Since I started thinking of Malaysian politics in my late teens and seriously studying it, beginning in my mid-twenties, writing tons of papers on various aspects of the Malaysian problematique, there is this sense of something deeper I felt I need to explore beyond political analysis, using merely the traditional framework of the Developmental Theorists.
I wanted to go into Psychoanalysis or the Freudian analysis of it; it was the time at the end of my undergraduate year of passionate readings of the work of The Frankfurt School of Social Research, or ‘The Frankfurt School’ for short; the work of Horkheimer, Adorno, Habermas, Althusser, and others who blended Freudian analysis with Marxism.
It was a liberating period of my exploration, to say the least - my readings on politics became all the more enriched. My conversations revolved around the issue of cui bono? ‘knowledge-constituted interest’, ‘Ideologiekritik’, ‘false consciousness’, ‘ideological-state apparatuses’, and the ‘crisis of the object’.
In the background of words such as ‘repression’, ‘Electra and Oedipal complexes’, ‘id, ego, superego’, ‘libido’, were dancing and telling me to hybridise my understanding of Marxist theories with the issue of nationalism, class, imperialism, as well as race and religion.
Then came the work of the so-called ‘post-modernists, post-structuralist, post-this and post-that and neo-this and neo-that’. Then there was, my early doctoral work on international and transcultural studies, the work of Michel Foucault; plunging me into this extensive reading on ‘discourse of language’ and the archaeology of knowledge.
I got into reading major work of the celebrated French philosopher (because my adviser and mentor at Columbia University was a French cultural anthropologist!) and other is worked with were scholars of Montaigne, Rousseau, de Sassaure, Bourdieu, de Cherteau, and the ancient and modern philosophers... etc, etc...
These influenced my writings partly. And besides Foucault there was Antonio Gramsci as a major author of my thoughts in producing my dissertation as well.
So - there was this ongoing synthesis of what I was framing as a kaleidoscopic lens to look at society, since the days of Freud to Foucault. I became obsessed with this evolution and analyses using novel frameworks became natural to me.
“You seem to know a lot - about Critical Theory and everything we’ve talked about, I am afraid you’ll get bored in this doctoral program,” my first adviser told me one day. “I’ll find exciting things to think about,” I told her. So, I spent my time tutoring other PhD students on challenging social theories. That kept me busy and useful.
I did not stop thinking about home - about the Malaysian utopianism and in my musings and meanderings on the problems of the Malays and the Malaysian project since 1957, and in the future of this nation-state, and in the acts and affairs of the political parties, and in the way dissenting views are disciplined and punished, in the was technology is used as a tool of liberation, imprisonment, and how the ‘panoptican-synopticon’ (the inner and outer mental surveillance of things entire) of things work in an emerging totalitarian society composed of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious entity, I came to an initial conclusion.
The Malays want their land back. Malaysia is for the Malays only.
Forget about multiculturalism. About cosmopolitanism. About the beauty of diversity. About the niceties of the fruits of liberal-democracy celebrating the existence of Malays, Chinese, Indians, Iban, Kadazans, etc. In the psychoanalytical scheme of things, and based on the deep notion of history as memory, of the origin and evolution and ‘wrong-trajectory’ of the word ‘Malay’, the inner drive of the Malays political parties is that they want Malaysia for Malays only.
History as a betrayer of the Malays
They saw history as a betrayer of the Malays, with the migration of the indentured serfs from China and India, brought by the Malay sultans and the British - this was a major historical accident that is in need of rectification, whatever it cost. If possible the true-blue-ultra Malay nationalists do not want any race other than the Malays to inhabit this place called Tanah Melayu.
Today, a new nativism laced with violence (structural, political, and physical) is emerging. The will to recapture this Malay Land has become stronger albeit fought in a more sophisticated and different fashion.
I thought of this, as I was reading about the statement that all DAP members and all those opposing the Islamic State of Malaysia are considered ‘infidels allowed to be waged a religious war against’. I thought of this with Freud, Foucault, and a Trump-like ideology of a new nativism of the Malay-Muslim in mind.
The want their land back. And DAP is considered the biggest obstacle. Because the party had a history - May 13, 1969 and a celebration of victory. And the ganging up of Umno and PAS is for this new war of Freudian and Foucaltion proportions.
With the arrest of Lim Guan Eng, a big battle has just begun.
It is a revolt of the elite, nonetheless - of those trying to save their money, friends, and family.
I think.
Would you agree?
DR AZLY RAHMAN grew up in Johor Baru, Malaysia and holds a Columbia University (New York City) doctorate in International Education Development and Masters degrees in the fields of Education, International Affairs, Peace Studies and Communication. He will be pursuing his fifth Masters in Fine Arts, specialising in Fiction and Poetry Writing. He has taught more than 50 courses in six different departments and has written more than 350 analyses/essays on Malaysia. His 25 years of teaching experience in Malaysia and the United States spans over a wide range of subjects, from elementary to graduate education. He has edited and authored six books; Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present, Future (2009), Thesis on Cyberjaya: Hegemony and Utopianism in a Southeast Asian State (2012), The Allah Controversy and Other Essays on Malaysian Hypermodernity (2013), Dark Spring: Essays on the Ideological Roots of Malaysia's General Elections-13 (2013), a first Malay publication Kalimah Allah Milik Siapa?: Renungan dan Nukilan Tentang Malaysia di Era Pancaroba (2014), and Controlled Chaos: Essays on Mahathirism, Multimedia Super Corridor and Malaysia’s ‘New Politics’ (2014). He currently resides in the United States where he teaches courses in Education, Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Political Science, and American Studies. His forthcoming book, One Malaysia, under God, Bipolar, a joint project between Gerakbudaya and World Wise Books of New Jersey, USA, is his seventh compilation of essays on Malaysian Cultural, Creative, and Critical Studies. He is currently working on his eighth book, on Gifted and Talented Education in Malaysia, honouring a prominent educator. Twitter,blog. Mkini
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