It's a 'Long Now' to new Malaysia

Before 9 May, it felt like even 100 years of effort would not be able to repair the profound damage that Umno had kept inflicting on Malaysia for 60 years and counting.

But as we approach the first 100 days of the Pakatan Harapan government miracle, we may rest assured we have turned a sharp corner as a society, and there is no turning back the clock; and we are on the road to an entirely different place.

There were three crucial milestones on the path we inexorably chose. We witnessed the first on 19 November 2016, when former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad looked into the crystal ball and saw no choice but to join Maria Chin Abdullah on the Bersih 5 stage at Dataran Merdeka, before tens of thousands of Malaysians crying out for change, before hundreds of smartphones that recorded the moment in history and beamed it to the rest of the country.

This was soon followed by the meeting of former arch enemies, as master and protégé, on February 10, 2017, when Mahathir and Anwar Ibrahim shook hands at Malaysia’s High Court, to discuss an opposition coalition.

Everything culminated late into the night of GE14, when Mahathir declared at a press conference Pakatan Harapan had beaten down Umno’s BN coalition, he was the prime minister in waiting and all that remained was for the Election Commission to simply declare the results.

Every time I look back to marvel at how far we’ve come, how long it’s taken and how much further we have to go, I am reminded of the ‘Clock of the Long Now’.

The Long Now posits humankind has begun to live from day to day, moment to moment, that all we can remember is yesterday, and all we plan for is tomorrow. In so doing, we forget to take stock of achievements that may have taken decades, as well as pitfalls that may affect us profoundly in, say, the next 20 years.

Hence, the Long Now clock (one of many social programmes and projects begun by the Long Now Foundation) will ring every 10 years, and every century, instead of marking our minutes and hours.

In Malaysia’s context, the Long Now tells me we all need to register in our minds that the outcome of GE14 on May 9, 2018 did not come by us overnight, so to speak, nor was it gifted to us by any individual, group of people or party.

The truth is, a hopeful and dare-to-dream people had been carefully and wilfully plotting the coordinates to a new country, a new Malaysia, for many years now. GE14 was a long time in the making.

Long, long ago

I would say the change was fuelled by an unrelenting belief and faith in nationhood that had propelled the DAP ever since its founding on October 11, 1965.

DAP has been consistent in our national psyche for almost the same amount of time Umno has ruled, and it has been a true Malaysian force in parliamentary opposition.

DAP is older than many Malaysians who voted on that fateful May day, the most honourable Lim Kit Siang has been fighting for Malaysia longer than many of us have lived.

Move on another 30 years or so, to 1998, and a civil society storm brought the thunder of Reformasi to the streets.

Then came the five salvos from Bersih, perhaps the most telling of social eruptions for their collective power to cut across all societal boundaries, especially race, religion and political affiliation.

In these outpourings of the need to reform, however, while politicians came and went, swung and did the frog dance, one factor was of a feather – Malaysians who wanted change.

Malaysia’s people changed the course of history, and politicians simply fell in line.

The growing power of Malaysians to realise change brought politicians to knock on our doors, which then opened and led them to the ideals of comprehensive reform, a full and public embrace of the ideals of transparency and accountability in government and, most importantly, complete surrender to a multi-ethnic, multi-religious Malaysia.

It was further exemplified on GE14 campaign platforms, during which the then opposition spoke as one to answer the demands we had been voicing for decades.

And with the outcome of the last federal poll, Malaysians gave Harapan the mandate to administer, in our image and to our demands.

No turning back clock

Politicians on both sides may try to turn back the clock, but their lesson will be that it’s impossible.

Malaysia’s clock will ever tick towards comprehensive change and a better country for all of us, a land of equal opportunity, however long it may take.

We must rightly take pride in knowing we have been fighting BN in many of its manifestations for years, including the earlier Mahathir-Anwar leadership and the national catastrophe that was Najib Razak.

We also need to remind ourselves it will take years, maybe decades, to finally get ‘there’ - ‘there’ being a place in the future that will continue to fire the imagination of grassroots nation-builders, who will believe all that is good for Malaysia is now possible, even probable.

We will arrive at a place and time where the narrative moves beyond the supremacist agendas of NGOs and opposition politicians of today, who do little more than preach racial and religious supremacy;

Where the call for democratic change in government is never again translated as unpatriotic, treasonous and a threat to national security;

Where a country may never be equated to government;

A place in which we all acknowledge Malaysia’s first people are and always will be the Orang Asli, who need to be recognised as such. The rest of us are all later arrivals;

Where all our politicians, and especially those in government, work to serve a secular constitution and never let the values of any religion come to bear on policy-making.

Patience a virtue

Meanwhile, our patience is a virtue that Malaysia’s new government will desperately need. We won’t arrive at this place we have dreamed of tomorrow, but patience will ensure we find the stamina to keep going, to watchfully abide by the new government we have ourselves chosen.

We need to jealously guard the next four years or so before GE15, give Harapan time to breathe and manoeuvre, make mistakes, fall and then learn to pick itself up again in order to govern and administer for all Malaysians.

It's been less than 100 days, and we already have a cabinet resplendent with the colours of Malaysia’s races and communities, a powerful beacon that draws us forward, a profound, non-negotiable dictum and message to the naysayers.

We have parliamentary representatives who are part of the majority in our population speaking of affirmative action for all, non-discrimination, freedom of religion, freedom from fear.

We have East and West Malaysia finally talking with meaningfulness, negotiating a joint future.

We have an attorney-general we can all trust, a speaker in Parliament who inspires us to believe he will preside over an august house.

It’s not even 100 days. And we have come so far. Imagine that ‘long now’.

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WILLIAM DE CRUZ is former president of Global Bersih. -Mkini