Conflation A Political Tool To Muck Things Up

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The AI definition of conflation: the process of combining or fusing separate things into one, often in a way that is inaccurate or misleading.
Surely “conflation” is a strong candidate for becoming the eighth deadly sin, sitting snugly on top of the seven other sins - pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth - all things which we easily relate to in our daily lives.
And before saying another word on “conflation”, I must share what a teacher said to me in primary school: be careful when you point your finger - “tunjuk jari” - at others; the other fingers point back at you.
“And remember, all these fingers share the same hand,” added the wise teacher. It stayed with me all my life. Why did they stop teaching stuff like this in our schools, or was my teacher both all-knowing and prescient?
ADSWhen politicians embrace conflation
To return to conflation, politicians and propagandists take to it like ducks to water, deliberately pulling the wool over our eyes all the way past our noses lest we sniff them out.
And the greater their political ambitions, the more frequently they resort to conflations.
Like when a misdrawn flag is treated as a deliberate act of disloyalty, although it was merely a dumb mistake. Much to the glee of most Malaysians, this deliberate conflation was caught out when the Education Ministry fumbled our dear flag.
How dare they hurt the feelings of a 70-year-old man in the twilight of his loyal years?
Sin Chew Daily’s flag gaffe on its front page, which caused an uproarYou see, one can accuse the ministry of anything from pinching workbook questions to “happily” revising history and to setting the bar low so that with each passing year (pun intended) more and more of our students score straight As but you can never call them disloyal given all their efforts at indoctrination over the years.
So, what should we do with the ministry’s flag boo-boo, even as others have been pilloried and punished for theirs? A witch-hunt is simply out of the question.
In all likelihood, a whole committee of officials sitting around a large, long table in a posh meeting room approved a five-pointed star on our flag.
Apropos of nothing, a collection of witches is called a coven, not a committee.
So I hear they have now launched an investigation. Good lord, how does one investigate a flag boo-boo? How will the findings of this investigation be reported?
In this manner, perhaps: “The oversight function was not carried out properly. Key staff overlooked the importance of our beloved flag. A comprehensive review of our boo-boo standard operating procedures is now being carried out.”
ADSNice try!
Law to punish flag gaffes
Given the pain it has caused us, we should have a new law to severely punish any wrong display of our flag. And since our laws have seldom proved a deterrent to committing a crime, punishment should include wearing a flag-themed uniform in public for a whole year.
On second thoughts, extend this punishment to those convicted of embezzlement, corruption and bribery. Unpatriotic scoundrels, all of them!
Which brings us to this singular fact: conflations can be subtle. Like the use of the term “clean coal”. Yes, coal is dirty in the Third World, but clean elsewhere. Especially in the First World.
There are politicians there, too, who can distort the common man’s perspective and understanding of any issue. Who knows, one day soon, “clean corruption” will be a valid defence in our courts. At least for a discharge not amounting to an acquittal.
A GrabFood delivery rider’s racial slur towards an Indian teacherIt must also be noted that the use of conflation increases with rising political tensions and especially when race and religion take centre stage.
Now, even a delivery rider conflates race with food and frustration. This has come to pass because one of our oldest conflations is the oft-repeated claim that the “immigrant” has “stolen” the wealth of the land, making it look like wealth comes in nicely packaged bundles lying around an undeveloped land that can be picked up and carried away.
That wealth has to be created through hard work and risk-taking, has never been admitted to by our politicians, notwithstanding their knowledge of banking, finance and business.
This vicious conflation, peddled without let-up, has caused brain drain, capital flight and political instability. Also conflated is that only Indians and Chinese are immigrants. Hello, hello, millions of Indonesians are also immigrants!
And likewise in education, “equality of opportunity” is deviously conflated with “equality of outcomes” which ruins the quality of education for the masses especially the poor by lowering passing grades and standards until they are left to compete with some five million immigrant workers from poorer countries and not surprisingly, losing out to them.
Stay vigilant
Another conflation that the political elite bandy about is this: their wealth and success are proof of their abilities and hard work, but the wealth of the “other” is due to exploitation and skullduggery, even as intra-race wealth disparity has increased despite the growing number of economic empowerment programmes and handouts.
These have all been politically conflated to hide the fact that dependency is like a drug and the government, its chief peddler.
I have deliberately kept the most painful conflation for last. To all of us, irrespective of race and religion, our national anthem, “NegaraKu”, means “My Country”. It should never be conflated with the political cry of “Negara Aku”, “This is my country”.
These are two entirely different things and must be kept separate, no matter what.
We must remain vigilant, ever vigilant of conflation! - Mkini
MURALE PILLAI is a former GLC employee. He runs a logistics company.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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