Being Low Class

I find it particularly interesting that people are strangely selective when it comes to defining things.  I posted an excerpt of my post-election conversation with a friend, something perfectly normal, that described more or less what we had been thinking, and there was no name calling involved at all.

The Opposition types accused me of being racist in that posting, I was more or less told to grow up and to move on, and some diverted it to somehow make it into an Umno treachery against Ghani and a Ghani treachery against the Malays.

But the majority of the comments reflected that Mimi and I were not alone.

For the past months ever since I started writing here regularly, I have been called the most degrading things, insulted in so many personal ways, with comments that are full of incoherent hatred against Umno/BN without a single statement from the Opposition types that showed any kind of restraint or maturity.

And yet, with the continuous attacks, unabated even after the conclusion of GE13, isn't it really strange that people like me are not expected to be affected by the continuous heapings of scorn and derision, most of it personal in nature?

I especially couldn't stand the snide remarks being made against government servants, the police, and the country, some disguised as jokes.  It was seriously unfunny to me.  It wasn't just the politicians that they hated, it was everyone associated with the government.  They also saw nothing wrong with their degrading remarks about the Malays, the Indians and especially the Mamaks.

The worst part of the Opposition propaganda machinery is their total rejection of differing opinions and values, a totalitarian ideology, feeding off emotions and perceptions, as opposed to logic and reasoning, one that will resort to name-calling and diversionary hate-filled rantings if met with resistance it couldn't neutralise.

It reflects a shared worldview that is fueled by their high opinion of themselves, while differing opinions and values are not worthy of their respect, hence, game for abuse and derision.  Whereas they expect everyone to give them complete, unrestrained freedom to express themselves however they wish to vent their hatred and anger, they will not tolerate anyone else to have differing views and opinions.

These bullies are supposed to be the educated middle-class urbanites, and yet they displayed a complete lack of breeding, devoid of rational consideration for others and severely in need of self-reflection.

 I find them and their types distasteful in the extreme, that I am glad I have been labelled by them as low class (can't help but wonder if there is an inferred uneducated kampung bumpkin in that label too), because I would hate to be considered in the same class as them, middle-class urbanites.

Besides, I have greater affinity with the kampung folks in rural Johor, the much derided supposedly uneducated non-urbanites, than I have had with many of my so-called middle-class acquaintances that I used to hang out with.

The Opposition Pact share two things in common, extremism and a single common enemy.  They used whatever means to destroy this common enemy.  Whatever differences they might have are no longer important.  It is a commonality based on hatred for Umno, the object of their destructive effort all these while, everything else is considered collateral damage.

Hence, it is most ironic that post-GE13, Umno within BN became stronger, with the Bumiputra rallying around BN, in the face of the Pakatan onslaught that have practically decimated BN's non-Bumiputra coalition members.