Trash-talk shows Umno isn’t ready for a rebirth

 

The news portals have been ablaze with claims and counterclaims from Umno stalwarts as well as renegades. Credit is being claimed, often in polite Asian ways, while blame is also being levelled, even if in slightly less Asian ways.

The nation is holding its breath, with ordinary Malaysians glued to their mobile phones waiting for the next headline. They’re asking 

Will he? Won’t he? Will his son? Won’t his father?

The sight of the many politicians indulging in the extremely popular Malaysian sport of bad-mouthing and chest-beating (if only these were Olympics sports) is one to behold, and to hear. Some have achieved their Personal Best, which is the same as their Personal Worst.

I haven’t kept track of things, so I will just speculate and spread rumours and unfounded allegations about these politicians. That is more fun, plus it’s better not to know the full story because it’s usually sad and full of lies anyway.

In this latest drama, we get to be in the ringside seats as the principals crawl out of the woodwork with confessions about who did what to whom, when, and how deeply did the knives go into the back.

Setting the scene

Here’s the story so far: the current Umno president is talking trash about a previous Umno president – no, not the one in jail, but allow me to pause a little to take in the import of what I just said: an Umno ex-president in jail!

Those words could never have existed even just a few years ago. How the world has changed.

However, I still pray for the ex-president’s health, and may his prayers too be answered, and perhaps there will be other current or former Umno presidents or even presidential spouses in jail to accompany him!

It appears that one set of Umno leaders is claiming credit for having saved Umno, while another set (a group of ex-Umno leaders not in prison) is regretting they didn’t do a good enough job of destroying Umno.

There has been bad blood between the party’s various factions for a long while.

The current Umno president, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, claimed he brought down the Pakatan Harapan government of 2020 to save Umno, supposedly then on the verge of being deregistered by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the familiar long-time leader of Umno who was then prime minister.

The crash of the PH government allowed a runaway group of people to form a new government, which resulted in promotions or reinstatements for some of the characters, and conversely demotions and expulsion for some others.

A living corpse

Unfortunately, the whole drama reminds me of an uncomfortable fact – that Umno still exists! You would have thought something would have happened to Umno already, given the prayers of so many good (and bad) people.

Even I, in some tender moments, have called Umno a 

bangkai bernyawa

, Malay for a living corpse.

But in Malaysia’s unforgiving politics and precarious balance of power, Umno is a kingmaker, and hence kept alive by entreaties and pleas and concessions that make their leaders think they’re relevant and powerful.

Powerful perhaps, but relevant? Not quite. Umno now is just a refuge for some dubious characters trying to stay out of jail, as well as some younger ones working hard to grow up to be just as dubious as their elders.

Many Malays, and even non-Malays, are so conditioned to voting for Umno they might have voted for it unwittingly in recent elections. It’s likely many are still party members without realising it. I could be one, given that my late father, who signed me in, may have taken up the special offer to be a life member.

Polarised and scared

I can’t believe how talking trash about each other can convince many Malaysians, Malays or otherwise, that they are relevant to today’s politics. It just reminds everybody of whose faults it is that we are now where we are – polarised, divided, scared and focused on inconsequential and petty things.

But Umno is hierarchical, if not anything else. The elders do the heavy hitting, often hitting their own chests and sometimes knocking themselves out, while those on the fringe, the so-called Youth and often also the Women’s wing, provide the hysteria.

It’s quite entertaining, but after decades of increasingly desperate and toxic behaviour, it’s wearing thin. There’s a lesson about how power corrupts, to which I’d add the corollary that holding power for long will also corrupt you for a long time afterwards.

By the way, to be fair, there’s a big-time politician in the US whose name I shall not mention currently spreading lies and division to grab power so he can stay out of prison. There’s another politician in a Middle Eastern country closely connected with the US who’s also spreading death and mayhem so that he, too, can stay out of prison.

This means our own politicians can’t really think of themselves as being special. Their kind are of the dime-a-dozen variety, even if their actual cost to their country literally runs into the billions.

If Mahathir had done it…

What this episode makes clear is that Umno isn’t ready for a rebirth. They’re not ready to get back to being a 

normal

 political party, no more corrupt or obnoxious than any other, one that accepts that you win some and you lose some and life goes on.

So, many in Umno remain toxic, including many who are no longer in it. Perhaps if Mahathir had really deregistered Umno, as Zahid alleged he would, that event could’ve been the best thing for it, and for us all.

It could have allowed for the birth of Umno Baru Baru (there was an Umno Baru before). Given that nobody in the country can count on decades of uninterrupted power any more, the party would not have had the chance to fester and rot from the inside.

We would then have been spared the current spectacle of finger-pointing and excuses. Instead, we could just settle back and enjoy the different spectacle of political stalwarts and renegades alike struggling to declare their assets to the authorities.

I’d pay good money to enjoy that spectacle, though if I’m not mistaken there is no charge for entry into courts to watch people being tried for this. It seems that some of the best things in life are, indeed, free. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.