“I think these (pressures) have been very minor. I am ready for bigger challenges.”
- Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor
I do not begrudge former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin his victory lap in the recent state elections.
PAS may pull the strings but Muhyiddin is a willing puppet because if anything, he offered that olive branch to Pakatan Harapan in 2021 and was rejected simply because the then opposition smelled blood in the water and stupidly rejected the offer Tony Pua and Ong Kian Ming came up with.
That deal, if accepted, would have changed the political landscape in this country for the better.
After all, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s pandering to the conservative Malay base in this country, after all the cash handouts or proposed cash handouts, his burnishing of Islamic credentials at the expense of secularism, his expansion or proposed expansion of the role of the religious bureaucracy and his enabling of “ketuanan-ism”, popular Malay support still went to the coalition that does it better and with much less effort.
The problem with Anwar’s Islamisation is that it gives cover to Perikatan Nasional when they decide to do the same thing.
When PN eventually comes to power, what they will rely on is the blueprint set out by Anwar and the support of the non-Malays who did not raise any objections to Anwar’s Islamic agenda.
This is already peddled to the base if people are actually paying attention and not merely getting their news from the echo chambers of the Harapan support system.
Azmin Ali and his lieutenants are back in play and this is a huge psychological boost for Bersatu and PN.
Now safely ensconced in the corridors of power in Selangor, PN can point to how vilified these men were but the support of the people elevated them above the lies and legitimised their treachery all in the service of the Malay community.
Sanusi, the folk hero
Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor, meanwhile, has bragging rights over the whole of Kedah.
His near-clean sweep of the state not only solidifies his celebrity status when it comes to an agitated majority but also demonstrates how the federal government, political operatives, and the non-Malay media threw everything at him, but like a folk hero, he remained cool and secured credible victory for the theocratic state and ensured that Umno’s face was rubbed in the dirt.
When he says he is ready for bigger challenges, Sanusi means it. Any attempts by the federal government to sanction him in any way will just translate to more support for him and PN.
What Sanusi has demonstrated is that he has no desire to kowtow to the sacred cows of Malay politics and his intransigence is looked upon favourably by a community which is already restricted in so many ways.
PN’s encroachment into Selangor is of course a major concern. Do not for one moment think that PN is “shattered” that they did not flip this state.
The psychological ops before the election were merely to rattle the cages of progressive bases within Selangor. PN was quietly working the ground and cultivating their targets carefully.
PN made some bold choices and it is evident that their strategists read the tea leaves more accurately than Harapan’s.
Decades of demonising Umno
Umno, of course, is a major problem. Early Sunday morning, I had ride-or-die political operatives of Anwar claiming that PKR and DAP had a better chance of flipping Kedah if Umno was not in the picture.
Many of these operatives conceded that they knew the propaganda was not working.
After decades of demonising Umno and Umno, in turn, demonising the DAP, the idea of these two groups working together was just something that many Malays could not get behind.
Furthermore, they believed they were in a quagmire because many progressives believed that this way was not about religion and merely about economics.
They could not understand how PN was getting support by dissing Malay scared cows while Harapan was doing their utmost to sustain these institutions but Harapan was not gaining any traction with this base.
Using religion in politics
Nobody is saying that a political party cannot use religion. The question is how do you use religion?
And I’m not talking about feel-good rhetoric about how religions are equal and everyone’s the same but rather policies that actually help rural communities instead of restricting them transmitted by a reformed religious bureaucracy.
I am talking about using religion as a means to transmit ideas of good governance by building better schools which in turn equips young people to deal with the vagaries of changing geopolitical and environmental landscapes.
And not using religion to restrict women - rural women suffer the most from this kind of religious agenda even though the brunt of family welfare is borne by them - and using religion to stifle free speech.
It never once occurred to them that those supposedly sacred institutions were losing their grip on the Malay polity. PN is using religion to reinforce certain communal ideas to supplant the system.
What Harapan should be doing is offering an alternative and defunding and reforming institutions that reinforces PN’s toxic ideas.
Instead what Harapan has been doing is supplying ammo through various tributaries of the religious bureaucracy which is firmly on the side of PN.
After all this time, after the failed attempt at sucking up to the Malay political establishment and the failed stratagems of Anwar, Harapan still assumes it can play the race game as PN and somehow still cling to its reformasi aspirations.
It also places non-Malay political operatives in an uncomfortable position. If they remain silent – which they do a lot – it makes them complicit in the narrative, and if they voice their objections on egalitarian grounds, it conforms to the propaganda that PN promulgates of how non-Malays are an impediment to Malay economic security.
What alternative Harapan brings?
Former two-time prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has demonised PKR as being unacceptable to the Malay community because of its multi-racial component. Every time PKR plays the race card – and badly – they give life to this propaganda.
Back in the day, someone like Rafizi Ramli understood this. This is why it is important for the Malay polity to have an alternative but also the reality that without a clear alternative, highlighting failed strategies is useless.
He said: “So if they (Malays) were to choose, they would rather choose someone they can trust. If we were to change from one product to another, we want to be sure the substitute of the product can bring better value to you.”
Ultimately, Anwar and Harapan have to decide how they might lose.
Will they lose as reformers who attempted to change the system but failed in changing the mindset of the majority?
Or will they lose while attempting to ape the racial and religious strategies of their theocratic opponents?
This is the state of play at the moment. - Mkini
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.
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