Anwar Ibrahim's folly

“You can fail many times, but you're not a failure until you begin to blame somebody else.”

- John Burroughs

The difference between Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and prime minister-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim when it comes to dealing with the Malays is not ideological but rhetorical.

While the old maverick is wont to lecture and bemoan specific traits of his “people” – while blowing the dog whistle when it comes to the non-Malays – Anwar Ibrahim likes to find scapegoats in his quest to project some sort of leadership quality.

Despite the differences in rhetoric, both carry out racial policies which are detrimental to the Malay community.

Anwar’s latest tirade when it comes to the plight of the “rural Malays” is to blame the “urban elites” for distracting from the economic woes of the rural Malay communities.

There is an element in the Malay political elite of PKR who seem to think that their perceived lack of “Malayness” is brought upon by egalitarian ideas that emanate from the urban and semi-urban centres, which is dominated by non-Malay concerns.

Anwar’s “don’t spook the Malays” narrative is a projection about the perceived lack of (rural) Malay support of the progressive Malay faction of PKR, which ironically is the panacea for the lopsided policies that have been detrimental to the Malay polity.

Young Malay leaders, some of who have jumped on the bandwagon, citing “ultra-liberal Malays” and other such nonsense, are merely reacting to the right-wing elements in PKR and from Bersatu, who are jostling for power in this post-May 9 reality.

Anwar’s scapegoating of the “urban elites” is just another narrative employed by Malay political powerbrokers to deflect from the reality that policies meant to favour the dominant Malay polity have been an abject failure. Or rather, the short-term gains of such policies have come back to bite the behinds of Malay power structures bereft and fearful of progressive ideas that could change the political and social landscape of the Malay polity.

When Anwar Ibrahim says something like this: “…at times, the elite seems to ignore these real problems. I’ve not heard them talking about… poverty, inequality...”, the question becomes, where has he been? Not only have the urban elites been talking about poverty and equality but these same urban elites were suckered into believing that only the current prime minister has the “trust” of the rural Malays, which is why they embraced his political comeback and anointed him the Grand Poohbah of Harapan.

It was Anwar Ibrahim who was viewed as not up to the task of corralling the rural Malays to the Harapan banner, even though he has spent an inordinate amount of time and political capital to try forge a relationship with this demographic.

People obsessed with meritocracy

Furthermore, when Anwar Ibrahim claims that people are obsessed with meritocracy, and uses “somebody from the Dayak tribe” as an example of why affirmative action is needed, this is not only mendacious, but I would say vile.

First off, children from tribes in Sarawak would be more vulnerable to unilateral conversion rather than the inequalities of the bureaucracies when it comes to preserving their special rights. Secondly, what about the poor non-Malay kid who managed to score the required nine As but is marginalised from the system because hundreds of Malay students who do not qualify get to participate in the system, merely because of race? What about the children of privileged Malays who use the system at the expense of disenfranchised Malays?

Anwar claims that the urban elites are cut off from rural bread and butter issues but the reality is that the urban elites are obsessed with bread and butter issues of the whole country.

Economic bread and butter issues are the catalyst from aberrant political upheavals and when you are the minority (especially when it comes to progressive politics), you understand that while you may be hurting in a bad economy, the people who could do the most damage to your economic and social stability are the disenfranchised who wield lopsided political power, through their votes.

Why do you think non-Malays – specifically the Chinese community – are scapegoated as an economic threat to the Malay community? Because it is easier to blame a community for bad policy decisions than to reverse course and attempt policies which would not be politically attractive in the short term, but specifically in this context because Harapan does not want to do the hard work of using its apparatus for messaging and shifting public opinion.

And it is bizarre. Anwar claims that the rural communities want to be reassured that the Malay language and their special rights are preserved and that they are afraid of certain government policies, which they view as threats to those issues. Really? When Anwar says that there is no harm when it comes to mastering the Malay language, where exactly was anyone posing a threat to the language?

Cause of the plight of the rural Malays

Has this got anything to do with the UEC demand from the Chinese community? Is Bahasa Melayu under threat because of the refusal to recognise the UEC? Then just come out and say it. Look, the reason why the rural Malay communities are in the situation they are in is because, for decades, successive Umno regimes deprived them of the opportunities and advantages that urban people have.

They did this because they wanted a convenient rural vote bank, which they could use as a potent weapon, in terms of votes and narratives against the non-Malay communities, who were not dependent on government handouts but who were thriving.

That's God’s honest truth. It is pointless for Anwar Ibrahim to lecture urban elites into going down into rural areas and doing charitable work because the onus is on the government, both state and federal, to ensure egalitarian programmes which would help all marginalised communities, instead of expecting more handouts from privileged urban people – who, let’s face it, are struggling with economic issues of their own. Does Anwar really think that all people who make their homes in urban centres are “rich”?

Besides privileged urbanites, who are so inclined have their hands looking full as against the disenfranchised in the urban areas, mucking about in the rural heartlands presents social and public relations problems of their own. What the Malay political apparatus should be doing is defunding those “Malays” institutions that are leaching money from public coffers, which could be put to better use instead of the indoctrination and subservience, which is the desiderata of mainstream Malay politics and the function of those institutions.

Then, of course, there are the Malay plutocrats who are engaged in larcenous behaviour when it comes to Malay entitlements – and looting, when it comes to Malay-Muslim fundings.

In the end, Anwar’s folly is the willful denial that policies meant to empower the Malays are, in reality, predatory policies which disenfranchise the greater Malay community and from which the fallout is the racial and religious divisions in this country.

Anwar can take heart because his folly is shared by the political class in this country.

---

S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. A retired barrister-at-law, he is one of the founding members of the National Patriots Association. - Mkini