Mahathir and his Malay dilemma redux

"Saya tak mengharapkan pahlawan. Orang tak selalu baik, benar, berani. Tapi saya mengkagumi tindakan yang baik, benar, berani, biarpun sebentar." - Goenawan Mohamad (Pagi dan Hal-Hal yang Dipungut Kembali)


COMMENT The truth is I enjoy writing about former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. His lies and distortions reveal far more about the Malaysian psyche than anything said by the rest of the political elite (BN and Pakatan Rakyat) in this country.Mahathir's latest threat about needing a two-thirds majority to amend the constitution to kick out Bersih co-chairperson S Ambiga (right) is not merely a threat against Ambiga but against anyone who dares threaten the Umno status quo.

It shows anyone what Umno has in store for those who have the temerity to exercise their democratic rights or should that be, fight for their democratic rights. However, why the need to strip recalcitrant Malaysians of their citizenship? Anyone who has read the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (Sosma) would have discovered that it is just as pernicious as the ISA. Cold Storage not good enough any more?

The arrest and subsequent charging of Yazid Sufaat and others on terrorism charges reeks of some sort of Pax Americana conspiracy.
Understand now that I am not accusing the government of anything (yet) but really, with the release of Yazid from ISA detention and now these arrests, the firebrand with all his Malaysiakini interviews, seems like a government asset. So much for accusing de facto opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim of being a US plant.

Anyone who has read the Wikileaks exposes on Malaysia would understand that the spooks from Langley would consider many within the ruling Umno elite as the puppets most susceptible to their charms, not to mention those from across the causeway.

I, for one, will be eagerly waiting for what this trial will reveal with the knowledge that security experience brings that what is not revealed is just as vital as that which is.

Of course being the sneaky racist that he is, Mahathir (left) throws in the usual canard that "Malay laziness" is the downfall of the community and their hegemony is sustained by the non-Malays - read Chinese.

His reference to Uganda is rather queer, since the Indian diaspora there was kicked out unceremoniously, but I suppose with the Indian Muslim support that Umno enjoys, the old manipulator was merely paying respects to a community that has far more influence in Umno than the fisherfolks and padi farmers that Umno claims to represent.

"The Malays themselves then gave away their economic power by letting non-Malays control trade and related activities," he gravelly intones.

Actually what is accurate is: "The Malays themselves gave away their economic power by letting Umno, with the sycophancy of a plutocracy of non-Malays, control trade and related activities... and these sycophants, with the exception of the MIC, did a far better job of protecting non-Malay interest then Umno did with the Malays, which is why the Chinese community or a certain significant majority of it can throw their support behind a certain section of a disenfranchised Malay community attempting a change of leadership."

Malay community's diverse past
Much has been written about the feudalistic nature of Malay society to explain Umno dominance but of course, the subaltern histories of the Malay community have been expunged from the public record.

What are lost are the narratives of those Malays who opposed their Malay rulers when they were "giving away" Malay land to the British. We forget that PAS for an extremely long time has been using religious dogma to fight "Umno secularism".

What is lost and what Umno fears are remnants of a Malay polychromatic past, which emblems like flags and literature are slowing resurfacing which reminds the Malay community of their diverse past.
How this lost past is slowing being reintroduced into the community and influencing the Malay community is beyond the scope of this piece and perhaps beyond my ability to articulate.

The Malay community is fractured but merely claiming that Pakatan is duping those Malays in the opposition is the dumbest form of Umno propaganda. Mahathir's old canards, which perhaps could have galvanised Malay support en masse in the past, are all but over.

Signs are evident even to those who practice their dark sorcery in the corridors of Putrajaya that a certain segment of the Malay community is immune to the spells of Umno.

There are obvious signs we can point to. Anwar's rallying cry that Umno has betrayed the Malay community through incompetence and corruption.
PAS' Islamic agenda as a panacea to Umno's moral degradation of the Malay community.
The economic deprivation that a certain section of the Malay community which translates into skepticism of Umno and eventually into the arms of the opposition.

In addition, let us not forget that the Umno Baru that Mahathir spawned, is merely the symbol of the schism within the Malay Umno community.
Its effects have trickled down to the rank and file which over the years, racial politics, the concept of Malayness and a whole host of other issues have been conflated in what was in essence a power struggle between the warlords in Umno.
But it has now has been embraced into the greater oppositional Malay struggle.

I used to think that these newly created constitutional Malays would prove to be Umno's undoing because amongst other things,  a fight for resources between "authentic Malays" and these ‘bumiputera barus', would eventually come to a head with the native and interlopers within their own ranks, battling it out for the soul of the community.

However, a long-time Indonesian comrade offered an alternative explanation after he took offence at my jibe that Umno had created a fifth column of his countrymen in this country.
He felt that the influx of new blood into the Malay community comes with new ideas that are not predisposed to the Umno way of thinking.

A quiet rebellion
As it is anecdotally speaking, I see far more rhetoric against the concepts of Ketuanan Melayu amongst a certain section of the Malay community and a quiet rebellion against the feudalistic nature of their community.

I have no idea if this is the result of the influx of "new ideas" but having lived amongst their Javanese brethren, ideas which are slowly taking shape here have deep roots in principles already established there.

When Mahathir goes on about the Malay community needing its crutches, what he forgets is that by its dereliction of duty - no, this is incorrect - by an agenda to fossilise the Malay mind, those crutches were only provided to a certain section of the Malay community.

Many were left out in the cold and for those who were not, they realised too late that those crutches did not give them any advantage over the non-Malays but were in fact chains that shackled them to Umno soil. While the non-Malays progressed and could adapt anywhere in the world, the Malays were left with a compromised educational system (for instance) that only seemed to work in this country.

For those Malays who support the opposition and who no doubt were the ones left out in the cold, the idea of the ‘advantages' that the idea of Ketuanan Rakyat bring is a far more powerful draw than the weak record of Umno rule.

After all, with the racist groupings of the alternative front, what they hope for is a Malay leadership, which would take care of their interests and who cares if it is done under a multiracial/cultural cloaking device.

The truth has always been that the only dilemma in the Malay community is the one former PM Mahathir Mohamad created.

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy.