Is Umno a racist party?

Based on the rule book, anyone can become a member of Umno, provided that the person is a Muslim, speaks Malay and practices the Malay culture.

COMMENT

In the days when FMT still allowed comments from readers, we often got to see lively colourful opinions penned (or typed) under each and every article.

Regardless of what the news might be, whether about a government policy, political squabbling, international relations, opinion pieces or even sports, there was always a barrage of angry comments that linked everything to Umno and that everything was screwed because Umno was a racist party.

In many of the talks and public forums, pseudo intellectuals who pretended to be neutral insisted that Umno was a racist party, an organisation of narrow-minded people, run by a bunch of “keris” wielding warlords waiting to bathe their daggers with the blood of the other races.

A racist by definition is someone who believes that one particular race is superior to the other and this was why the National Socialist Party (Nazi) operated on the premise of racial purity because of their belief in the superiority of the Aryan race and that only those of pure blood could be a member of the party.

Although Umno might not be that extreme, the perception towards the party was somewhat similar, by which people see that only Malays were allowed to be a member.

The ‘metallic black’ remark
Then one fine day Nga Kor Ming, DAP’s Perak state secretary, in a ceramah consisting of mostly Malay PAS supporters, uttered this infamous statement: “Di negeri Perak ‘darul takut’ ini, kita ada menteri besar ‘hitam metalik’ yang haram jadah itu.” [In Perak, state of the fearful, we have a metallic black chief minister who is a (insert insult)]”.

Nga was referring to Perak Chief Minister Zambry Abdul Kadir who happened to be dark skinned.

Since he was talking to a predominantly Malay crowd, many interpreted the remark as referring to the irony that Zambry, being dark skinned looked more Indian rather than Malay, and how come someone so dark was heading the state chapter of Umno.

Nga defended his remark with the usual political “tai chi”, saying that “Metallic Black” was a referrence to the power tussle that happened in the state a few years earlier. But based on the premise of which the statement was made, many concluded that it was clearly a racist remark.

This raised a significant question: If indeed Umno was a racist party, how could they elect a leader who seemed to be more of Indian blood than Malay in the first place?

This also begged the question that if hypothetically someone managed to prove that Zambry was of Indian descent would he be stripped of his party membership?

First, let us take a look at Umno’s constitution regarding membership:

FASAL 5 – Pendaftaran Keahlian (5.1): Tiap-tiap orang Melayu dan Bumiputera berhak mendaftar diri sebagai ahli Umno mengikut Perlembagaan dan peraturannya (Every Malay and Bumiputera has the right to register as an Umno member according to the constitution and laws).

Right. So far Umno seems to be a an exclusive party where only the Malays and Bumiputeras were allowed to join as members. But how does one define a Malay? Well it was written “mengikut perlembagaan” (following the constitution) hence we should be able to find it in the federal constitution.

Perlembagaan Persekutuan Malaysia Perkata 160 – Tafsiran: “Orang Melayu” ertinya seseorang yang menganuti agama Islam, lazim bercakap bahasa Melayu, menurut adat Melayu” (A Malay is someone who is a Muslim, speaks the Malay language and practices the Malay culture).

Now for a race-based party, surely it would appear ironic that there was no mention of ancestry or certain racial traits and profiling.

The reason why we generally despise racial politics is because we carry the notion that a man should be judged for who he is and not who his father was, we loathe at the prospect of defining a character via bloodlines, ancestry or skin colour. Indeed it was quite a revelation that this supposedly racist party did not endorse or made any mention of that.

Because if you look at the definition, a Malay was someone who was a Muslim, spoke Malay and followed the culture, that would mean, technically anyone could become a Malay. All you got to do was be a Muslim, be fluent in Malay and occasionally wear “baju melayu” (traditional attire) during Hari Raya while having a flair for “pantun” (poetry) would be considered a bonus.

National, not racial identity

The thing is, this is the way Umno, and to a certain extent the Malay community, see it – being Malay was more of a national identity rather than a racial identity. That the characteristics of being a Malay were not based on skin colour or ancestry,but rather upon the ideology of Islam that was intertwined with culture and language.

Of course one could argue that it was still an exclusive discriminatory political movement and that not everyone could be a member of the party, seeing that non-Muslims were excluded from it. But let’s look at it from this angle, could a democrat be a member of a Communist Party? Could a free market capitalist be a member of a socialist party? A communist is a person who endorses the teachings of Karl Marx just as much as a Malay endorses the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w). Whether you agree or disagree with that notion, it is how Umno sees it.

Back when opponents taunted former Umno president Dr Mahathir Mohamad of being more Indian than Malay, with stories of his ancestors having come from Kerala, it didn’t really have much of an effect on Umno members or the Malay community in general.

As far as Umno members were concerned, he was a Malay leader not because of who his grandfather was but for who he was, ideologically, linguistically and culturally.

So now we are back with the original predicament, a philosophical question you could say, is Umno really a racist party or are those who insist that Malay is a racial term the real racist? I shall leave it to you.

Zaidel Baharuddin is Mr Right, Mr Right Wing that is, electronics engineer by day writer by night, Frank Sinatra fanboy all day long, catch me at WirawanWeb.com, lipassepi.blogspot.com or follow me on twitter via @Sinatra_Z. He is a FMT columnist.