OCT 20 — The story of how Damien Hirst became arguably the most well-known name in British contemporary art may sound apocryphal, as it involves a shark, a bag of chips and a tabloid paper.
But it is in fact true. The star of the Young British Artists generation that popped up in the 90s had just only been discovered by ad mogul-turned-art collector Charles Saatchi and was exhibiting without much fanfare as the tabloid press — usually of a tut-tutting sort — were only interested in ridiculing the young 'uns pretensions of being artists.
But a brave young dealer, then still in his 20s, decided to utilise this prejudice by pulling off an audacious stunt to gain publicity for Hirst. Jay Jopling got The Daily Star to bring a bag of chips to Hirst's now iconic shark frozen in formaldehyde, entitled “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living”, and photograph it as the world's most expensive fish 'n chips.
It worked, and publicity flowed in. That particular piece sold for £50,000 (RM290,000) and most recently, a Hirst collection went under the hammer for a whopping £111 million.
What mattered was not whether people actually liked Hirst's work but that he soon became the most talked about artist in Britain. But for this one small intervention, Hirst might have never been, along with dozens of his cohorts.
In this case, what Jopling realised was in the face of a high possibility of negative press, the strategy to employ is not to shy away and clam up but to engage and challenge. It is a lesson that has as yet not been fully understood by Malaysian politicians, save the likes of DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang who has, in times of trouble, issued stern challenges to his Pakatan Rakyat (PR) colleagues to buck up and prove that the fledgling alliance is capable of cooperating as a plausible governing coalition.
Instead, de facto PKR leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and many of his colleagues continue to blame the media for fanning flames of dissent in PR, a line that is getting more and more tired and unconvincing as time goes by.
The idea that PR has the ability to govern at federal level is still not fully coalesced in the minds of the public. A poll conducted by the independent Merdeka Center from Sept 29-Oct 4 showed 47 per cent of registered voters in Peninsular Malaysia were unconvinced PR was a viable alternative to BN while only 32 per cent are convinced.
The solution to this, is not to shy away or deflect the issue when asked on matters of policy, but to actually have a concrete idea of what you stand for. This is the reason why Malaysians have been calling for PR to set up its shadow Cabinet and also why the response to its shadow "committees" has been lukewarm.
The appointment of actual shadow — a bit of a misnomer since shadows are supposed to offer opposing policy ideas instead of just following suit — ministers would have been a signal that yes, PKR, DAP and PAS can engage in power-sharing and share similar policies despite different ideologies.
But if PR really believes its committees are the way forward, then one must expect them to start giving us proposals and alternatives instead of just punching holes in Barisan Nasional's ideas.
The recent anti-Internal Security Act (ISA) protest was a good example. For all that PR has been trying to rally political support against the draconian law in the past two years, it has not yet offered a viable policy with regards to internal security.
A hypothetical press conference would usually see opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim giving us very eloquent reasons why the ISA should be repealed. But yet, he has never offered a plausible way of preventing terrorist activities, which was what the law was put in place for. In the post-9/11 world, it is simply not practical to say that any detention without trial should be disallowed — although the sentiment and principle is a good one — as it would severely affect international relations.
If it means proposing a newly-worded law that would ensure that it would not be abused for political purposes, then the obvious followup question would be — how is this different from what Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is hoping to do with a review of the ISA? Both would be, at this point, mere promises.
Yet it is unfair to simply accuse Anwar of dodging the issue. In all that time, no reporter has really put the question to him. Just as PR leaders are happy not to have to actually think beyond the scope of attacking BN policies, reporters too have been lackadaisical — as this means actually being well-versed in alternative policies themselves.
Parliament reopens today and, of course, there is the not insignificant Budget 2010 that has to be tabled, in the midst of an uphill climb out of the recession. PR's alternative budget last year was a good start but it must surely present something more concrete and holistic this time around instead of just trying to score political points.
But above and beyond that, it must also start proposing drafts of new laws and alternatives to Bills that are presented by BN in the House. And yes, you can start by telling us what you will do once you get rid of the ISA.
Is it prepared to do this while also being busy trying to fight fires in its own coalition? Well, someone — be it reporter or politician — has to do a Jay Jopling and find out once and for all, for the sake of Malaysia.
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The question of an alternative is predicated on one assumption: that the ISA is actually needed and performs a non-overlapping function.
Why not just rely on existing laws on detention (that are subject to judicial review) and perhaps strengthen it a little, i.e. lengthen detention times (but only by a little) and decrease the threshold for justifying detention of suspected terrorists, but not remove the need for the presentation of sufficient grounds.
A lot of people would certainly argue that the ISA is needed, because we have no alternatives. I say that there is no need for an alternative at all, because there is no concrete evidence that the ISA actually reduces or hinders terrorism relative to a situation where it doesn't exist.
cheers