Doing it the Malaysian way

March 27, 2019| SPORTSCARDBLOGS| 0 Comment

Is internet a democratizing technology? Or is it first and foremost a
tool for dictators to further control their populations? In a recently
published article I used extensive quantitative research to demonstrate that increasing
internet use has led to more protests in authoritarian regimes. However,
although increasing use of the internet has facilitated mobilization, other research indicates that the existence of the internet has not contributed to the
democratisation of authoritarian
states. How to make sense of that? The authoritarian regime of Malaysia
illustrates how the internet can enable collective action without truly
threatening an authoritarian system.

Ever since independence in 1957 the same ruling coalition, Barisan
Nasional (BN), has been in power in Malaysia. Strict control over the
traditional media has always been an important pillar of its rule. However,
when the internet became available to a wider public in the late 1990’s the
Malaysian government promised not to
censor the internet, in order to attract foreign investment. At the time, this
was not seen as a huge political concession: there was no ‘dictators’ dilemma’.
Internet was understood in purely economic and not political terms. Also very
few Malaysians had access to the web: it was not perceived as a mass medium and
hence not threatening.

The political ‘tsunami’ in 2008 led to
a different view of the BN government regarding cyberspace. For the first time
since independence it lost its two third majority in parliament and nearly all
commentators acknowledged that the internet had been very important for the success
of the opposition. In the years before the elections the vast majority of the
Malaysians entered a cyberspace where they were exposed to information that
would never see the light of day in the national newspapers, or on television
and radio channels. Learning about government wrongdoings like corruption
scandals or human rights abuses, Malaysians’ perceptions of the BN government
gradually changed, and it was this that impacted greatly on the polls in 2008. Even
the
prime minister at the time admitted that the government had lost the online battle.
He said: “We didn’t think it was
important. It was a serious misjudgment. We thought that the newspapers, the
print media, the television were important, but young people were looking at
text messages and blogs”.

Since
this wake-up call, the government has been much more active in cyberspace. Online
dissidents have been increasingly persecuted, with bloggers who dig into scandals
around the Prime Minister as well as netizens ‘insulting’ the Malaysian royalty
or Islam often enough ending up behind bars. In addition, state resources have
been invested in cybertroopers to influence public opinion, critical online
websites have been blocked or are facing distributed denial-of-service attacks,
and the government is known to possess sophisticated surveillance
software.

Our
traditional thinking on authoritarian regimes suggests that the primary goal of
all these measures in the online realm
is to suppress any further collective action against the state. More than
anything else, we expect dictators to fear the threat ‘from below’. Very much in
line with this is the finding that
the Chinese authorities’ online censorship targets first and foremost content
with a collective action potential.

In
the Malaysian case however, the story is different. As a matter of fact, the
Malaysian government does not censor online calls for collective action, nor
does it immediately persecute activists that openly call for a protest. Why
not?

The
Malaysian regime is certainly technically capable of implementing ‘just-in-time’
blockings, to jail more online dissidents, or to modify its censorship more in
accordance with the Chinese system. The fact that the BN coalition does not target
online mobilization attempts also does not tell us that Malaysia is ‘not so
authoritarian’. A glimpse at what the Malaysian state is doing in cyberspace
nowadays is enough to conclude that the authorities are seriously undermining
citizens’ access to alternative information.

But the
strategy not to crack down on internet-enabled protest is a deliberate one and
the explanation for it is very simple. Even though demonstrations are a
nuisance for the authorities, they are not truly endangering the survival of
the regime. Anti-government protests and authoritarian sustainability are often
imagined to be fundamentally incompatible. The Malaysian example shows that it
is not.

The
2008 election results demonstrated that exposure to alternative online
information had led to an increased political awareness among the Malaysian urban
middle classes. This not only manifested itself at the polls but also in the
streets and squares. The Malaysian middle classes and especially the Bersih
movement – demanding clean and fair elections – have taken to the streets on a frequent basis
and been successful in attracting hundreds of thousands of protestors to these demonstrations.
When these urban middle classes take to the streets they scream some slogans
and take a few selfies. Yet after an afternoon of protesting they prefer to go
home and have nice meal rather than staying in the streets for much longer.

Without
discrediting their grievances in any kind of way, it is clear that these
protestors are dissatisfied but not nearly desperate enough to truly threaten
the Malaysian political system. An activist I interviewed, remarked:
“Malaysians are way too comfortable with the status-quo. If you had a week-long
protest, the PM might do something. If you just protest for two days, it's not
gonna do anything”.

From
BN’s perspective, there is no point in worrying too much about these folks
taking to the streets. A majority of the crowd is opposition-voter anyway, and
repressing them – online or offline – can only impact negatively on a domestic and
international audience. Allowing protests can even count as good publicity for
the regime. Ironically, by showing that protest is perfectly possible in
Malaysia, demonstrations for more democracy become ‘proof’ of the democratic
character of the country.

If
not to prevent online mobilization, why then is the regime increasingly active
in cyberspace? In order to survive, the BN coalition tries to prevent the
electoral tsunami of 2008 from flooding the whole country. It does so not
through winning back the hearts and minds of the middle class urbanites, nor in
keeping them from the streets. BN knows this is a lost battle. Instead, BN’s
primary job is to keep the rural Malaysians on board through extensive systems
of patronage and cooptation, but also by reaching out to them online. Many
rural communities have access to internet nowadays, yet whereas the middle
class urbanites entered an opposition-dominated virtual world, the youngest
Malaysian netizens have entered a crowded cyberspace.

The
BN government not only frustrates the online activities of the opposition and civil
society, but tries to communicate pro-actively its message on the internet. Most
importantly, it started doing online what it has been doing in the traditional
press for decades: playing ‘the racial card’. Malaysia is an ethnically divided
country with a majority of Muslim Malays and large Chinese and Indian
minorities. BN – a multi-ethnic pact – has ever since its foundation constantly
stirred up tensions between different ethnic groups, only to present itself as
the sole moderate alternative that can preserve the fragile racial harmony in
the country.

As an
illustration, the large Bersih demonstrations – demanding clean and fair
elections – have constantly been bad-mouthed by the authorities as an attempt by
the Chinese to take over the country. In addition, with every street protest
against the BN coalition, the authorities tactically bring up the 13 May 1969
incident, when election-demonstrations ended in deadly ethnic riots.

Freedom
online until the political ‘earthquake’ in 2008 played an extremely important
role in making the substantial middle classes aware of the unfair political
system in the country, as well as the BN’s divide-and-rule tactics. They no
longer buy into their ethnic fearmongering. The lower-class, rural Malaysians
however, are still very susceptible to BN’s messages. It is this group – and
primarily their votes – that most concerns the BN. Traditionally they have reached
and convinced these people through television, newspapers and radio. But ever
since the wake-up call of 2008, and with more and more Malaysians online, BN is
now well aware that cyberspace is an important battleground. So, while they
might not bother to prevent the middle classes in Kuala Lumpur from organizing
collective action, they do make sure that the rural population continues to believe
that not supporting Barisan Nasional would lead to ethnic clashes and chaos.