COMMENT | Since I fancy myself as a sort of political Cassandra as opposed to a political Pollyanna, I am always interested in what former political prisoner Anwar Ibrahim has to say about Malay politics. His recent comments about how Umno is not completely destroyed and has to reinvent itself has become a political Rorschach test for people who voted for Pakatan Harapan.

I wrote about this when prime minister (then) Najib Abdul Razak visited Anwar when he was recovering from surgery last year – “Despite establishment narratives that non-Malays – the Chinese specifically – seek to supplant Malay/Muslim power in Malaysia, the reality is that this could never happen. Why this is the case is beyond the scope of this article, but since Malay powerbrokers hold the keys to Putrajaya, the sight of Malay political opponents meeting always arouses speculation and yes, insecurity amongst the non-Malay demographic, especially those invested in regime change.”

Add to this, Najib’s telephone conversations with Anwar on the night of May 9, the seemingly never-ending public squabbles of PKR, the narratives of how Anwar “can’t be trusted”, the perception that PKR’s schism is the foundation for collusion with Umno or PAS, and anything Anwar says is an invitation to vilify the former political operative who laid the foundation for the eventual takeover of Putrajaya.

I have always cautioned that this idea that Umno and all it stands for is a relic of bygone Malaysia is foolish. Race and religious politics are sown into the fabric of Harapan with materials provided by the former Umno regime. Umno and PAS, and those that voted for them – comprising about 52 percent of the popular votes in GE14 - are a formidable base which is currently being ignored by the numerous changes taking place in this country. Let us forget about the narratives of a possible collusion by elements in Harapan and Umno for a moment. Some folks have said that the people are the opposition. Great, but who do Malaysians vote for if Harapan does not live up to expectations in the peninsular?

I doubt Chinese support for DAP will end anytime soon and since the “running dog” narratives take some time take root, it’s all good on their front. But if you are Malay, you got a “reformed Umno” and PAS to choose from and this is where things get dicey real fast. By “reformed”, I mean an Umno that is still entrenched in its ideology but with a new coat of paint to regain support from the Malays who voted against Najib.

Bridge between Bersatu and DAP

In all these think pieces I read online, it is PKR that is described as the bridge between Bersatu and DAP. In other words, the bridge between the so-called rural Malays and the urban Chinese. This, of course, is often portrayed as a class issue, but public comments from various Harapan leaders betray the reality that this is a race issue.

Bersatu was supposed to be the Umno of Harapan - the linchpin for the new deal that would ensure that the races would cooperate in the old alliance way before the dark times of Umno ‘ketuanan’ hegemony. It did not work out that way. Umno still commands the Malay base and now PAS is slowly demonstrating that its outlier status is a political advantage in this new Malaysia.

Public comments from certain Umno leaders – Khairy Jamaluddin for instance – of turning Umno into a multiracial party could be post-traumatic stress from the recent elections. However, what he does represent even though the old guard of Umno may not like it, is a leader who balances ‘ketuanan’ ideology with the pragmatism of compromise that is needed to win the cash cows which are the so-called “urban centres” that PKR is supposedly a bridge to. The Umno meet-up will determine which forces in the party hold sway, of course.

It remains to be seen how exactly Bersatu handles the challenge of reforming the rural polities which was needed to take Putrajaya, or so we are told. And this also involves the greater need to reform the system where dominant race-based Malay power structures rely on to sustain them.

This is important because dismantling the architecture that enables the propagandising of race and religion is needed for the survival of non-Malay power structures in the long run. Bersatu didn’t win this election for Harapan; it was a former Umno grand poobah, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who did. Systemic reforms without any thought or consideration to reforming structures that enable race and religious imperatives are foolhardy.

Take this lowering the voting age to 18 for instance. Great idea but I really hope Harapan strategists are discovering how deep the radicalisation process is when it comes to religious schools and the like. Young Muslims from these types of schools have to wait a few years before voting but 18 is just about the right age when the propaganda and religious delusions are still fresh in their minds and they want an avenue to express them. Not to mention, the years of indoctrination by a system created by the very person who has gained messianic status by true believers.

This is where Umno or PAS could benefit more than a regime which has to compromise on its racial and religious imperatives – Bersatu – for the sake of the multiracial power-sharing formula that BN never paid much attention to. This, of course, is but one example of the fault lines that exist when making policy.

