Another rally that changed nothing

Red shirt, yellow shirt, green shirt – so what?

COMMENT

And so September 16 has come and gone, and other than a few tense moments during the rally, it was largely tame, thanks to the police for keeping the unruliness of the crowd in check. Despite the earlier, uncomfortable anti-Chinese sentiment of the rally organisers, no blood was spilt and the protesters went home satisfied that they had managed to beat their chests in public.

However, on the whole, Himpunan Rakyat Bersatu – or Himpunan Maruah Melayu, or Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat, or whatever you may want to call the Red Shirts Rally – must be considered a failure. For one, FMT correspondents on the scene at Padang Merbok placed the number of rally goers at around 50,000, which must have felt like an insult to Red Shirts leader Jamal Yunos, who, only a day before, had loudly proclaimed that one million Malays would take to the streets to demonstrate support for Prime Minister Najib Razak. A Merdeka Centre poll just before the rally indicated that the majority of the Malays were opposed to it due to worries that it would only worsen Malaysia’s glaring racial problems.

Many also brought up the issue of Felda settlers being made to join the rally despite their not knowing exactly why they were ferried into the city. And then there was the presence of Umno leaders among the protesters despite assertions from the party that it was not endorsing the racially charged rally.

But that is all beside the point. The Red Shirts failed in almost the same way that Bersih 4 failed. They failed to consider the true sentiment on the ground among Malays. What the Himpunan rally has told us is that while the Malays may be not be supportive of Bersih and the Opposition, they are not behind Najib either. The primary goal was to shore up Malay support for the Prime Minister and to demonstrate that the Malay community had not abandoned him and Umno. It fell short.

The Malays may or may not have abandoned Umno, but it is clear that the Najib brand is damaged in their eyes. The increasingly xenophobic and communalistic statements from the party have not galvanised the average Malay into action, which must be a worrying sign for a party that has of late put all its eggs into the old divide-and-rule basket.

The antics of the rally goers who tried to enter Petaling Street despite the stern warnings of the police do not make a good argument for the organisers’ credibility either. Despite their assurances that the rally would be peaceful, respectful, and orderly, the FRU was forced to take action to disperse the stubborn crowd, lending legitimacy to accusations of racial intimidation.

However, we cannot take the refusal of the Malays to join the Red Shirts as a tacit endorsement of Bersih or the Opposition. There are many factors that can explain Bersih 4’s failure to attract the Malays, one being PAS’ refusal to participate. But one needs only to exercise a little honesty to find an important reason that many Bersih and Opposition supporters would rather ignore, and that has to do with the swaggering arrogance of some elements of the Chinese community.

Obviously, simple racial games hold no sway except over the shallowest individuals, but a lot more effort must be made by our leaders to discover the true sentiment of the Malays.

As for September 16? Well, it was a day of sound, a day of fury, a day of cynical laughter for social media enthusiasts, and a day of regression in our political life. But all in all, it was much ado about nothing. Nothing has changed except that Umno now knows – if it didn’t before – just how far out of touch it is with its vote bank. Perhaps the rally was worth it if that’s the point it made.