“Liberals, urbanites ignore Green Wave 2.0 at their peril; Malay anger, resentment very real”

 

FEAR mongering or having a well-placed finger on the pulse? Such is the big concern facing non-Malay Malaysians – especially liberals – who may have underestimated Malay Muslim sentiments by waving away any negativity as fringe sentiment afflicting a small minority.

This is where  political commenter Aisehman (@Aisehman) cautioned that they could have erred in their assessment this time around as how they had previously dismissed highlighted warning signs as fear mongering, eg by brushing aside the “Green Wave” as a political fairytale.

“Politicians manipulate – not fabricate – communal sentiments which are pre-existent,” he red-flagged on X in reaction to a post by “Mr Kuala Lumpur” Amirul Ruslan (@Amirul Ruslan) who labelled the current ethnic tensions surrounding the highly sensitive illegal temple structures issue as a “boiling frog”.

And today, Malays by and large have a lot less desire to be tolerant and are expressing a lot more animosity and hostility, spilling over into hatred.

We now have the perfect environment for right-wing extremists and religio-political fascists to thrive and dominate. Ignore, disregard, dismiss this at your own peril.

In the contention of prominent Youtuber Amirul “urban liberals will assume “it’s just unreal and over-represented online until one day it smacks everyone in the face with real violence.”

Elaborating further in a subsequent post, Aisehman attributed the somehow ‘Green Wave 2.0’ concern to “PAS/PN (Perikatan Nasional) can’t expect much from non-Malays, so it needs to maximise Malay support”.

‘All doom and gloom’

“Much of the rising racial and religious sentiment you see now is being whipped up for that purpose,” observed the Madani critic.

“A considerable majority of Malays will vote for Hadi (PAS president Tan Sri Hadi Awang), for his boy Dr Sam (PN’s chairman Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar) and, for PAS/PN.”

Given that UMNO itself is facing a dearth of Malay support to be relied upon to quell the growing PAS influence, Aisehman’s ‘prophecy’ does make valid sense.

“Unless UMNO can do something about it, which doesn’t seem likely,” he lamented.

Meanwhile, PAS/PN don’t have to do much to try to loosen and reduce PH’s (Pakatan Harapan) hold on non-Malay support.

That work is being done by disappointed PH supporters themselves as well as long-standing anti-Anwar (Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim) forces.

Will PAS conquer Putrajaya? God forbid but soon we’ll find out.

Such doom and gloom painted by Aisehman were met with mixed responses with a few agreeing with the analysis but also feeling a sense of powerlessness to affect a change.

One commenter though claimed that “neutrals” were aware of the Green Wave threat all this while, hence “it’s only PH supporters who’re blind to it”. He went on thank the poster “for admitting the Malay hatred and hostility”.

Even some Malay commenters vouched that the sentiment highlighted by the poster was real.

One claimed that “non-Malays have under-estimated the Malays in every aspect”, thus warned of a “majority ready to explode” while another asked those not happy “to come under an all-Malay rule” to leave the country.

Whether one chooses to subscribe to this view is entirely individual choice. What is not in question right now that the social climate in Malaysia is far from conducive.

Can a middle ground be reached or will extremist elements keep pulling at the edges till the very fabric of Malaysian society is torn asunder.

Justified or not, there is real frustration, disenchantment and disillusionment from both sides of the divide. At the moment, it looks very much like the on-going racial/religious discord will be allowed to roll on to its bitter end.

- focus malaysia