Who wants, or needs, a Malaysian Malaysia?

“They despise and hate the government more and more, but they don't know how to set about changing it. The country is dying for some sort of lead, and so far all it is getting is a crowd of fresh professional leaders. Who never get anywhere. Who do not seem to be aiming anywhere. We are living in a world of jaded politics. Poverty increases, prices rise, unemployment spreads, mines, factories stagnate, and nothing is done.”

– HG Wells, The Holy Terror

I realise that people may not want to read this, but it has to be said. There will never be a Malaysia for Malaysians because, ultimately, the various ethnic groups in this country do not really want this.

They do not really want a place in the sun for everyone, but rather, they want to dominate the political landscape with their preferred ideology – however one defines them – instead of a Malaysia where everyone is equal under the law.

The MCA and MIC did not start off as “running dogs” of the Umno Establishment but were willing “partners” in the creation of the Malay Malaysia state. What we see happening now in the opposition is exactly the same narrative that the MCA and MIC went through, which was a process of collusion, corruption and Islamisation that brought the country to where it is now. It is like history repeating itself with all the delusion and hypocrisy that comes with a new deal.

The chief Puad Zarkashi of Putrajaya's Special Affairs Department (Jasa) said something stupid. He said the “DAP fights for equality, not equitability as agreed to in the social contract”, which is dumb because the two are not mutually exclusive.

You cannot have equitability without equality but most important, there is no such thing as the “social contract”. Even former prime minister, and now de facto opposition leader Dr Mahathir Mohamad, acknowledged this when he said that the social contract was not a tangible document or some such throwaway line.

I have no idea what is going on with the opposition these days. Look, you cannot play the race and religion game with Umno, and now PAS. The deck is stacked and they have the winning hand when it comes to this twisted game. What you can do is not play defence. Stop trying to rehabilitate the image of the DAP or out to Islamise the Establishment. There is nothing anyone can say about the DAP that would change minds.

What Umno is worried about

What Umno is worried about when it comes to its election chances are internal sabotage, the manoeuvrings of PAS, the “situation” (as one Umno spin master told me) in Sabah and Sarawak and of course the economy tanking. This idea that Umno was ever a “centrist” party is total horse manure and could we please stop using euphemisms like “Malay narrative”?

What we are really talking about is Malay supremacy, institutionalised Malay racism, or simply put Malay political and religious hegemony. The non-Malays happily bought into this narrative because life and the economy was always “good” here in Malaysia and because we had our own space in the private sector and economy, which we dominated and colluded with the Establishment in a myriad of corrupt practices all under the umbrella of “Asian values” and the social contract.

If the DAP’s Lim Kit Siang cannot foresee a non-Malay prime minister in this century, it is because the opposition has never advocated such an idea. You cannot lay the blame solely on Umno, when the strategy of saving Malaysia is pandering to the Malay vote, when we have a history of large-scale corruption that did not turn this country into failed state.

When PAS chief Abdul Hadi Awang blathers on about how Islam rejects “the theory of secularism, Malaysian Malaysia and chauvinism without denying the existence of worldly living”, can anyone point to an another interpretation of Malaysian Islam that is a counter-narrative? Hadi, of course, is mendacious as ever.

Malay supremacy is what he is really talking about because, in Malaysia, ethnicity (Malay) and religion (Islam) are not mutually exclusive. Does anyone really think that what Hadi is claiming is not the dominant ideology and strategy of all the political parties here in Malaysia?

The DAP’s Edry Faizal said PAS wants to impose its version of political Islam on Malaysians. Fair enough, but what is the version of the DAP’s political Islam, because ultimately that is the most important question. We can count the ways how the opposition has let down non-Muslims ever since they came into power when the opposition had to choose between defending secular values over Islamic ones.

Why opposition cannot talk about race, religion

I have already made my case as to why the opposition cannot talk about race and religion – “If “racism” is such a big issue to people who support the opposition, if the systemic inequalities that some describe as an “apartheid” system is really destroying this country, then do we really have a future when the opposition will never address these issues? Even if by some miracle they do manage to take over Putrajaya, the opposition would always be beholden to a demographic that supports institutionalised racism.”

When Umno and Hadi target the Chinese community and make kissy faces at the Indian community, does anyone really think that this is a new strategy? Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said that he demonised the DAP because it was politics as usual.

The DAP, meanwhile, cannot defend itself against Umno propaganda because they have aligned with the nemesis that through the decades they claimed was destroying this country.

I do not really think that anyone really wants a Malaysian Malaysia. I think some people think that if the opposition manages to claim federal power, there would merely be a continuation of the Malay narrative because, then, it will become a situation of defending what you have achieved.

Kit Siang thinks we will not have a non-Malay prime minister in this century. I think we will never have a non-Malay prime minister because, unlike the civil rights movement in America, non-Malay opposition parties will never want to place the Malay vote in jeopardy.

There will never be an egalitarian movement which seeks Malaysians regardless of race to coalesce into a civil movement to supplant the Malay supremacy ideology. People will always say “baby steps”, but these baby steps will always lead to giant strides of the "Malay" narrative.

This should give some comfort to the Malay supremacists out there.

They win. They will always win.

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. - Mkini