PALEHEM
I wrote in my Facebook page,
“I'm thinking of starting a new political party with the
acronym PLHM or PALEHEM - Parti Lelaki Hensem Malaysia (Handsome Men’s Party of Malaysia). Anyone interested?”
I got a decent number of comments. Some of my friends
thought it was amusing, some thought it was funny, some thought it was absurd
and the rest thought it was silly. None apparently saw the sarcasm in what I
wrote.
If this party was to come into existence, it would have the
following characteristics:
1.
It would be an actual political party.
2.
It would be for men only.
3.
It would be only for handsome men.
For these reasons, there were those who said it would be
sexist, unfair, conceited and more. These would be true but, really, would that
be anything new in our political arena? It is after all called an “arena” for a
good reason.
Would PALEHEM be a real political party. If we register it
to the relevant authority, it will be. After all, A political party really need
to complete a few basic requirements to become a real political party:
1.
It needs a constitution which can be “borrowed”
from somewhere on the internet and amended to suit its purpose. After all, isn’t
that what many students try to do these days. And, unlike assignments, I doubt
they put party constitutions into the Turnitin program to check for plagiarism.
2.
It needs people to follow and support it. This
should not be too hard, after all if there are people willing to follow a guy
follow a guy who tried to find a missing airplane with two coconut, bamboo
rods, a paddle and a mat, there will be people who will follow anything,
passionately even.
3.
It needs financial support. This might be a little
harder but not too much so, I think. All we need to do is spin a good story,
tap into their insecurities and that will do it. It should also not be too
hard. For example, there is a guy who said a couple of decades ago that if he
were to run for office he would run as a Republican candidate because their
supporters are stupid and he said it on television. Today, that guy is the
American president.
From my observation, I think the problem is that we,
collectively, still entertain the notion that the name of a political party reflects
what they are and their “real” agendas. Think about it.
1.
We have entities with the name of a group (ethnic,
race, persuasion, whatever else) in their name but they exploit the very same
group in the name of their own interest.
2.
We have entities with the universal ideals in
their name but behave in ways that demonstrate that they probably have no idea
what that ideal means unless it applies to their own.
3.
We have
entities that have the name of a political concept in their name but their
actions demonstrate that they have very loose interpretations of the concept
when it comes to their actions.
4.
We have entities that have the name of religions
in their name but their actions would sometimes send you scrambling to the
religion’s scriptures to check if the religion would allow such deeds.
So, if PALEHEM would come into being, it would purport to be
a party which would fight for the rights and benefits of the following people:
1.
People who identify with being men, regardless
of their actual physical, psychological and emotional gender.
2.
People who identify with being handsome,
regardless of the actual aesthetic value of their outward appearance in the eye
of others around them. After all, don’t the motivational books say that it is
how you feel about yourself that really counts?
Where did this come from? You might ask.
I was listening to the news reporting the antics of our
political readers when I suddenly remembered the name of a party that is, in my
opinion, the most honest and accurately reflects their political attitude: The
Monster Raving Loony Party - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_Party
Perhaps we do need a political party of this nature because
if we do, then our minds would not have to do double or triple somersaults
every time we need to wrap it around our party’s deeds and decisions.
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