In all cases, deradicalisation should be central even in the more obvious of policy shifts. Is the Harapan regime up to this? Only time will tell, and there is only a small window of opportunity because personalities are old and the young blood is waiting in the wings.
So how do we combat the grand narratives of Malay supremacy in Harapan and Umno/PAS? How do we ensure that these narratives are weakened over time? Here are some points to consider.

Decentralisation

Another Malaysiakini columnist Nathaniel Tan talks about regionalism. That’s is an important starting point I think. Federal power should be decentralised. This halts grander narratives of Malay and Islamic hegemony with local issues that could be dealt with state power. When people have a sense that their state governments can solve their immediate needs, there is no need to kowtow to federal power which brings with it forms of subservience that is detrimental to the democratic process.

This also should extend to local council elections. This brings communities together on issues of needs rather than wants. If all politics are local, then people from communities rather than political parties determine what is important to them and this also safeguards against political interference.

More importantly, the media should be regional as well. Mainstream media news outlets shape the news often ignoring state level and local community level issues. This creates the impression that federal narratives - those that involve race and religion - are monolithic. This really isn't the case. This is not something that the state governments or the federal governments should be involved with but rather independent regional media outlets, discussing local issues and ensuring that local politics remains in the forefront without all the propagandising of the alternative now mainstream press.

If you are really serious about people being the opposition - whatever that means - this is a good way to do it, further weakening the grand narratives of race and religion by concentrating on local issues which sometimes have nothing to do with what goes on in the urban polities of this country.

In order to weaken racial and religious hegemony, it is important to diffuse power. The question has always been, is there a coalition willing to do this? When people ask me who the clear winners are in this election, my answer is always PAS. What PAS has demonstrated is that it can survive definitely without BN and time will tell if it can survive without the Harapan regime. Mind you, the relationship between PAS and Harapan has not been as fraught as it has been with Umno.

Umno and PAS, and once the former get their acts together, could turn out to be a formidable opposition, especially considering that sooner rather than later, Harapan will have to tackle issues concerning race and religion. We have witnessed a distinct lack of commitment among Malay power structures to buck the Islamic and Malay trend when it comes to voting on major issues involving race and religion. Will this change now that Harapan has taken federal power?

It is nonsensical to make the argument that Umno needs to reform – become multiracial – when the there is a Malay power structure like Bersatu in Harapan chasing the same base. The great fear of Umno has materialised - that is, the Malays are divided.

Malaysiakini : COMMENT | So PKR leader Latheefa Koya is now the villain because of a couple of her statements. The first when she publicly disagreed with DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang and reminded everyone that the court of public opinion is not enough to convict former premier Najib Abdul Razak and that no politician should be encouraging such a perception.

The second was when she called a child donating money to Tabung Harapan a gimmick. Well, folks, she is right on both counts. Tabung Harapan - a fund which so far has no oversight except that it is controlled by a political coalition - is a politically-charged fund no matter its genesis.

A child who donates to the fund has been contextualised as someone who has reduced the national debt as opposed to the former prime minister, which says a lot about the narrative developed by Pakatan Harapan. In other words, his act has become politicised and because everyone hates Najib, it is easy to make such statements. People either applaud or can’t be bothered to face the online opprobrium expected for dissenting against these types of tactics.

This kid is lucky. Partisan politics in Malaysia is not like it is in some Western democracies. If this were to happen in the US for instance, this kid’s life would have been torn apart with his detractors combing through his life hoping to spin his action as part of a larger partisan political narrative.

There would be articles which view his act as partisan posturing and he and his family would be vilified. This is why it is never a good thing for politicians to use kids in their narratives. Latheefa is right when she said the whole thing is exploitative but, of course, you wouldn’t get that from the expected online abuse she received.

Besides the usual allegations of having Umno DNA, a political operative from DAP sent me a sampling (which disgusted her) of abuse including comments that questioned if Lathheefa was menopausal, a bitter hag or part of an elaborate PKR plot to destabilise Harapan. All this from people who are supposed to be defending the noble actions of a kid.

Hannah Yeoh said at first she refused to accept the piggy bank but then relented. Her first instinct was the correct one. She should have just told this young man that the money would better serve the community he interacts with, his school, charitable organisations around his neighbourhood and that sort of thing instead of using this occasion to spread the Kool-Aid.

