COMMENT | I do not think that the problems of the Malays are that they are not unified; I think the problem of the Malays is that they have no real choices when it comes to “Malay” leadership. Race and religion is the basis for all “Malay” political parties and Malay politicians are hampered by these two imperatives – or so they say – which makes it impossible to have a greater Malay polity that is progressive and egalitarian.

The opposition has defined this upcoming election as the election that could save Malaysia from becoming a failed state. Opposition political parties are blindly chasing the Malay vote hoping for regime change. Meanwhile, the rhetoric from the Malay establishment is indecisive and cautious because of the Malay political players involved.

This is why we get Umno secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor hectoring Malay youths, asking them what Umno had done wrong? It is true that Umno has provided a lot but the problem is what Umno has provided is not worth anything next to what the non-Malays have acquired by themselves, in most cases. Malay youths are not angry with the other communities - at least a significant majority of them are not - what they are angry about is that Umno gives them enough to survive and does not give them the tools to exist independently of Umno.

Mainstream Malay leadership has blamed everyone (in no particular order) from the Jews, the Chinese, the United States of America, the opposition, music, alcohol, drugs, Christians, handphones, pornography, television shows, Hindus, Buddhist, Western culture, Asian culture, Indians, the CIA, the United Kingdom, the People’s Republic of China, multiculturalism and excessive laughter for all that is wrong or they think is wrong with the Malay community.

A few “Malay” rights activists I have spoken to say that because the Chinese are “united” in opposing Umno and because the urban Malay vote is split, Malay vote banks in the rural heartlands have to be guarded zealously, less Malay hegemony is compromised by weak Malay leadership beholden to Chinese (DAP) interests. These folks did not laugh when I pointed out that this is exactly what the Najib refuseniks are saying about the current Umno regime and Chinese (PRC) interests. Even in a major corruption scandal like the 1MDB case, race becomes an issue. Establishment propaganda organs define the scandal as economic sabotage by rebellious Malay leaders aligned with Chinese usurpers, all the while shifting the blame to a “fat Chinese” hanger-on who bilked the country of millions.

This is the kind of self-reflection that happens in mainstream Malay politics. Remember how Ibrahim Ali, defined the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) scandal? I wrote in an earlier column - “It has of course gone to ridiculous extremes as in the recent National Feedlot Corporation fiasco, where Ibrahim Ali and his ilk (bolstered by the right-wing state-controlled Malay mainstream press) suggest that an issue of corruption is really an issue of race and a racial provocation against the Malay community. The fact that the alleged whistleblower has been identified as a non-Malay is par for the course in this country’s national political debate.”

Whenever a struggle emerges within the ranks of Malay leadership that is when the issue of “Malayness” becomes all-consuming in the political landscape. For a long time, the only opposition to Umno was PAS and nobody certainly not the majority of the Malay community ever thought that PAS was an alternative to Umno.

Co-dependent relationship

This is why Umno never really considered PAS a threat. I remember in the early days of the reformasi movement when Anwar Ibrahim aligned with PAS and this co-dependent relationship emerged from the Anwar/PAS pact. It was no secret even then that the religious folks within PAS were uneasy with the alliance with someone who was branded by the state as a sexual deviant. Before the PAS for all days, PAS friends of mine were behaving as though they were in the midst of some sort of Stockholm syndrome when it came to their dealings with Anwar.

Examine closely mainstream Malay politics and it is not about the problems social and economic problems facing the Malay community but how the Malay community is losing its relevance because mainstream Malay power structures are beholden to “other” interests because the Malay community is not unified. In many ways, Anwar changed this kind of thinking by challenging the Umno regime on issues such as good governance and wide-scale corruption but he was always hampered by the religious imperatives of his political allies.

While the Chinese and Indian community had the (mainstream) option over the years of embracing the DAP over the MCA and MIC, the Malays only had PAS, until the ejection of political prisoner Anwar from Umno paradise. Does anyone really believe that the average establishment supporter can tell the difference between Umno and Bersatu beyond the fact that the former can be, depending on how close an election is, gratify them with short-term goodies?

Over the years, I have had many Malay people come up and tell me that the problem with this country is that people do not get along. Well, I think that people do get along but the problem is that the government keeps introducing measures that make it very clear that they do not want us to get along. These measures then become sacred cows, which needs to be defended by any politician claiming to have the interest of the Malay community at heart. How is any other community a threat, when every institution and mechanism of power is controlled by the political elite of the majoritarian community?

I have asked these questions before – “What would happen if a majority of Muslims in this country decide that they have had enough with state religious authorities intruding in their lives? They have had enough of money going into religious organisations while essential services that benefit their community are underfunded and mired in bureaucratic corruption? What would happen if they grew tired of the hypocrisy of the state where Muslim elites were immune from the harsh glare of Islam but the rest of the polity was not?”

Of course, if ever there was a conclave of Malay leadership these types of questions would not be asked. Instead, the main objective of the meeting would probably be to discuss how power could be shared while maintaining the facade of unity which is all important to a racial and religious hegemon.