Tainted silver ain't no silver bullet

Name me an emperor who was ever struck by a cannonball

- Charles V

Malaysiakini - 'Tuanku, you've disappointed us'.

In numerous posts I had warned of the dangers of over-relying on royalty for our political solutions, or inviting them to step deeper into the political arena, to intervene directly in the nation’s politics.

One of the more recent posts was Bismarck: The king reigns but does not govern, where I wrote:

… Malaysiakini published Raja Nazrin: Rulers will not act on wrong advice.

Instead of rejoicing that we may be getting some so-called royal ‘check & balance’, au contraire I was filled with dread. I have not been impressed in the least by HRH's speech.

The democracy of Malaysia, warts and all, already has a system of ‘check & balance’, which admittedly didn’t work too well until recently, but then, when it didn’t work well, where were the royalty? […]

Whoever, whichever, whatever, our political reawakening and enjoyment of a more liberal political environment have been attained without any help from royalty! Not an iota! None whatsoever!

They were deafeningly silent when they should have spoken out, but now, like us they too are flexing their own Mahathirised-atrophied muscles in the changed socio-political environment, and reinventing their role in and relevance to society, to enhance their personal status and claw back their stripped down power. […]

Needless to say, I have never been impressed by the royalty's act dunno during our times of need. To be fair, I hadn't even expected any help from them, but what grated on my nerves had been the stupid cries for royalty to help us as if that would happen and automatically solve our political problems .

Some saw the royalty as our political saviour, and went about promoting and egging the rulers to intrude into the political world to ‘rescue’ the people from Darth Vader. Alas, we should have been familiar with the story of Darth Vader, shouldn’t we?

Those royals were even considered as the ‘silver bullets’ to kill the UMNO werewolf.

Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK) had been one of those ardent promoters of royal political interventionism. I wasn’t all that surprised that RPK had done so, he being a member of a royal family. In his writing, we read frequently of his (coincidental of course) slipping into exaltations of his granddad being Tun Raja (Sir) Uda, and boasting of his cousin the Sultan and his kinship with this and that royal house.

But where were the royalty when we needed them?

Some years ago the Perak Mufti had nearly caused an ugly incident of seditious proportion? Now that was a State religious issue, unlike this year's sacking of an insubordinate Director of JAIP by the Perak MB. So ........?

That Perak Mufti is still around, but MB Nizar has been sacked by HRH. Well ........?

RPK has been one of the principal, if not the principal, promoter of royalty during the last 18 months of political awareness. Further down in this post you'll be directed to read what he has said re the Perak saga.

In The dangers of royal political activism I wrote:

We shouldn’t rejoice that AAB had his ass whipped nicely by royalty because those royalty must not interfere with the decision making of the PM, the people’s choice of a national leader selected in accordance with our democratic process.

It’s hypocritical to talk about democratic process when we cheer processes that haven't been politically correct just because those processes have gone against a disliked person.

Another lamentable example had been the Perak Sultan's undermining of Perak MB Nizar’s authority by rescinding the latter’s sacking of the State religious director.

One visitor even attempted to intimidate me, a Chinese Malaysian but nonetheless (in his eyes) a mere Chinese, of stepping over the line by raising alarms about (unelected) royalty interfering with (people’s elected) political leadership, as if I wasn’t/am not a Malaysian?

Anyway on to our dear monarchist RPK - so, when RPK’s adoring fans wrote to him to lend his voice to the Pakatan Rakyat’s cause in Perak, what did Mr Promote-Royalty say? Read here for his response.

Anything about HRH’s much criticised action/decisions (criticised by lawyers, not just laypeople like us)?

Anything about Anwar Ibrahim's disgraceful conduct of promoting froggies that led to this sorry state in the Silver State?

Oh no, according to RPK, it’s all DAP's and PAS' faults.

Don’t worry, RPK knows kaytee is one bloke who doesn’t fall into line (or fall over the cliff mindlessly like lemmings).

I don’t hate anyone (not even Anwar Ibrahim) and I don't attack anyone for no reason wakakaka, so RPK knows what I have written here has been done without silly irrational emotion (like those clowns begging this or that Tuanku to intervene on their behalf, aiyah keep dreaming on lah) or animosity. I just write what I see and analyse, and he knows these are not all that wrong.

To end this post, some lessons from kaytee:

Lesson 1 – royalty has a constitutional role but their members aren’t angels or saviours of the rakyat

Lesson 2 - don’t ever ever allow constitutional monarchy more than the role the Constitution has limited them to

Lesson 3 – respect royalty as per the Constitution but don’t forget history, past and recent, about the behaviour, action and conduct of royalty

Lesson 4 – be more appreciative of what Dr Mahathir (alone of all PMs) had done to clip some of the royalty wings

Lesson 5 – in a democracy like Malaysia, there are only 2 things that may be considered as possessing ‘supremacy’:

(a) The supremacy of the Malaysian Constitution

(b) The supremacy of the people’s voice

Related:
(1) Rulers no 'Silver Bullet'
(2) Dr Wan Azizah, rethink your promise of legal immunity for royalty