I hope this kid does NOT experience heartbreak

And make no mistake. This was a political statement. And that’s fine but you should not dress it up as anything other than a political statement. And that’s the problem right there. This is not about the kid. However, people who are critical of this stunt, would be made to look as if they are attacking the child.

His father had to come up and say that his son was a patriot when nobody was questioning the motives of his child - only the motives of those who chose to accept his money and remind everyone about that. Does anyone really need to be reminded that Najib is a kleptocrat? If you really believe that children should be able to express themselves, then what you should be doing is removing legislation that hinders such behaviour, exorcise racial and religious norms that hinder such expression and encourage young people with diverse opinions instead of relying on mob rule to silence dissent.

If a young person were to have written something that was against Harapan - even if it did not support the past regime - could you imagine the reception the child would have got? Actually, you do not. Anyone who offers up a dissenting view is routinely trounced by the Harapan faithful.

Need for scepticism

However, Hannah is right when she said that there are Malaysians kids doing this sort of thing. Over the years of observing activism, especially by young people, I have noticed how children, especially from underprivileged backgrounds, are more politically aware these days. They spending time, effort and money on activities that ironically do not get the attention of politicians except when it is politically expedient for the latter to do so. What these kids do is not a sideshow. It is part of their lives.

Honestly, I was amazed at how many qualifiers were in Latheefa’s statement. For instance, she made it clear that when she said that Harapan should get on with governing - she did not mean they were not. All she ventured was that this was a sideshow that the Harapan regime could do without. And it is.

Her rejoinder that this was a country of laws was also met with the same kind of online abuse. I get that Latheefa can be mercurial, but receiving text messages that she is some sort of sub-rosa agent out to destabilise Harapan? Or that she was attempting to divert from PKR’s own issues by sullying the good name of the DAP. Really? Another text read: "What has she ever done for this country, unlike this kid?”

So let me get this straight. Because PKR is perceived as the weak link in Harapan and its internal squabbles well-documented, PKR political operatives should just keep quiet and not say anything - especially if it goes against Harapan - because this demonstrates how they just want to destabilise the new government?

I have had a few public disagreements with what Latheefa has said but to claim that she is just some political operative who hasn’t done anything for the country is downright moronic. Her work with stateless people and gender issues, not to mention public interest cases - that nobody seemed to be interested in - is evidence that she is just not some political operative looking for publicity.

Reminding Malaysians that there is a difference between public opinion and the rule of law is something we need from our political operatives. Reminding Malaysians that the former prime minister deserves due process like every other citizen in this country is important. And she was right again when she questioned how a politician could make such a statement encouraging otherwise.

Why did we vote for Harapan? I do not know about anyone else but I voted for them to bring change in the way how we do things in this country. I did not vote for Harapan so a lynch mob could go after the former prime minister. I did not write glowingly about attorney-general Tommy Thomas so he could play the old BN game and fix the political enemies of the Harapan state.

If a case is brought against Najib, I want it to be an airtight case which finally exposes the depths of the 1MDB scandal after years of allegations. I want Malaysians to understand exactly how corrupt the former Umno state was and how we could ensure that the Harapan regime does not have the same room to make such mistakes.

COMMENT | A number of readers have written in asking me what I thought about the whole ‘bazaar-gate’ and this controversy over letters of support. Something sticks in my craw when it comes to this issue. Besides demonstrating the “petty” corruption that is endemic to the system, it also illustrates the kind of corruption that slowly builds into something more over the long term.

When DAP’s Tan Kok Wai says something extremely dumb like this - “So are you (DBKL Licensing and Petty Traders Developmental Department director Anwar Mohd Zain) actually saying that the MP is more powerful than the mayor? – when attempting to defend the actions of Bukit Bintang MP Fong Kui Lun in issuing a letter of support, two points need to be made:

1. If the letter of support or any letter of support from an MP is not influential in any way, then why write such letters?

2. Considering the culture of bureaucratic corruption and connivance with the state, these letters, especially during the Umno regime, obviously meant something. The fact that elements in the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) consider such letters as influential should tell us something about the way how politicians and bureaucrats engage with one another. Maybe if Pakatan Harapan had sent a memo that such letters should not be entertained, then perhaps, Tan could use this line of attack. Tan in defending his party member and laying the blame solely on DBKL is mendacious and the kind of political legerdemain that Harapan should not encourage.

