TIP OF DAY #3: TRUST THE KAMPUNG HEART

The sacking of Muhyiddin Yassin from the government, but not the party, commits two things, exposing entirely the underbelly of Umno for what it is and, perfectly reflecting on the nature of brute force in party politics.

ShuZheng

 The Rafizi Dilemma

According to Rafizi Ramli about 30 percent (and growing by the day) of Malays look badly at Umno, specifically Najib Razak. Another way of putting it is, Mahathir Mohamad did the bulldozing work (thank you, Doctor), even the planting. Rafizi’s strategic task is, how to harvest those votes given that all their lives those Malays grew up and had gotten use to either Umno or PAS. 

There are two assumptions with that assessment. (a) Those Malays cannot be trusted to make choices, particularly if a third Malay party emerges to stand against Umno or PAS or, worse, both at the same time. (b) Given (a), Rafizi returns to the old political way (perfected by Barisan), which is to limit the choices voters have before them.

If Rafizi’s assumptions are correct, he will have to explain why some Umno branches, against all odds and against all risks, such as those face by a person like Anina Saadudin, were willing to stand up to Najib Razak. The essay below elaborates on the arguments first given here and also attempts to show that Rafizi’s concerns are misplaced if only he takes his argument differently, on a different path. Especially if he were to trust the kampung heart; rationalization is over.

This, below, is presumably a Malay’s take on the situation. And it’s almost certainly reflective across the board. There is a near poetic dimension to it, the Rafizi Dilemma:

Susah lah org Melayu nak undi:

• Umno: too corrupt
• PAS: too confused
• PKR: too Anwar-obsessed
• Amanah: too new
• DAP: too Chinese
• MIC: ha ha!
• “Spoilt vote” la yg best sekali…

Hei Melayu! Nanti dulu lah, tak payah kepala pening.

In your shoes, it might well be to take chances with MCA because they are not raised to bear malice, and that’s important. But, nobody is you. So ask yourself this: Which is the least worse? Especially ask, Which speaks to your heart? If the answer is Amanah then you’d have to ask, why? That is, answer first then ask the questions for a reaffirmation. Because Amanah have passed through the fire of PAS? In common with MCA, is it because they seem to understand life, to live and let live, better than politics? Their heart triumphs over the head?

One should vote with the heart, it’s better than voting by blood which doesn’t exist or, worse, it can betray.

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Why Mahathir Couldn’t Dislodge Najib and…

What’s to be Done About It

Because of sheer physiological diversity Malay was never an ethnic group, as normally understood, but is the invention of a political label. When he himself spoke of Malay unity, Mahathir Mohamad always presumed otherwise. Even to use Islam as the common denominator, it was faulty because he hadn’t stopped to ask, What kind of Islam?

Recent year events in the Middle East validate that point. Islam mean different things to different Malays, like it is between Shia and Sunni, as different as Indonesians view the religion in Acheh and in Java.

Using Malay as an ethnic group for a political purpose raises a host of questions. Thus, when Mahathir demanded for Najib’s resignation to save Umno, as a racial party, he had to explain over and over and over the implausibility of his contradiction: Najib may be removed as Malay chief but the Malay chief stays; Najib goes, the government stays.

For once in a long, long time, Mahathir could not use the Chinese as a scapegoat because neither the MCA nor the DAP has any say in Najib’s Malay position. But Najib instead could, turning Mahathir’s argument on its head: the Chinese want him out to slap Malay maruah. This creates, in its turn, another paradox: Najib’s source of power is tied to Chinese influence. That is, Najib’s position in Umno is sourced and drawn from a collective entity called the Ggovernment — and not just the Malays only.

Thus, we arrive at this stalemate today. When Najib can no longer beat up the Chinese to sustain his position in the Government, hence in Umno, he has therefore one leg less to stand on; his legitimacy erodes.

All this seems like a futile academic exercise in political analysis, but would not the kampung Malay sees it that way — at least intuitively even if they can’t explain it?

Mahathir had made a distinction between Najib and Umno and separated Umno from Government. When Mahathir attacks from the point of view that Najib is not fit to be Umno leader — speaking thereby primarily to Malay/Umno audiences — then wants him remove from a government post, he was asking for endorsement of a contradiction, difficult to fathom in its logicism. How could he succeed therefore?

He could have asked for Najib’s removal from Umno and leave it at that but this means no Barisan, no Parliament intervention in his cause. More damaging than if he did so is, Mahathir would be attacking the foundation of his political worldview that Malay equals Umno and only Umno can serve Malays.

The reality though is different. Najib is the government from which all the tools of trade could be — and had been — used to beat Mahathir. So far it is only through the government that Najib has survived so that when Mahathir, says to remove him without removing the government, he is asking to keep the solar center, the sun (government), that keeps the moon (Umno) in place, determining its gravitational orbit (Najib) he wants replaced.

