Tom Pepinsky

Category: Politics

  • Royalty and Peerages

    One of the most confusing parts of doing research on politics in Malaysia is getting titles correct.  It many ways the system parallels that of Britain, but in many ways it is quite different.  It must be said that we do not understand the system of peerages and hereditary rulership in Britain either, so Malaysia is not alone in being confusing.  However, titles are still all the rage here, and a surprising number of people have a title of some sort.

    Hereditary titles are confusing enough.  Malaysia is (on paper) a constitutional monarchy, meaning that the head of state is the King.  However, Malaysia is unique in its kingship.  The King of Malaysia–known as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, or "he who is most highly raised"–is elected from among the 9 hereditary rulers of the Peninsular Malaysian states for a revolving five-year term.  That means that the King is not the king until he dies, just until one of his peers replaces him. 

    That brings us to state-level hereditary Rulers.  There are 13 states in Malaysia.  The two Bornean states, Sabah and Sarawak, do not have a hereditary Ruler.  Two of the formerly-British Straits Settlements, Malacca and Penang, also do not have a hereditary Ruler.  In each of these four states, there is a "head of state" for the state known as the Yang di-Pertuan Negeri, or "he who is raised in the state."  (The other former British Strait Settlement is Singapore.  These three settlements were administered differently under the British.)  Seven of the remaining states have a Sultan (Johor, Kedah, Kelantan, Pahang, Perak, Selangor, and Terengganu).  One state has a Raja (Perlis) and the last one has a Yang di-Pertuan Besar (Negri Sembilan).  The nine hereditary Rulers of states are the folks who rotate in and out of the office of King.  Each Ruler has a family, and all of them have titles.  These are too confusing to get into here.

    Then there is the Malaysian equivalent of the peerage.  You get a peerage for, ostensibly, contributing to the development of a state or of the country.  Hence, there are two classes of peerage.  One kind you receive from a Ruler, and the other kind that you receive from the King, whoever that may be at the time.  Both men and women can receive a peerage, but if you are a woman who is married to a man who gets a peerage, you get a different name that signifies that you are married to a peer.  What’s more, in both the Ruler class and the King class of peerage, there is an upper and a lower level.  You can get many peerages, and many people have a couple Ruler-level peerages or a couple Ruler-level peerages and a King-level peerage.  In your name, you normally only list your highest level peerage, although some people list both their highest King-level and their highest State-level peerage.

    OK, from a Ruler, the lowest level is Dato’.  Some Rulers spell this Datuk.  The wife of a Dato’ is a Datin, no matter how her husband’s name is spelled.  If the Ruler wishes to really honor you, he can make you a Dato’ Seri or a Dato’ Paduka.  (Again, there are many spellings.)  The wife of a Dato’ Seri is Datin Seri.  There is no limit to the number of titles that a Ruler may grant.

    From the king, the lower level is Tan Sri.  The wife of a Tan Sri is called Puan or Puan Sri.  The very highest level is Tun, whose wife carries the title Toh Puan.  Adding to the confusion of titles, there is also a federal-level Datuk title, below the level of Tan Sri.  In theory, there are fixed numbers of each of these titles.

    The benefit of having a title, besides the fact that a title makes you sound important, is that some people believe they help out of things like parking tickets and airplane overbookings.  Given the sheer number of Dato’, these is probably not really true at the lowest level, but a Tan Sri and certainly a Tun would never deign to wait in line anywhere.

  • Where’s the Outrage? Oh, There It Is

    We have been following the stories in the international press about alleged desecrations of the Qur’an by soldiers in charge of detainees at Guantanamo Base.  What a mess.

    We have heard snippets of news about large demonstrations in Jakarta against these alleged incidents.  It seems that thousands of students, activists, and other folks have voiced their disapproval of both the alleged Qur’an desecrations as well as the general treatment of detainees.  Fortunately, there does not seem to have been any violence as has happened in other parts of the Islamic world.  Here’s to hoping that SBY, who is currently visiting with President Bush in Washington, has a good head on his shoulders and can figure out the right things to say to calm tensions in Jakarta.  The tensions are bad enough that the US Embassy in Jakarta and the consulate in Surabaya have ceased all services except for emergency visa services for Americans living in the country.  There is, as of yet, no word on there being any trouble in Malaysia, although we dare say people aren’t thrilled with the allegations.

    As for the allegations themselves, we’re pretty sure that we can’t add anything of substance that someone else already has not already said in the years since Guantanamo Base began housing enemy combatants. We find the current situation ethically repugnant.  This is exactly what any high school civics student could have imagined might happen when we separated government operations from public oversight.  There is not even a hint of institutionalized public accountability for actions at the base.  These allegations may or may not be true (and our assumption is always innocent until proven guilty), but the stupidest thing about the Bush administration’s policies here is that we’ll never know.  In house investigations can never be truly free of the suspicion of political pressure, and we don’t think that any government in the world deserves the benefit of the doubt.  These enemy combatants require the same assurances of proper treatment that prisoners of war require, and that requires independent monitoring and transparency.   Of course, the administration has naively walked right into this issue, and will not be able to extricate itself to any party’s satisfaction without complying to a just system of oversight.  This is obviously unlikely.  So complaints will continue, and credibility will suffer.

    The administration’s lame attempt to rebut the allegations seems not to have helped.  Having a policy that the Qur’an is to be treated with utmost respect is essential, yet it is trivially the case that the existence of a policy does not ensure compliance with its guidelines.  People around the world are smart enough to figure that out, and the administration comes across as either arrogant or deceitful when dissembling like this.

    The American criminal justice system is the envy of the world, and that the US has about the best record of treatment of prisoners of war that you can imagine.  That’s what makes us better than our enemies, whomever they may be.