In fact, what the DAP should be doing is conducting an independent investigation on Fong and make the results known to the rakyat. This, of course, should be in tandem with whatever investigations that the MACC does and whatever the state security apparatus is doing. As to the question of letters of support, this is problematic. Politicians engaging in some form of corruption often do so with these so-called letters of support. However, the reality is that politicians who genuinely want to help their constituents also use letters of support when it comes to dealing with the bureaucracy.

Are letters of support done in good faith a bad thing? This depends if you believe that there should be a strict separation between the bureaucracy and political operatives. Real life is messy and there are as many examples of politicians engaging with the bureaucracy through letters of support which have helped the lives of people. But more often than not, letters of support, specifically in the former regime, were used to facilitate corruption.

When it comes to Fong (photo), my main issue is, why didn’t he do his due diligence? Look, when it comes to these traders, the culture of DBKL and the way how small business people are routinely preyed upon by the system, there is ample evidence that something stinks. Claiming that traders would not be charged is not an acceptable answer when issuing these letters of support. If the traders should be legitimately charged, then it should not be the job of the politicians to allow them to circumvent this regulation.

Fong is described as a “long-term” MP so surely, he would understand the kind of corrupt practices that goes on in the bureaucracy which Harapan claims it wants to reform. Now I’m not saying that there was anything mala fide in what Fong did, but it just seems so bizarre that someone of Fong’s experience does not think it queer that something could go wrong when it comes to political operatives, traders and the way DBKL works.

Political operatives

I mean surely if these traders could not get licences from DBKL, the solution would be to discover why they could not get licenses - is there an unbalance of power between long-term traders and short-term traders and how this issue could be resolved. Honestly isn’t this what the common rakyat voted Harapan in for - to reform the system so there would not be a pecking order for people who just want to trade or make some extra money in these trying economic times, for example?

Surely there are better ways to raise funds for these fees without circumventing the law. Also, this whole idea of traffic congestion. If trading along these path causes traffic congestion, then the needs of the majority of road users unfortunately trump the economic interest of these traders. Again, a politician should not be in the business of facilitating traffic jams or circumventing regulations merely to help traders.

What would happen if any investigation discovered corruption in this issue? What would be the DAP’s and Bersatu’s stand be? Even if Fong acted in good faith, what would be the consequences if it was discovered that there was a conspiracy to screw the traders in a manner which is entirely consistent with the way how the former regime did things?

Furthermore, what is DBKL doing approving lots for political operatives as claimed by Bukit Bintang Bersatu Youth chief Mohd Noorhisyam Abdul Karim (photo). He “also said that even though DBKL had approved 80 lots for him, the actual space given was only enough for 53 lots.” Can DBKL approve lots for anyone or is it just political operatives, which would again make the claim by Tan about the lack of influence of letters of support nonsensical considering the operating procedures of DBKL.

But all of this gets even more complicated. In all these reports, traders make many allegations in the press but as yet no trader has been named as being fleeced by political operatives. In press reports, no trader – as yet – has actually lodged a report against any political operatives. This is understandable, of course, and one of the reasons why they should be a strict line separating political operatives from the bureaucracy even though it may sometimes come at the costs of hurting those who actually need the assistance of politicians when it involves the bureaucracy.

Bone fide letters of support issued by the former BN regime and the current Harapan regime have helped individuals. Make no mistake about that. But helping individuals, or maybe even groups of people, does not reform the system. Instead it reinforces a certain mentality that in order for the bureaucracy to work, what is needed is the right political connections. This is never a good thing.

I may sound simplistic but really isn’t the goal of reforming the civil service mean that politicians should not be needed in the interaction between the rakyat and the bureaucracy? Should not politicians come into play to expose the inadequacy of the civil service and the need for reforms?

The Mentri Besar of Perak with strong UMNO DNA

Celebrating a religious festivity in a theme park cheapens the religion and trivialises the significance of the occasion.

PAS-linked group forces retailer to remove alcohol - "Taliban" Thugs from PAS in action, who voted for you dumb jerks? from dswami on Vimeo.

It is insulting and disrespectful. One cannot imagine the leader of a country hosting Christmas, Easter, Deepavali or Wesak celebrations at Disneyland, Harry Potter Studios, Universal Studios, Legoland or at the Lost World of Tambun.

