Quantum leap to cyberspace: the quest for societal transformation
Mazalan Kamis, Institut Aminuddin Baki, Malaysia
Mazanah Muhamad, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
Paper presented at SCUTREA, 31st Annual Conference, 3-5 July 2001, University of East London
JAY was on his way to a beach resort to attend a conference-meeting at a leading hotel. He was traveling alone, driving his car along the Federal Motorway with the radio switched on. The 6 o'clock news came on air and one item caught Jay's attention. Suddenly Jay experienced a sudden convulsion. He pulled over, he could not continue with the driving. No, Jay was not having an upset stomach, but rather the news item that caused him to halt his driving.
'It's too preposterous ... How could they lie to the people? You lie to me, that's the lowest that they could go to destroy that man ...' Jay said relating his experienced to the first author. Jay was not alone. He was among thousands of other Malaysians who were affected in one way or another by the events that unfolded in the aftermath of the economic turmoil besieging Malaysia and other Asian nations in the late 1990's.
In this paper, we report parts of the findings of the ongoing study to examine the perspective transformation of selected individuals following the economic crisis. Eight individuals have been interviewed, as we sought to explore and understand the journey they took in transforming their mind-set. Malaysian were generally perceived to be very obedient, would not like to question, and follow orders of their superiors or elders (Shemerhorn 1994). But the eight young, urban, and educated Malays involved in this study projected different images of Malaysians. Unique conditions such as better education and technological advancement could affect the way Malaysian learnt and changed their mind-set. For a better understanding of this development, the next two paragraphs provide the context to the study.
Malaysia is located in South East Asia, with neighbors Thailand to the north, and Singapore to the south. Kuala Lumpur, located in a valley, the Klang Valley, is the capital of Malaysia. The Klang Valley boasts of excellent physical infrastructures, comparable to that of cities of the developed nations. Blessed with rich natural and primary resources, Malaysia is at an advantageous economic position compare to other developing nations in its league. British colonialism contributed to the ethnically heterogeneous population of Malaysia (Gomez and Jomo 1991) which now comprises of about 60% Malay, 30% Chinese, and 10% Indian. The highly ethnicised economy (Baharuddin 1994) blew into the 1969 racial riot, which led to the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP), the move to restructure the economy for more equitable distribution. This marked the first government intervention in the economy and hence subsequent political patronage over the business sector (Gomezand Jomo 1999). Additionally, political parties in Malaysia are also ethnically based, and they encourage ethnic political mobilization and consciousness. The United Malay National Organization (UMNO) along with other ethnically based political parties formed the National Front (previously known as the Alliance), the ruling coalition that has ruled Malaysia since Independence. Despite the regular multiparty elections, Malaysia's political system is described as authoritarian (Gomez and Jomo 1999), semiauthoritarian (Crouch 1992), semi-democratic (Case 1993), or quasi-democratic (Ahmad 1989).
After years of remarkable rates of economic growth, Malaysia, along with other Asia's economic tigers, suffered their worst economic crisis inthe late 1990s with collapsing currencies and a plunging stock market (OTN 1998). The crisis brought with it a social, economic, and political turmoil that shook many facets of life in the effected countries. The Malaysian government responded by introducing currency control, rescuing companies from total collapse, and restructuring the financial sectors. The crisis also brought about the sacking of the then Deputy Prime Minister, triggering waves of unrest in the Klang Valley and other parts of the country.
We conducted, and audio taped, in-depth interviews that ranged from 30 minutes to one hour. The interviews were transcribed verbatim. The snowballing technique was employed to get to the informants as such technique is appropriate since the study touches on issues deemed sensitive in the country. For the purpose of this paper, themes related to the internet were extracted and placed in separate files for analysis. Brochures, newsletters, magazines and internet homepages related to the economic, social and political development in the country were also used in the analysis. The data showed that the eight individuals leapt onto the cyberspace as they traveled through the process of transforming their perspectives. In this paper, we traced the journey of these informants to uncover the reasons as to why they readily accepted cyberspace as a learning tool, and how they translated their learning experiences into social actions. We metaphorically used the starship journey in the outer space to represent the journey of the informants into cyberspace.
The crew members
We used the assistance of our friends and relatives to gain access and interviewed Zee, Ani, Jay, Kim, Ali, Niki, Dell and Rozi. Except for Ani, whose highest academic qualification is a diploma, all other informants have university degrees. For the purpose of this paper, their names have been changed to protect their anonymity. The interviews were conducted in a mix of both English and Bahasa Melayu, as such a mixture of language was commonly spoken by the urban educated Malays. Prior to the economic fiasco, educated Malays were reluctant to be politically involved (Wariya 1993) but recent events indicated that they were at the forefront of many current political activities. They were on average 38 years old, married with four children, and stayed with their family in and around the Klang Valley.
