Malay political elite

I have always argued – and back in the day, Wan Saiful agreed with me – that the affirmative action policy morphed into a class problem creating a middle and kleptocrat class while the rest of the Malay polity ended up servicing the kleptocrat class. 

Wan Saiful was affronted by the idea of the former prime minister, now a felon appealing his conviction, of creating a new economic policy, where sharing the stage with, of all people Tommy Thomas, he said: "Now the Constitution may become an issue of dividing the people where certain groups are forced to accept a group of people that is superior to others. It is unfortunate we have these clauses... but the problem is that we are not debating the clauses on whether it should be there or not. It is a public document which is owned by us. However, there is not much debate on it despite everyone having a vested interest in it.”

However, now that Wan Saiful is safely in the bosom of a political party which benefits from the privilege of class, even more so than the average Malay Joe Rakyat, you can see he is so easily spooked by Saudara Anwar’s allusions – if he did make any – to class warfare.

Wan Saiful as part of the Malay political elite really does not want any class-conscious raising amongst the disenfranchised Malay classes but has no problem providing them with crumbs from the table through racial and religious entitlement programmes to keep them dependent and with a sense of racial and religious superiority.

Wan Saiful's legal problems are weighing heavily on him and no doubt all these race-baiting comments about DAP are meant to distract from them. However, he is a prime example of one of the Malay elites who knowingly use the compromised political system to further entrench ideas that he has admitted had failed Malaysia.

The average Malay uber alles political operative, flunkie or dependent, probably does not know any better after years of indoctrination and belief in a system which they think rewards their loyalty. But for someone like Wan Saiful, his stance is even more repugnant because he has demonstrated he knows better but willingly embraces policies, strategies and dialectics that he at one time fervently believed were destroying this country and the Malay community.

And this is really what the Malay uber alles parties are all about. What they are doing, what someone like Wan Saiful is doing, is defending his class.

Of course, Bersatu did not start this. Umnoputra status always conferred some sort of benefit. An example of this would be when former Kota Raja Umno chief Amzah Umar revealed - “We give a seven percent discount for bumiputera buyers and 12 percent for Umno members, if I am not mistaken.”

This is what it has always been about. When Wan Saiful talks about class warfare, he really does not mean the average Malay who is struggling. He means the warfare against the political class of which he is a proud member.

This has always been the reason why the Malay political class have been afraid of unifying ideas in the Malay community beyond race and religion that is.

I will leave you with what Wan Saiful once publicly said - "As with the Chinese and Indians, the bumiputera and the Malays should be able to stand on their own and have confidence in themselves without the support or interference from the government. This realisation must come from the Malays themselves.”

Wan Saiful's role now is to actively hamper that realisation.