Hari Raya is a solemn and important religious holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan, a month of empathy for the poor. It is signified by acts of charity, discipline, self-control, special prayers, patience, abstinence and forging a stronger bond with God. In the balik kampung exodus, individuals return home to share this special day with parents and family members. People seek forgiveness, and in typical Malaysian fashion, the doors of the family home are thrown open to receive friends and relatives - the "open house". Many people also pay their respects at the graves of deceased family members.

This year's "open house" at MAPS is a serious error of judgment by Ahmad Faizal. People do not spend hours in a gridlocked highway, only to queue-up and be bribed with free food and free entrance to the theme park. It makes a mockery of Hari Raya. A few weeks earlier, Ahmad Faizal's lame approach to the Manjoi mob had invited criticism. Troublemakers from Muslim NGOS risked straining community relations when they terrorised shop assistants, in a grocery store in Manjoi, by demanding the removal of alcohol from the shelves.

As a career politician, Ahmad Faizal's prism of life is shaped by the confines of his formative years, as a political aide, working in a government department. He lacks experience of the "real world".

The last straw for Perakians was his appointment of Fadzi Zainol (photo), from Umno-Baru, as his special adviser. Ahmad Faizal dismissed his critics and said, "... Zainol's previous experience as the state executive councillor could be utilised to strengthen the administration of the Perak government..." Really?

Zainol leap-frogged from Umno-Baru to Bersatu. Can a leopard change its spots? Can a political frog be expected to change its stripes? Ahmad Faizal will invite enemies from his own camp if he lacks faith and trust in his own coalition members. He lays himself open to criticism, as the rakyat have accused him of installing an Umno-Baru state administration, by stealth.

The state governments, under the previous Pakatan Rakyat, which won Selangor, Penang and Perak in the 2008 general election, did not invite former Umno-Baru/BN members to form part of their state administration. Has Ahmad Faizal forgotten Umno-Baru's meddling, which led to the 2009 Perak coup?

The MAPS theme park is mired in controversy. Built during the former Perak MB, Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir's administration, it cost RM520 million and is only half finished. It is expensive to run, and is dogged by intellectual property claims and low attendance.

Don't the rakyat's concerns matter?

If Zainol contributed to the decision of the previous administration to build MAPS, then his appointment, as the new MB's special advisor, is ill-advised. Claiming that Zainol's appointment had received the consent of the Perak Sultan does not wash with the public. Don't the rakyat's concerns matter? Having the open house at MAPS is not "killing two birds with one stone", as some people have suggested. The new MB is foolish to be seen to promote this failed Umno-Baru project, which is saddled with problems.

Many mega million ringgit projects in Malaysia have failed because the arrogant Umno-Baru politicians, and their cronies, think they are above the law. They spend hundreds of millions of ringgit of taxpayer's money on grand projects. Via a combination of dodgy deals, they probably siphon half of the rakyat's money into their own pockets. They care very little about details like intellectual property rights, public safety, worker's rights, attendance, publicity or regular maintenance.

These projects usually end-up being white elephants. The Perak State Development Corporation (PKNP) owns 51 percent of MAPS. So, who owns the other 49 percent? Which crony or politician's family member owns a significant number of shares in this theme park?
Perakians demand to know the reasons for the state's involvement in this theme park.

Like most Umno-Baru politicians, former MB, Dr Zambry, likes to have his pudgy fingers in every pie. Greed forces this type of politician to be a jack of all trades, and make a mess of everything they touch, so they fail to administer the state properly. Instead of cosying-up to members of the previous Umno-Baru administration, Ahmad Faizal should start by directing MACC to investigate MB Inc (Mentri Besar Incorporated).

Kerismuddin

COMMENT | Wee Ka Siong’s allegation that moves are being made “to unseat the sole Chinese opposition MP from MCA and to prevent him from raising issues pertinent to the Chinese and the multi-racial Malaysian community” is worth considering in this so-called post-racial milieu that Pakatan Harapan is pushing. The voting patterns of the Chinese

community and the vilification of the MCA online points to the near impossible task for the party to effectively mount a counter-narrative as the ‘Chinese opposition' in Parliament.
As for the allegation that this is an attempt to unseat Wee, I think there is some truth in that. However, this is not some dastardly plan, but rather politics as usual. In the new paradigm, every effort has to be made to destroy the ‘Chinese’ oppositional representation in Parliament, because what would be left is only the ‘Malay opposition’.

