Watching Paranoia Agent always gives me the willies, and watching that last episode again just left me with a tinge of worry. It’s funny, because I actually do love the premise behind this particular anime series - especially its timely examination of a unique brand of infantilism that seems to infect chibi-ness. What always gets me, though, is the mania that some characters display just before a visitation from Shounen Bat. Mania, the wide eyed, joker-smile on the face, signifying an end to reason - the “snap!” in the head that signals one’s stepping over the line. It feels inhuman and yet so human at the same time - the urge to throw one’s consciousness to the winds and devolve into a beast with claws and sharp teeth, gibbering and slavering in the dark. Primal, rabid and unreal.
Maybe that is why I fear the mob so much; in groups, people devolve into something else, reminding me that everyone is capable of this mania. And especially so when people are pushed into a corner. Watching the clips on Malaysiakini.tv made me wonder again just how much the Indian community would take before the actions of the heartless few drive them over the edge. Would there be burning mosques and suraus? A part of me feels that more radical elements of UMNO are hoping for a conflagration, if only to prove the superiority of the Malays to a new generation of Malaysians. If the temple demolitions were a way of establishing Khir Toyo’s credentials as an ultra-nationalist, they couldn’t have come at a worst time - just days before Deepavali, with Indians still smarting over previous temple demolitions a few months back. All I can say is, push the Indian community into a corner and things will go badly for everyone.
Speaking of the general assembly, I wasn’t surprised that there was be no live telecast this time ’round; reception was so bad to the previous live telecast of the assembly that only someone insane would insist of subjecting the Malaysian public to another round of discrimination, threats and warning. It is true what they say: give some people enough rope and they’ll hang themselves. The live telecast of the previous assembly was proof of the stark, plain truth: that UMNO asssemblymen and women were basically racists hiding behind the veil of nationalism. Chauvanism, bigotry - everything on display. It gave non-Malays an idea of what really went on behind the scenes - and in contrast with general assemblies of other parties, I bet it should have really driven home the singular fact of UMNO’s inability to maintain even a facade of inter-ethnic cooperation.
The irony cut especially deep when Badawi recently declared that Malays did not have to feel inferior to other races. It’s just the sort of thing a tok guru would say, I suppose. The reality, however, is that it is this same inferiority complex that compels UMNO members to make pronouncements about blood and kerises.