The data showed that all informants have had radical experiences at some point of their life. Early influence and previous experience are important factors for perspective transformation process to occur (Ball 1998). For Kim, during her growing up years she witnessed her father - a well known independence freedom fighter - go in and out of prison. Jay, an avid reader, was attracted to support the Iranian Revolution during his early teens. During their undergraduate study abroad, Zee and Ali participated in student activities which was inspired by the sacked DPM.
Niki was exposed to the sacked DPM's idealism when she first started working. Dell, then fresh from high school, participated in the student uprising in 1974.
The data also revealed that the informants had experienced a perspective transformation following the economic crisis. According to Mezirow (1995), feelings like guilt nd shame are commonly felt by people who are experiencing the process of perspective transformation. For example: Dell who idolized a prominent politician since he started working, suddenly found the idol repulsive; Kim felt 'cheated' by certain events associated with the economic recession, as she perceived her family's contributions to the society were not given due recognition; Jay re-discovered his true idealism when he realized what he was holding on to was a mere 'mirage'; and Ani felt 'deeply hurt' by the rampant injustices that she started seeing in the society.
Others like Zee, Niki and Ali felt that they had to do something when a personality they idolized was unfairly treated; while Rozi felt her religious belief was increasingly threatened. Shaken by the events happening during the period, these informants took off to cyberspace in a starship docked right on the runaway.
The runway
Malaysians are lucky for the government has the intention to turn Malaysia into a developed nation by the year 2020.
The 1990's saw numerous mega projects being planned and implemented. One such project was the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) - a 15 x 50 km high-tech area, expected to attract 500 high-tech companies with investment values running into billions of Ringgit (MSC Website 2001). Now, the whole of peninsular Malaysia is connected with fibreoptics connection. The MSC came with campaigns encouraging the general populace to get acquainted with the new technology, particularly the internet. The response was very poor as the number of internet subscribers were only 400,000 in March 1998 (The Edge April 27th).
However, by May 2000 this number had increased to nearly 1.9 million, a hefty 375% increase (Malaysia.Cnet.com May 2000). The sudden burst of subscribers of the internet coincided with the economic and political turmoil experienced by the country. The informants were able to leap onto cyberspace, because the infrastructure was readily available for utilization.
All informants had basic internet facilities at home and/ or office thus allowing them accessed to internet materials on a regular basis. Kim and Rozi had materials from the internet downloaded for them by their husband and colleaques. Ani asked her husband to teach her how to access the internet at home. Ali and Jay started learning about the internet during their leisure time. Niki had her officemates helped her learnt the internet. Dell, the most technically savvy among all the informants, created websites so as to spread his ideas far and wide. The data showed that when information gathered through official media were found to be incongruent with what the informants perceived, they started to seek frantically information from alternative sources. The internet, conceived as a means to provide equal access to knowledge to anyone in the world who has the basic equipment, has become the means of capturing the truth of daily events (Rashid 2000). The internet came in handy and since the informants were educated, they did not find much difficulty in accessing it. Even Ani, a fulltime housewife, forced herself to learn internet at home and later became hooked on it.
The blast-off
For Jay, it was the news item he heard on the radio that sparked off the urgency to start the journey. As for Ani, in the course of reading a book for leisure she felt disillusioned when she found some disturbing practices existed in a public agency where her father used to work. Upon browsing the internet her disillusionment was further compounded with frustration and sadness when she discovered it was flooded with more information of a similar nature. Here, the internet carries information that trigger disorienting dilemmas or other integrating circumstances (Clark 1991), sparking perspective transformation (Mezirow 1995) and opening up possibilities for further exploration.
Kim, who was appalled at the treatment given to her dying father by a government hospital, became hypercritical towards the building-up of the many mega projects. Niki was so disturbed by the news of the sacking of the DPM that she cried when relating it to the first author, almost two years after the incident took place. The news of the sacking also sparked Dell either to burn or throw away his collection of taped speeches of a prominent politician. It seemed all informants received an energy boost from these events to take off finally on a journey of the unknown. They had no regrets as they were convinced what they left behind was just, according to Jay, a "mirage".
The flight
At the start of the journey, the informants were full of anger.