‘Chinese opposition’ here means a Chinese race-based party, which is anathema to the Kool-Aid that we are living in a post-racial Malaysia, and where Umno is the last bastion of a racist ideology. The new reality demands that a party like MCA is vilified for being a race-based party, but Bersatu gets a free pass because they were needed to win the Malay votes. Of course, the only person who was needed was the current Bersatu grand poohbah. It would have been interesting if Dr Mahathir Mohamad had joined PKR, to see how he and his coterie would have reshaped the party.

Even with the thorn of Bersatu being a Malay-based party in a supposedly post-racial coalition, the illusion can be maintained because people want to believe. Mahathir, for all the demonisation of him by multiracial parties when they were the opposition, is now hailed as the messiah – so long as Harapan does not have to deal with issues that touch upon race and religion. Financial scandals are the best gifts Umno gave this new coalition.

Getting the party started

The fun will not start until Umno settles its power struggles. As long as Umno is embroiled in internecine conflicts as to which faction controls Umno, and Harapan has all these wonderful financial scandals to unearth, there really is no real Malay opposition in this country. Remember that PAS is also included in the Malay opposition, and the reality is that these two parties cannot strategise until Umno decides who leads it.

Of the PAS-Umno dynamic, I cautioned - “With Umno out in the cold, who defines Islam now? PAS, for so long on the receiving end of a federal-funded Islamic bureaucracy and propaganda campaign, for the moment defines the Islamic narrative in this country. “Now that Umno is the opposition and a babe in the woods when it comes to opposition politics, they are subservient to PAS who have demonstrated that they are willing to go at it alone, if need be.”
Furthermore, the new Umno grand poohbah has to be someone who leads with the support of the majority of the party. He cannot be someone who is holding on to dear life, while the factions wage war around him. 

Umno political operatives who I have talked to tell me that they realise how damaging this infighting is. The new political landscape demands that they have disciplined political operatives working in coordination, and not simply shooting from the hip. Besides public comments from Umno potentates like Johari Abdul Ghani, there is a feeling, especially among younger members, that this is the perfect opportunity to reform the party. These younger members view Bersatu’s narrative that Umno has betrayed the Malays as a legitimate criticism, and that reforming the Malay agenda for the new reality of old style alliance politics is the way to go.

Underestimating the ‘Malay opposition’

It would be a mistake to underestimate the Malay opposition when it finally gets its act together. Always remember that Mahathir is a personality that partisans gravitate to for whatever reason, and if he is not in play, the Harapan regime will be in a whole lot of trouble, when it comes to combating the strategies and narratives of this new Malay opposition. Always remember that it was because Mahathir could not dislodge Najib Abdul Razak from Umno that this whole Harapan deal came about. If Mahathir had managed to remove Najib than things would be very different.

Thinking Malays in Umno – and it would be stupid to think that the party is bereft of these kinds of political operatives – rue the day that they did not oust Najib and present a new face to their base. Clinging on to Najib was a mistake they will never forget. The royalty incident is a good case in point. The reality is that the royalty had overplayed their hand by getting into the business of messing with politics. While A Kadir Jasin may have been collateral damage when it comes to the issue of royalty, the rakyat, which include a sizeable number of Malays, are beginning to question this sacred cow. The rising cost of living brings forth such questioning.

And questioning sacred cows is important if we are to dismantle the ketuanan ideology, which unfortunately many Harapan political operatives still cling to. While it is too early to tell if one component of the sacred ‘three Rs’ of Malay politics has been removed from play, Malaysians who want a secular democratic framework to work with should be optimistic that messy though it is, some things are slowly changing.

Race and religion

This does not mean that we are out of the woods. Race and religion still play an important, vicious role in politics. Be it the mendacious nature of the racial political of Harapan in denying that there are serious racial divisions in this country, most of which are constitutionally protected, or the ‘don’t spook the Malays’ narrative which Anwar Ibrahim was brave enough to utter, we are not honestly dealing with racial and religious issues in this country.

Kicking this can down the road while folks are enamoured by shiny financial scandals is short-sighted, and in my view, dangerous. This makes the Harapan regime vulnerable. Public statements by presidential hopeful Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah that Umno remain a Malay-based party are rational. After all, the people who voted for Umno obviously believe that race matters. This goading by Harapan political operatives that Umno needs to change is rather dumb, considering Bersatu stares them in the face every single day.

