It happens all the time. In casual conversation, a good friend reveals their uncle and dad are in Umno, PAS, or some other party that’s based on race or religion.
Or you meet some nice couple selling ketupat (rice cake) - and then realise they are hardcore supporters of a ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy) party. Maintaining their smiling and unwitting way to a racist and backward future.
The reality is that what might have started off as a good idea during the early years of independence (and I don’t really believe that) has descended into a sinister farce.
How many other countries do you know of where the main political parties are based on such intrinsically divisive qualities? Where the people are largely segregated in different language school systems?
This is at the heart of why we are in so much trouble - most people get easily distracted and misled by issues of identity politics (or personality politics) and they can’t see the wood for the trees.
When I hear an intellectually bankrupt and spiritually toxic PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang spout his dangerous viewpoints - I am disgusted that prejudice and racism has been so mainstreamed in Malaysia.
Yes, I know that racism is across the board, but the dominant racists are from the majority race and they are actually able to influence the direction of our society.
It’s true that it’s mirrored. They are not the only racists out there but they are ones with the most power.
Backward thinking in scholastic and quasi-religious institutions is nothing new and we have gotten used to just sighing and getting on with it.
I am not even that disgusted with Hadi’s revolting Taliban-apologist thinking anymore.
What I really can’t take is when people are so desperate that they start seeing Umno moderates like Azalina Othman Said and Khairy Jamaluddin as bright hopes. Or get tickled by the good cop/bad cop routine when a relative of Dr Mahathir Mohamad invites them for tea.
Khairy’s charm
Sungai Buloh candidate Khairy just promised to bring changes to the country, Umno, and BN - so that the Malay community could have the largest political body in Malaysia that it could be proud of.
“I don’t want to stop in Sungai Buloh simply because competing here is the biggest challenge in my political career. It’s not easy to win here, but if I win, I want to bring us all, not now but maybe in the next five or 10 years, to lead the leadership of the country.
“I also want to bring change to my party and want Umno to be seen again as a noble vessel for the Malay community. Nowadays, many people meet and tell me it’s not that they don’t like Umno, but they don't like some in Umno.
“Me and other friends want to return Umno as a Malay political body that is noble, clean, evolving, that has good leaders, and can be trusted like it was in the past,” Khairy was quoted by Berita Harian.
Charming as it might be to the easily led, this sounds like racist talk to me.
Last year I asked Azalina about the idea of banning parties that are exclusively based on race, religion, or region as a means of defusing this situation.
“Of course not. If the majority of the people want some mono-ethnic, mono-religious, or regional parties, and they are not allowed to join such parties, are we still a democracy?
“We need to be inclusive in politics, but inclusion should be promoted by giving the right electoral incentives,” she said.
Voters, she added, can encourage inclusive politics by voting for parties that come out with better policies and do not promote communal or regional hatred, even though those parties may not be from their communities.
As long as people don’t dare take the necessary step forward and drag this country kicking and screaming to where we need to be, we shall be stuck. Stuck with moral policing, blatant corruption, double standards, incompetent leaders, and a failing economy.
Malay voters
In all the analysis that is floating around, we seem to have forgotten the key point that the average Malay voter, raised on ketuanan and siege mentality, doesn’t see much wrong with racism, happily supporting the prejudiced and backward politics of Umno, PAS, Bersatu, and other tempurung (ignorant) parties.
Their voting patterns seem to indicate a backlash against accidentally voting in a more racially balanced government.
Again, I repeat that Malay voters are not any more racist than others – for example, the percentage of DAP voters who will switch to backing MCA if DAP suddenly replaces a Chinese candidate with an Indian or Malay one tells its own story.
Us Indians too have all manner of prejudice interwoven through caste, region, religion, and a number of other factors.
It’s just that the demographics are skewed to make Malay racism an important electoral element and Chinese and Indian prejudice less so. Decision-making power has been limited to a group that makes bad decisions.
One problem the country has is that the Malay right-wingers are the ones who talk, and even though what they say is appalling - the Malay majority excels at keeping quiet.
Progressive and intelligent Malays are manifold – I’ve certainly met my share in PRM, PKR, NGOs, in the arts, journalism, and music communities – but they are drowned out at vital decision-making moments.
And yes, that, my friends, is why I am expecting a disaster this coming weekend. - Mkini
MARTIN VENGADESAN is an associate editor at Malaysiakini.
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