Up to a point, Najib could beat the Chinese to shore up his Umno position. But that’s not ultimately at stake; it’s Najib’s role and performance in government, his corruption especially, that Mahathir says is the cause of his consternation. This sort of the thing has, for self-evident reasons, never been used before against another Umno leader; past rebellions have relied on the excuse of being a Chinese lackey or not being Malay enough, whatever that is. Anwar was because of his sexual morality.

To use individual, personal, especially material morality as the foundational basis for rule, not only leaves Mahathir vulnerable — Najib has only to dredge up Mahathir’s past to counter-attack — it especially leaves scattered in the debris of Umno for all to see the very thing that Malays have been raised to ignore for half a century: the party is an immorality.

Thus, some in PAS, talking in religious terms about forgiving ‘sins’, rings hollow to other PAS and Malays: Such kind of sins, unlike beating the infidel Chinese, is for Allah to forgive. When did PAS take over God’s role? Why is Anwar Ibrahim’s kind of morality regarded differently by PAS, indeed lesser, than Najib’s morality?

The answers explain why, despite Zaid Ibrahim’s urging to involve Anwar, and in spite of his imperative to see the back of Najib, Mahathir could not bring himself to forgive Anwar. Hence, also, PAS is at two minds about partnering with Umno: it risks not only to lose electorally but, worse than that, the stench of Najib’s immorality will carry over into PAS itself, poisoning it, the party that prides itself as the epitome of righteousness.

The sacking of Muhyiddin Yassin from the government, but not the party, commits two things, exposing entirely the underbelly of Umno for what it is and, perfectly reflecting on the nature of brute force in party politics. (a) Najib staying on will remind Malays the party’s morality standing, or immorality, well into the next general elections. (b) Influence within Umno has severe limits. Najib’s power draws ultimately from the government, not Umno.

If this analysis is accurate, there are vast implications.

One, if Umno sends a tyrant to the government, there is no mechanism within the party to recall him. That being the case, all other political components of the government (eg MCA, Sabah and Sarawak) will have a role to seek his removal without touching on Umno and its internal affairs.

Two, there was never an ethnic, homogenous Malay community to begin with, preferably unified under Umno, so that when Najib claims his chief Malay position in ‘no retreat, no surrender’ terms, he validates it. Umno appears instead as the receptacle of bickering, self-centered Malays, each of them inside there for their own, individual purpose if not to get rich. It is an immorality writ large, in political garb, that can be use to destroy as much as to build Malay lives. In short, it’s the myth of the Malay who can do anything under the sun. The wave that lifts the boat can also sink it.

Three, if the above is true, then Malays will find that their strength reside not in Umno. How could it if even Muhyiddin can be so easily silenced? How could it when the most ultra, the uber-Malay named Mahathir, is himself so much against a Malay chief?

Four, that being the case, when Malay power is ultimately sourced and drawn not from the party, that power has to reside elsewhere. But where? Answer: Individual Malays. This is the true stuff of democracy, which explains why Mahathir and Sanusi Junid were, in the last stages of their fight, pleading no longer to Umno, but to individual Malays: Rise up, he tells them; don’t depend on us. Then there is the further evidence that all demands for Najib to resign came from small, little obscure kampung branches; not one division stood up.

Five. In the circumstances described, the path is cleared for PKR, Amanah especially, to move in. Their message is simply this: Power is returned to you. Whether it is Malay rights, or Malay privileges, all will be returned to you. Najib seized that power entrusted to Umno and Umno permitted it because, as one can plainly see, the reality inside it is not what we see on the outside: the egotism, the narcissism, the get-rich-while-you-can culture, the brutality. The 2.6 billion is that outcome. In short, the only way to end the immorality and its force-brutality is to recall it.

Six. Power to recall resides only in the individual Malay. It’s not with Umno, which couldn’t recall Najib. Inside Umno, Muhyiddin couldn’t. Mahathir couldn’t. All failed. Thus, when Hadi Awang joins hands with Najib, what’s the ultimate intent if not because Najib is not sure if all the individual Malays will recall that power deposited in Umno, so leaving him vulnerable. If he has all the individual Malays behind him, he won’t need PAS. Yet, in wanting PAS, that desire says of a man who distrust the power of individual Malays who entrusted it in him.

Seven. The question before any Malay, whether the person is Umno or not, is reducible to this: whether or not they want back the power they first gave away? And if they do, then how usefully they will use it again? Using it wisely is important. Mahathir tried taking back the power given to Najib. Nothing. Muhyiddin tried. Nothing. Ghani Patail tried. Nothing. Zeti tried, nothing. Umno’s branches here and there tried. Nothing. Why? Because each of them were not asking for the power to be returned. They were simply asking it — the power — to be transferred to another person; Umno or not is not the point. They were not asking to be returned to the people from where it first resided.

That’s Malaysian democracy, Melayu style.

Old kampung

Future kampung?