Game for the challenges of 2019

Here’s how it works. The Federal Constitution is the rulebook and the referees are our key constitutional institutions. If the game is played right, everybody can win.

IT had been over a decade since I was in London to welcome a new year. I have spent the majority of recent new years on Kuala Lumpur rooftops, though the experience of seeing the fireworks and lights across the waters around Sydney was certainly memorable – not just for the actual display, but also for the knowledge that I was celebrating in one of the earliest time zones on the planet.

By the time the countdown starts in London, most Malaysians are about to wake up and begin their first day of the year.

Originally I had contemplated watching the famous fireworks at the London Eye, but friends persuaded me that the hassle and cost would not be worth it, particularly since it was getting bitingly cold after a relatively warm few days over Christmas.

Furthermore, the fireworks display’s synchronisation to music, for which it is famous, is better appreciated on television.

There was criticism that the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, appeared to have politicised the pyrotechnics display by uttering the phrase “London is open” in several European languages and invoking the colours of the European Union flag just weeks before the British Parliament has to vote on a plan to exit the EU, following the results of the referendum held in 2016.

Increasingly, my British friends are hoping that there will be a second referendum (perhaps with a different set of questions) to attempt to heal a country so divided on this issue.

However, this may only be politically feasible much closer to the deadline to avoid a denunciation of a “betrayal of democracy”.

Apart from the perceived politics, the pyrotechnics themselves were brilliant, with the famous observation wheel being used as a central launchpad of the fireworks aided by boats on the River Thames and with the explosions providing percussion with the beats of the biggest songs of 2018.

While the Petronas Twin Towers provides a superb backdrop for the fireworks, I have always wondered why the buildings themselves are not used more inclusively in launching the fireworks, as happened when the towers were officially opened in 1999, or as per the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

Discussion of different fireworks displays was short-lived, though, because the main theme of the evening – and indeed much of my trip in general – was board games.

I grew up with what are now considered classics such as Monopoly, Boggle, Risk, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit, but there has been a tremendous development of new board games and card games in recent years (perhaps the most famous Malaysian example is Politiko).

In the last few days, I have been playing copious amounts of Dominion (originally released in 2008), Avalon (2012), Splendor (2014) and Century (2017).

Each of these games requires a great deal of strategy and various levels of deception, teamwork, sabotage and betrayal in order to win.

The games even expose one’s own moral compass: to what extent do you undermine someone else’s chances of winning as opposed to amassing the cards, gold or tokens needed to win in a non-confrontational way?

To some degree, playing board games with people reveals their thought processes, and it became clear that some people were better at some games than others. Certainly, I was better at one of those particular games.

Perhaps more politicians should play board games with each other rather than play on the real stage of politics; there would be less collateral damage in the form of people’s lives.

Indeed, people in every profession and social environment are playing a game to some extent, showing only their victories on online platforms and deploying deception, teamwork, sabotage and betrayal in various measures to “win”.

The difference in the real world is that people also define what constitutes their own victory.

Unfortunately, not everyone’s objectives are easily understood. And that is probably when it is time to leave the table and let those who understand each other play among themselves.

In our nation though, citizens theoretically all play by the same rulebook – the Federal Constitution.

While there is no set way to “win”, there is a still an important difference between those who seek victory by living up to the principles of the constitution versus those who use the constitution to seek victory for themselves.

The year has already begun with drama about the awarding of contracts, loyalty to factions and questions about the future leadership of the country.

Their successful resolution will require every one of the referees established by our Federal Constitution – from the Conference of Rulers and the judiciary to the civil service and the various commissions – doing their utmost to ensure that Malaysians are ultimately participants in the same game in which, uniquely, everyone can win.

Tunku Zain Al-‘Abidin is founding president of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas). The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.