Why Wan Saiful is spooked about class warfare

“But as time goes by, despite the original good intention, the affirmative action policy turned into an ugly beast. What was supposed to be a temporary assistance programme evolved into a sense of entitlement, and then morphed into a monster called Malay rights that cannot be debated, let alone be removed.”

- Wan Saiful Wan Jan (“Affirmative action is morally wrong”)

“The reality of Malaysian political system is affirmative action is needed today. However, It must be framed and evaluated in the right way and it must be seen as a program that will help to improve the livelihood of people. Affirmative action also should not last forever. It must be to the extent where we have a proud Malay population that can stand on its own and state they want affirmative action to be removed.’’

– Wan Saiful said after joining Bersatu

The reason why Tasek Gelugor MP Wan Saiful Wan Jan is spooked about class warfare is because he is on the wrong side of it.

Back when he was one of the big brains of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas), he wrote two big think pieces – “Affirmative action is morally wrong” and “Bring back morality into economics”.

He even took it to the road, where he was a panellist at the Penang Institute which hosted a discussion titled “Affirmative Action in Malaysia: Who Gains? Who Loses?” where it was reported he was “…strongly opposed to the stance of affirmative action.

Calling affirmative action policies to be “morally wrong” and unjustifiable, even from the perspective of data and the Constitution, Wan Saiful (above) was of opinion that affirmative action policies, at the root of it, are discriminatory.

Discrimination, as it is, is wrong, he claimed, and even if affirmative action is positive, it cannot be used as a means or a reason to justify discrimination. He saw Malaysia, as it is now, as a divided nation, and the line between needs and race for affirmative action becoming increasingly unclear.

They were good old-fashioned talking points and Wan Saiful even back then was dismissive of “leftist” politics. Back in the day, he would have been considered a race traitor and leftist himself, by the Malay uber alles establishment, which just goes to show you how ill-informed these people are.

I admit I was briefly impressed that a young Malay would align with the baseline conservative – as opposed to right-wing bunkum - ideas and looked forward to what this young man was capable of. This of course didn’t last long. Hooking up with Bersatu, which was then part of the Pakatan Harapan government, demonstrated what kind of opportunist this Ideas man was.

PSM deputy chairperson S Arutchelvan

After joining a right-wing racial party, Bersatu, Wan Saiful was dutifully parroting right-wing American talking points, even though as the ever-reliable S Arutchelvan of PSM points out, not only are lefty socialist policies of the Malay establishment first principles but also the racial entitlement programmes that Malay uber alles parties like Bersatu boastfully defend.

The racial component of Wan Saiful’s line of attacks – communism, socialism etc – is because of the presence of the DAP in the unity government. This, of course, is laughable because the last thing the DAP is is a “socialist”.

Indeed the moniker “Development Action Party” was coined for a reason but all this means bupkis to the base, ironically that class of Malays, that Bersatu wants to keep chained with the ideas of race and religion, which Wan Saiful was very dismissive of before.

Malay political elite

I have always argued – and back in the day, Wan Saiful agreed with me – that the affirmative action policy morphed into a class problem creating a middle and kleptocrat class while the rest of the Malay polity ended up servicing the kleptocrat class.

Wan Saiful was affronted by the idea of the former prime minister, now a felon appealing his conviction, of creating a new economic policy, where sharing the stage with, of all people Tommy Thomas, he said: "Now the Constitution may become an issue of dividing the people where certain groups are forced to accept a group of people that is superior to others. It is unfortunate we have these clauses... but the problem is that we are not debating the clauses on whether it should be there or not. It is a public document which is owned by us. However, there is not much debate on it despite everyone having a vested interest in it.”

However, now that Wan Saiful is safely in the bosom of a political party which benefits from the privilege of class, even more so than the average Malay Joe Rakyat, you can see he is so easily spooked by Saudara Anwar’s allusions – if he did make any – to class warfare.

Wan Saiful as part of the Malay political elite really does not want any class-conscious raising amongst the disenfranchised Malay classes but has no problem providing them with crumbs from the table through racial and religious entitlement programmes to keep them dependent and with a sense of racial and religious superiority.

Wan Saiful's legal problems are weighing heavily on him and no doubt all these race-baiting comments about DAP are meant to distract from them. However, he is a prime example of one of the Malay elites who knowingly use the compromised political system to further entrench ideas that he has admitted had failed Malaysia.

The average Malay uber alles political operative, flunkie or dependent, probably does not know any better after years of indoctrination and belief in a system which they think rewards their loyalty. But for someone like Wan Saiful, his stance is even more repugnant because he has demonstrated he knows better but willingly embraces policies, strategies and dialectics that he at one time fervently believed were destroying this country and the Malay community.

And this is really what the Malay uber alles parties are all about. What they are doing, what someone like Wan Saiful is doing, is defending his class.

Of course, Bersatu did not start this. Umnoputra status always conferred some sort of benefit. An example of this would be when former Kota Raja Umno chief Amzah Umar revealed - “We give a seven percent discount for bumiputera buyers and 12 percent for Umno members, if I am not mistaken.”

This is what it has always been about. When Wan Saiful talks about class warfare, he really does not mean the average Malay who is struggling. He means the warfare against the political class of which he is a proud member.

This has always been the reason why the Malay political class have been afraid of unifying ideas in the Malay community beyond race and religion that is.

I will leave you with what Wan Saiful once publicly said - "As with the Chinese and Indians, the bumiputera and the Malays should be able to stand on their own and have confidence in themselves without the support or interference from the government. This realisation must come from the Malays themselves.”

Wan Saiful's role now is to actively hamper that realisation. - Mkini

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.