The Malay 'Matrix ' and 'Malaycoronapolitics'

Under lockdown, I’ve been watching sci-fi-magical-realist movies. It was thoughtful binge-watching though, to enjoy and study them philosophically and culturally. Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, all complete. Then there was my favourite, The Matrix. Two parts are done with one more to go.

I thought of Malay politics while watching Matrix 1.

The feudal virus

The Malays are in a Matrix... of the wahabi-salafi-ketuananmelayu-feudalist sort. They need a "Neo'' to release them. Who is this? Yes, someone like a Malay messiah. We, however, don’t know when he or she will emerge and if he or she is interested in the job.

The messiah needs to travel to ancient times first to change the course of Malaysian history. Most of the Malay sultans of ancient times had major psychological-moral disorders, yet the rakyat was ordered to worship them. That would be the messiah’s job. Get the Malays out of the Matrix.

Or maybe it’s already too late.

The virus of feudal- psychophysics mentality from the time of the Malacca sultanate has mutated into today's "Malaycoronapolitics".

Malay-feudalist thinking has created generations of political parasites and leeches, ending today as Malaycoronapolitics and instituted a new culture with psycho-pathological consequences. Such consequences range from the BMF scandal to 1MDB to frog-jumping fiascos like the Sheraton Move.

Today we are seeing the butterfly-effect of the Malacca-sultanate mutation. Especially with the change of the regime. Here is the story.

They entered through the backdoor to form a government. The door opened to an abandoned ballroom ravaged by the coronavirus. A reward. Malaysia's coronapolitics virus started back in the 1980s. It mutated through different regime changes. Today, it is fatal and there's no cure.

It will be two years before another regime change, enough time for Ali Baba and the 44 thieves to plunder. That's our coronapolitics. Once these people are placed in government-linked companies (GLCs) and Parliament, they'll fight to keep power. They will fight tooth and nail, turbans and tarboosh to keep their jobs.

Today, we can see the aspiration of today's politician - to get a position through the backdoor, get a state title, sit on piles of cash and do nothing much and act extremely important, with human-leeches crawling and supporting their false sense of importance.

Sometimes, I thought of this: put those politicians and lawmakers on minimum wage. We'll see who is honest enough to work hard for the people.

Today's model of patronage-robber-baron-politics has never worked, then or now. This is especially true when awarding questionable political characters with positions in government and in GLCs.

Malaysian taxpayers can't continue to reward mediocrity and arrogance. This is a syndrome of a toxic society evolving.

Malaycoronapolitics

Though talks and sermons of the need to be a moral and civil society broadcast by these coronapolitical leaders are in abundance, there seems to be no morality in Malay politics anymore. There is no longer any moral compass, perhaps it got lost in the huge piles of cash the leaders sit on.

The more Islamic society is forced to look, the more filth is plastered on the face of the people, for themselves as well as the leaders. You will lose what you cling to, as the Buddha said and as I was always reminded.

Come back to your senses, politicians. Power and wealth have made the country suffer. And you, a bunch of greedy and spineless politicians, are the roots of suffering. You made us watch your drama too often.

And now, Malaysian politics is getting hilarious. We are fed with proclamations of people's mandate and alliance among the hateful again.

Out of all this, emerges the longest story of political nothingness and pathos ever told between old rivals. A story where the sub-plots and butterfly-effect plots have long since bored the rakyat to death.

That’s the Malay Matrix, coming from Malaycoronapolitics. We have not seen cognitive evolution moving in the right direction. When are we seeing this change?

Move on, it is now the time of monsters unseen and lurking, of the post-Covid-19 world. These leaders are not fighting for the people. It is about positions and losing and gaining bounties. What ideals? What reforms?

I recall one of the most important pieces of dialogue in The Matrix. I can relate, and I keep on saying to myself: “We live in a matrix. Get out. Unplug. Let's go to Utan Aji in Perlis or Gua Musang in Kelantan. Rabbit Holes! You see, Neo - those in the old coalition want their jobs back, those which were stolen by the new. And the people were each given the blue pill.”

That makes sense for any Malay like me watching The Matrix.

Then my mind wandered while watching the second part and memories of The Empire Strikes Back from the Star Wars trilogy came crashing in. I thought - only one new Malaysian party can unite everybody and understand their suffering in the post-Covid-19 era - Parti Korona Jaya. National Socialism as ideology, perhaps?

For 18 months, parties in the previous coalition were fighting too much among themselves. Each party imploded, ignoring the mandate given to them by the people.

The drama in the new coronapolitics Matrix in Malaysia is between the old guards of Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional is about the Umno-war reloaded. In the end, Malaysian politics is about destroying one another every two years.

No wonder nothing much has changed. They are busy fighting over the loot from former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak’s (photo, below) 1MDB days, and this is shown to the public, on TV and in cyberspace.

We need to move on, the post-Covid-19 world is here. Together, we need to save society from this catastrophe and this unseen enemy. We need to see our representatives, our politicians, spend time doing honest work for the people and not at golf courses, scheming to destroy one another.

A few months ago, I read Milan Kundera's Nobel-prize winning novel, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". Yesterday, I saw the headline where Harapan Malay leaders are urged to forgive and forget each other's enmity and recapture the bounty lost to the backdoor government. To me, in the tradition of Kundera's novel, this headline will be read as "The Unbearable Boredom of Malay Politics".

Every time a regime changes, we sigh and lament. Maybe we'll be happy just watching the show, seeing them destroying one another inside the Matrix.

In the end?

Malaysia, I feel, will see the end of history when and if the crooks of 1MDB are set free. That will signal the birth of a totally corrupt state. Some say that the drama of power grab in Malaysia is Shakespearean. I'd say it's just a "village Sartrean nausea" play.

One day we'll see heroism in how fast a politician can jump from one party to another. That will be because we've been reduced to being mere spectators by the screen-writer of the never-ending-proton-saga of Malaycoronapolitics.

Malaysia, sad to say, can't afford mediocre ministers appointed out of political loyalty. Ones who do not know world geography, nature of schooling, religion in a multicultural society, humanistic economics, food security, and more. The world is becoming all the more challenging by the day.

Politics is not only about being given positions in government and enjoying the perks and privileges, especially after a 'coup' of which the people's votes were given away shamefully. That kind of politics is both blasphemy and devoid of blessings. Society cannot progress that way.

The Harapan government collapsed because of its own doing - slow to institute much-needed reforms and too much happening behind the scene. The replacement is today much worse, don't you think? Seems like we do not have problem-solvers and visionaries in the team put together in haste and distaste.

Hypocrisy cannot be the political philosophy of the new government. No one is above the law, especially when it comes to MCO during this Covid-19 pandemic. Whether a minister or a man on the street, they should be treated the same. You break the law, you get charged. We're sick of the hypocrisy.

I end my slightly post-modern essay now.

We need to stop Malaycoronapoltics from spreading.

By destroying the matrix.

But how? And who will do it?

Will there be a messiah?

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AZLY RAHMAN is an academician, international columnist and author of seven books available here. He holds a doctorate in international education development and Master’s degrees in six areas: education, international affairs, peace studies, communication, fiction and non-fiction writing. He is a member of the Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education. Twitter @azlyrahman. More writings here. - Mkini