt, that led to deviant behavior. In 1897, Durkheim used the term again in his study on Suicide, referring to a morally deregulated condition. Durkheim was preoccupied with the effects of social change. He best illustrated his concept of anomie not in a discussion of crime but of suicide. More HERE

He believed that anomie is common when the surrounding society has undergone significant changes in its economic fortunes, whether for good or for worse and, more generally, when there is a significant discrepancy between the ideological theories and values commonly professed and what was actually achievable in everyday life. This is contrary to previous theories on suicide which generally maintained that suicide was precipitated by negative events in a person's life and their subsequent depression.

In Durkheim's view, traditional religions often provided the basis for the shared values which the anomic individual lacks. Furthermore, he argued that the division of labor that had been prevalent in economic life since the Industrial Revolution led individuals to pursue egoistic ends rather than seeking the good of a larger community. Robert King Merton also adopted the idea of anomie to develop Strain Theory, defining it as the discrepancy between common social goals and the legitimate means to attain those goals. In other words, an individual suffering from anomie would strive to attain the common goals of a specific society yet would not be able to reach these goals legitimately because of the structural limitations in society. As a result the individual would exhibit deviant behavior. Friedrich Hayek notably uses the word anomie with this meaning.

MORE HERE.

In closing, I would like to share an old article I wrote on 8th August 2011. I am reposting it again here because I really wonder if it was divine revelation that made me write this:

Giving New Meaning to Reverse Takeover by Masterwordsmith

In mid-November last year, Pauline Hanson, the Australian politician noted for her anti-immigration outbursts, has said she is abandoning plans to move to Britain because “it’s overrun with immigrants and refugees.” She went on to say that France is becoming filled with Muslims and that the French and English are losing their way of life because they’re controlled by foreigners. That scenario could well happen in our own backyard at the rate things are going.

Today, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) lawmakers demanded an emergency sitting of Parliament over claims that 1,600 foreigners had been given citizenship and voting rights, claiming that if left unchecked it would erode Malaysia’s constitutional monarchy.

PAS vice-president Datuk Mahfuz Omar rationalized that the permanent residents who were being given “express” citizenship and voting rights “would not appreciate our royalty as we do.” And why?

RPK's latest post Upsetting the Ecological Balance gives the answer:

But the new (post-Merdeka) immigrants into Malaysia do not face death in their country. They do not owe Malaysia their lives. They are merely ‘economic refugees’. It’s all about money. Their loyalty is to money, not to Malaysia.

Those are the types of people we are giving ‘instant citizenship’ to. And in time we shall realise the folly of this immigration policy.

They have no memories of the British Colonial era. They have no memories of the Japanese occupation. They have no memories of Merdeka. They have no memories of the Emergency. They have no memories of the creation of Malaysia. They have no memories of the Konfrontasi with Indonesia. They have no memories of May 13. They have no memories of anything at all that Malaysians hold dear. They are here only for the money.

So where do these people’s loyalty lie? Certainly not where our loyalties lie because they do not share our culture and value system. They are only loyal to the Ringgit and as long as the Ringgit is there they will become ‘true Malaysians’. However, once the Ringgit is no longer there, they would not care two hoots about Malaysia.

What Malaysia could have on its hands is a time-bomb ticking its way to a socio-economic disaster. The prevailing situation is somewhat like a Reverse Takeover whereby you acquire something and then what has been acquired ends up owning you instead!! In short, the hunter has now become the HUNTED!!!

Note also, in the corporate world, a 30% stake in a public enterprise is as good as a controlling stake. So beware. If you think you will limit this exercise to only 30%, it may end up with you losing control.

According to The Malaysian Insider, PR had also claimed that 1,108 permanent residents in the Klang Valley were given the status of full citizens on August 2 alone, and ridiculed the notion that over 1,000 identity cards were issued within a day.

Most alarmingly, PAS vice-president Salahuddin Ayub also showed documents claiming that between 1.06pm and 2.30pm on August 2, three voters had their status changed from permanent residents to citizens “in the blink of an eye.” The Kubang Kerian MP said that the information was downloaded from the NRD website itself and we have a total of 1,597 cases across the country. These are official statistics. What about the dark figure then? (The dark figure represents the discrepancy between actual statistics and those that are not reported.)

Personally, many perceive this is the tip of the iceberg. In my post on Immigrants and Emigrants - Facts and Figures, I wrote:

Strangely, this site shows that the population trend in Malaysia in on an increasing trend and is slightly over 27 million in 2008.

Compare this chart with the tables in the earlier links. Judge for yourself. I am sure the statistics are available but how come the net migration rate is unavailable? How come the population pattern is on the increase in the light of the statistics for birth rate, death rate and the absence of net migration rate for the country?

Just who are leaving and WHO ARE COMING IN???? Can someone kindly explain the demographic pattern??

Clearly, the Pakatan lawmakers and RPK are on the right track in highlighting this impending doomsday scenario awaiting Malaysians. We can talk till the cows come home about 1Malaysia and unity/harmony and all that jazz but if the gene pool of the population is in imbalance, what will happen? Obviously, they will not be loyal citizens.

There is a high probability that Durkheim's anomie will occur here. Anomie is a term meaning "personal feeling of a lack of social norms; normlessness". It describes the breakdown of social norms and values arising from a mismatch between personal or group standards and wider social standards, or from the lack of a social ethic, which produces moral deregulation and an absence of legitimate aspirations.

When immigrants outnumber the original host population, social cohesiveness might be at stake. The social system may then decay into a state of anomie. By then, common values and common meanings are no longer understood or accepted, and new values and meanings have not developed.

For Malaysia to develop, we need citizens with a sense of belonging. Why are we chasing our own bona fide CITIZENS (whom some have called pendatang or prostitutes) and letting the first world countries welcome them to contribute to their economies while we place the welcome mat for third world brawn to come in? Worse still, we have those who call themselves citizens who call the authorities to strip some noble citizens of their citizenship! They are well fed and fat!

With absolutely no sense of belonging (normlessness/alienated state), would such citizens care what happens to Malaysia? Their hearts are still with their homeland! Mercenary in nature, they would only care for money. After all, that was why they came in the first place.

The lack of unity will tear the nation apart. If after over half a century of independence, and we still have diatribes almost daily, how can we expect foreign migrants to come in and gel with the population? The nons generally stay away and have been working hard for a future, for a government that does not take care of them. Even so, unity is lacking. What more with migrants?

Take a look at what happened in London recently. Note that the riots happened in the poor section of London where many migrants live.

CLICK HERE for the rest of the post on Giving New Meaning to Reverse Takeover.

Unfortunately, 5/5/13 has shown us that voting wisely is NOT enough. Then what else is there for us to do but pray and be ready with all kinds of contingency plans to foil election fraud!

This is currently my FB cover photo...to tell the world that as for me and my household, even though the tune may currently sound cacophonic and discordant now, the notes blurred, we will not quell that song to proclaim that one day, true democracy will reign in this my beloved Malaysia.