The Malay opposition will define itself by offering a virulent counter-narrative when it comes to issues of race and religion. They will attempt to force the Harapan regime to demonstrate how committed they are in their secular principles, and of course their egalitarian principles – if they are committed to these at all.

Add to this the perception that the ketuanan types will project that the ‘Chinese-based’ element of Harapan is pulling the strings will no doubt come into play, and it will be interesting to see how equal power sharing translates in this new milieu.

How does Harapan deal with the Malay opposition? While I have been dismissive of Bersatu youth chief Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, his response to ‘bazaar-gate’ is something that points the way to how his party could redefine the Malay agenda.

COMMENT | Persatuan Rapat Malaysia made this statement two years ago when the then Malaysian government was intending to bring in 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers to solve whatever problem we had with cheap labour that year. This was shelved for whatever reason, and Malaysians went on with their blissful lives free from the insidious crimes perpetrated by foreign workers.

Go to certain sections of Kuala Lumpur (a city built by "pendatangs" then and now) and you would be a foreigner in this country. This, of course, is not "their" fault. The anti-pendatang narratives of the former regime and the dodgy post-racial narratives of Pakatan Harapan mean that nobody is interested in tackling our dependence on foreign labour in anything but xenophobic narratives and strategies.

Acclaimed Malaysian author Tash Aw, writing an opinion piece for the New York Times two years ago, rightly pointed out that crimes involving foreign workers – citing government statistics of 2013 – only accounted for one percent of the national average. This does not take into account the crimes committed by people who traffic in cheap labour or the apathy of the general public of the criminal conditions foreign workers are exposed to while helping build this country or provide us with whatever entitlements we think we deserve.

Of course, the crime statistics could have changed in five years and if they had, it would have been good if DAP leader Jagdeep Singh Deo (photo) could have alerted us to the social ills that good, pure Malaysians faced when propping up Penang’s idea of housing these foreign workers in what are essentially ghettos.

Jagdeep claimed that this would ensure there would be no more social problems for the public. “It is a win-win situation. For the public, there will be no more social problems while for the industry there will be adequate rooms for the workers,” he said. Can we hold him to his word that there would no more social problems if these workers were segregated from the general public?

The way how crime statistics are manipulated in this country is that not only are the statistics on crimes committed by foreign workers suspect but also the statistics for crimes committed by the state against foreign workers.

The shakedown money, the illegal granting of citizenship – which is treasonous if you ask me – the unreported rapes, abuse both physical and mental and a host of other crimes that are inflicted upon foreign workers which are in themselves a cottage industry carried out by low to mid-level government bureaucrats and those from the state security apparatus. This needs to be independently investigated.

Just last year, Mary Chin writing a piece for Aliran, described the Chinese experience as foreign labourers in this country: "We have a Chinese expression ‘zhuzai’. Our ancestors descended as migrant workers to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Meals were served from a common pool of food. Crowds were made to scramble for food directly without plates or cutlery, like animals. That’s the origin of the expression "zhuzai". "Workers were also housed (confined), transported, contracted and traded like animals. Many did not survive the rough seas. Among those who did, many died of infectious disease."

In the article, she rightly points out that in this issue of foreign labour, what it comes down to is ensuring that laws for their housing be regulated and that employers be the ones organising decent housing for their labour and that they should be the ones held accountable.

Treated as sub-human

Furthermore, playing the politics of xenophobia to ensure that government policies would be supported by the general public is never a good idea especially for a new regime which purports to want to change the system and the mentality of Malaysians when it comes to competent governance.

Anecdotally speaking, someone who runs several successful restaurants – nothing fancy, mind you – tells me that housing her foreign help in a safe clean environment is probably what makes her staff efficient and happy to come to work.

As usual, when it comes to money, it is the exploited who are made scapegoats while the business folk get to rely on governmental programmes which merely enables them to carry on with business as usual instead of admitting that they, like us, are part of the problem. Instead of these housing ghettos where the lives of foreign workers are regulated like indentured labourers, why not hold accountable the businesses that bring these people in, sometimes illegally? Why not investigate how the state security apparatus and other governmental agencies are involved in this trade and the businesses that employ them? Why not do a thorough investigation into the immigration services and their operating procedures and discover who the brokers are for incoming foreign labour and how connected they are to the political elite?