Zee said: I was very unpleasant then, I get easily agitated, and my husband, he was so cool, that made me even angrier that I felt like punching him. Actually he understood my situation but he is like that, cool personality. I think even my kids could not stand me.
The informants started to undergo a transformation, much like what was uncovered by Clark (1991). According to Clark there are three dimensions of change in transformative learning: psychological, in which the structure or the understanding of the self is altered; convictional, where belief systems is revised; and behavioral, in which lifestyle is changed. Ani had to suppress her anger when her close relative dismissed the story that she gathered through the internet as lies. However, when the story was proven to be true and was splashed in the mainstream newspapers, she immediately went to the relative - bringing with her the newspaper clippings and the corresponding articles downloaded from the internet. Other informants were also angry, as their hope, among other things, of seeing a smooth political power transition were dashed with the sacking of the DPM.
Once the anger subsided and they came to their senses, they began to navigate their flight path. They had empowered themselves to stop relying on the traditional official media for information. The informants discarded these media together with the information they were carrying. Jay and Dell, who could not go about doing their daily chores without reading a newspaper first thing in the morning, suddenly found that they could skip reading it after all. They acquired a new sense of independence. Jay also shut himself off from listening to anything that he felt he could not believe; '...I close my ear, I try to avoid more fire from coming in, first of all I (avoid listening to) lies. I really shut off, I stop buying paper, I stop watching TV'.
Rock (1988) believes that independence should not reflect any absolute measure of competence, but instead should concern control and choice. According to Norsek and Fuhrer (1992) being independent means focusing on controlling one's life, having options, making decisions, performing daily activities, and participating in the life of the community.
Clearly, the data indicated the crew members had developed a new sense of independence to determine the path and the destiny for their starship.
The sharing of ideas and views in real time over the information highway helped to justify the informants' perceived position on issues and events happening around them. The data showed that once the informants felt their new stands were justified, they became calmer and were able to reflect rationally. As such, they perceived the internet had become a source of emotional support to them for they could always find others who shared their thoughts and beliefs that they held at any point of time. Niki, whose husband was not supportive of her new perspective, emailed her close friend in the US to share her feelings of sadness and disappointment. Jay beautifully summed up this feeling when he said '... the only thing that really calm me was what I read on the internet. Yea, that's what I had in mind, how I feel and think. Somebody else is also reading...' With a heightened level of awareness, the informants were more careful with the kind of information that they would digest. They continuously clarified information they received with other media, whether print or electronic, and local or foreign. Their spaceship was constantly in contact with the ground earth and even with their enemies. Rozi summed this plainly as '...newspapers, television and internet can cheat you, but not your senses, what you hear, what you see ...' The internet also helps to facilitate the process of critical reflection among the informants. The disorienting dilemma the informants underwent leads them to reflect critically on their mind-set. The internet, with its great volumes of continuously updated information, made the process less daunting. The reflection helped Jay to '... bring back that idealism (that I used to have)...' and made him '...rediscover universal values that cut across demographic dimensions'. Zee echoed the same sentiment when she was recounting how the information she was receiving helped her to regain her ideals after being 'complacent' for a long time. Dell re-listened to his collection of taped speeches by a prominent politician and realized that many of it was 'nonsense'. According to Mezirow (1990), during critical reflection, underlying premises of ideas are assessed and critiqued, which is central to the process of knowing.
However, rational discourses are required in order to validate new conclusions. The data implied that the internet provided such venues for discourses, especially when other types of discourses were restricted. Mezirow stresses that only consensual validation can provide the greatest assurance of the objectivity of the outcome.
With their new found freedom, the informants also found courage to take actions and risks. Despite official warning from the government, the informants still downloaded, printed, photocopied, and distributed materials from the internet to friends and relatives who had no access to the internet. For example, the organization where Rozi work allowed its employees to browse the internet but disallowed downloading of any internet materials. So she got her husband to download them for her to read and to be distributed. As for Ani, since she was not working, after sending all her children to school, she would browse the internet for information for two to three hours. Ani kept her husband informed by downloading internet materials for him to take them to his office. Beside downloading internet materials to be read and distributed, Jay and Niki also utilized e-mail facilities to exchange information with their close friends. Dell and a few friends embarked on their venture to make the general public well informed: We have to tell (inform) the people. We start with (printing) flyers, flyers. You write, let me produce, I can produced as many as you want. I can make use of my office facility. So that is the first thing. I make it to my office, to photostat all sort of documents, so I distribute it very early. (I used) nearly 20-30 reams (of printing papers) Later Dell helped to develop and maintained websites as he continued his journey to create greater political awareness among the people.