Abdul Rashid the biggest threat to Malay dignity, prosperity

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has long dreamed of making the Malays great.

He dreamed of towering Malays, blazing forward in the fields of business, industry and all the major professions.

He dreamed of an Umno filled with entrepreneurs and captains of industry. He ended up with an Umno filled with rent-seekers and sycophants.

This was the fate of Umno and Mahathir 1.0. What fate next, for Bersatu and Mahathir 2.0?

Bersatu vice-president and former Elections Commission chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman seems to believe that the old Umno formula is exactly what Bersatu should move back to:

“In the election, we must win by hook or by crook," he said.

Rashid said although he did not like the idea of using government resources, it had to be done.

"All division chiefs should be given activities so that they can have the opportunity to defend their divisions," he said.

In his speech, Rashid also urged the government to restore the parallel village chief system practised by the previous BN government.

"And our people must occupy these positions," he said.

Today, we will discuss the implications of these ideas for Bersatu, and tomorrow, the implications for political parties in general.

Classic Umno patronage

At its most important core, Rashid’s Umno-informed philosophy or formula can be summarised as:

We win the government.

We use government funds to enrich local political operatives.

Local political operatives spread this wealth (after taking their own cut), in exchange for votes.

The standing ovation Rashid got from Bersatu delegates at their recent AGM is perhaps the most frightening, ominous applause to be heard since May 9, 2018.

Rashid should realise that Umno did not fail because of a few bad apples at the top.

Umno failed because of the very culture that Rashid is proposing Bersatu returns to; the same culture that corrupted every level of leadership in the party.

When you practise patronage, feudalism and corruption (which includes using government resources for political purposes) from the bottom up, it gets progressively worse as you reach the top.

An RM2.6 billion scandal was indeed the most logical conclusion to Umno’s path - the same one that Rashid wants Bersatu to embark upon again.

Umno did not only fail Malaysia in this manner, it also failed the Malays.

Absent Malay middle class

It feels that Mahathir 1.0 allowed a little patronage and feudalism in Umno in the early days, hoping that it was a necessary step towards fulfilling his larger goal of creating a robust Malay entrepreneur class.

But feudalism is a beast that even the strongest cannot control. Once allowed into the party, it spread its poisonous tentacles everywhere, and soon enough, no Umnoputra felt he or she had to work hard or be globally competitive.

Why bother, when all you had to do is polish the right apples and ingratiate yourself successfully to the right people in order to get rich quick?

Ultimately, this meant that it was the apple polishers and political bottom feeders that rose to the top, while Malays with genuine talent, ability, diligence and principles stayed at the bottom.

Or at best, meandered at the middle. The late Ani Arope (photo) was just one individual that comes to mind.

Umno didn’t have a problem with this, because Umno never wanted a truly successful Malay middle class.

A simple glance at the different voting patterns of urban and rural Malays demonstrates why.

Rich Umnoputras, poor Malays

Umno preferred for Malays to be as backward and as poor as possible.

When your core constituency is backwards and poor, they are extremely susceptible to the basest form of political manipulation.

Throw over a couple of election goodies when necessary, keep blasting propaganda on TV3 and Utusan Malaysia, and the Umno vote bank is deemed safe.

To keep things this way, the Internet was kept out of rural Malaysia for as long as possible, no real focus was given on actually improving education and Malays were assisted based on political loyalty, not merit.

It didn’t matter to Umno that this meant Malays would indefinitely remain backwards, the original goals of the NEPscattered to the wind; all that mattered to them was for Umno to be re-elected.

The result? Rich Umnoputras, poor Malays.

As long as the system Rashid wants to reinstitute is in place, you will forever have Malays who are given fish - mere crumbs from the government's table - and never taught how to fish for themselves.

Stupidity is using the strategies of enemies you’ve defeated. Rashid maybe believes that without playing Umno’s game, Bersatu will lose to Umno; indeed that it would be stupid not to.

What this thinking fails to understand is the simple fact that Malaysia’s political paradigm has shifted completely. Umno today is like a ship smashed apart at sea - disintegrating and floating away in various directions.

Some are too old-fashioned in their thinking to recognise how this changes our landscape. Old weapons work against old enemies; when the enemy changes, using old weapons could end up harming ourselves more than the new enemies.

Towering Malays

Bersatu and Harapan want to shore up their Malay support. Fair enough for now, but they won’t succeed if they attempt this by fighting the ghost of a dead Umno.

For one thing, Umno, as we knew it, no longer exists. If anything, the major Malay party Harapan will face in GE15 could more likely be PAS.

Perhaps Rashid believes that Harapan needs to increase Malay support, even at the cost of non-Malay votes. Once again, this is an Umno strategy, which led to Umno’s fate.

To borrow Rashid’s terminology, it would seem the height of stupidity to employ the strategies of the enemy that you just defeated.

Even the stupidest of analysts should be able to see that had Umno’s strategies worked in the first place, we wouldn’t be sitting here having this debate.

Umno’s upside down system of feudalism and patronage led corrupt Malays to the top and left genuinely able, dynamic Malays at the bottom.

As I wrote previously, Bersatu has the opportunity now to completely reverse these perversions of Umno.

Rashid’s path will perpetuate the dependent Malay - a rent seeker whose only skills are finding ways to remain a snivelling servant to his feudal lords.

The path of some younger, progressive elements in Bersatu, on the other hand, will blaze open the road for the towering Malay - successful on their own merits, forged through their own sweat and blood and second to none across the globe.

This is the dignity that Malays and Malaysia need, not an eternity of Umno-style feudal handouts.

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NATHANIEL TAN tries his best not to be stupid. - Mkini