I am sure ghettoising foreign workers and claiming that social problems would suddenly evaporate is easier than actually tackling the social problems that this country faces. The crimes that this country faces are intimately linked with various government departments. And the social problems are made worse when race and religion are introduced into the mix.

Mary Chin refers to this systemic segregation as a deeper division in this country. We have to look no further than certain race-based groups which demonise foreign communities but at the same time collude to bring them in because they know that cheap foreign labour makes this an ideal country to produce cheap goods or carry out development for the "real" citizens to profit from.

The state should not be in the business of enabling a system of foreign worker dependence. What the state should be doing instead of engaging in systemic segregation is to hold employers accountable for the welfare of the people they employ.

And this is especially so in the case of foreign domestic labour which is used and conveniently discarded when it becomes profitable to do so. Honestly, I would be more amenable to such ideas of segregation if it was funded purely by business interests but the state had oversight in terms of human rights expectations.

Even if this was the case, the reality is that if existing rules and regulations were to be enforced, they would be no need for this solution because employers would have to treat their workers with a basic level of human decency and this would organically curtail the inflow of cheap domestic labour because they would not be as cheap as they are now to the extent they are treated as sub-human.

Ghettoising foreign workers especially if carried out at the federal level would be a waste of resources. The solution to the foreign worker issue in this country is to enforce legislation already in the books, monitor how the state security apparatus enforces those rules and create a culture where those so-called 3D jobs are something Malaysians would want to do.

COMMENT | I have no idea if the Singapore Straits Times article is credible and if the top cop and the rest of the petty fiefdoms in the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) are about to get their night of the long knives. I sincerely hope so. I really pity those cops who actually attempt to do some good on the job. Not only have they got to deal with a hostile public but they have to watch their backs when it comes to their comrades.

Some folks think that replacing or sacking the inspector-general of police (IGP) would go some way in resolving the issues that plague the PDRM but this action - part-punitive and part-reform - is merely the first step on the long arduous road to reforming the PDRM. The reality is that the person who replaces the IGP must want to reform the police force and chances are that this cosmetic change of replacing an unpopular IGP will not do anything to ensure that we have a police force and not, as some would argue, a uniformed division of politically-affiliated thugs.

Someone once asked me what the atmosphere is like in the PDRM. This as a professional who served in the state security apparatus and having close links – at one time – with the PDRM. I said, imagine ‘Serpico’ but without the Frank Serpico. When I talk about corruption in the PDRM, I am not talking about the “duit kopi” stuff that average Malaysians are exposed to. No, I am talking about the multi-million, perhaps billion-ringgit criminal enterprises which range from drugs to human trafficking. That is the foundation of police corruption in this country and which acts as a filtering system for recruits into the upper echelons of the criminal elite.

I will bet you my last ringgit that if there is ever a full-scale credible investigation into police corruption in this country, many politicians would be caught in the ensuing chaos that would make the 1MDB scandal look like a mischievous kid’s game. When we talk about police corruption, we are talking about a system with links to international cartels and criminal enterprises which run the gamut from illicit substances to money laundering. Who knows what kind of legitimate businesses would be implicated in the complex money-laundering schemes that are part and parcel of police corruption in this country?

Wang Kelian is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the complicity of the state security apparatus and human trafficking in this country. What about meth labs, drug houses, drug safe houses, illegal gambling dens, protection rackets, prostitution and the other illicit activities that happen in a country where the top cop in Terengganu can say that Malays are not involved in gangsterism? Ah, race. That too. Kua Kia Soong in his book, ‘Racism and Racial Discrimination in Malaysia’, pointed out that post-1969, the system rejected a multi-racial police force and civil service in favour of policies that ensured that the racial composition of both favoured the dominant majority community.

This, of course, played well with the narrative that non-Malays were not interested in joining the state security apparatus and the civil service. This, of course, was to mean that the non-Malays were not patriotic and this horse manure was then used to justify policies that favoured one community over the others. If the top cop has to go, then Pakatan Harapan is on the right track. But the removal is treating the symptom and not the disease.

No real political will

Remember when I said that I do not have a problem admitting when I am wrong. Well, this is one of those occasions. When the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) man, Wan Saiful Wan Jan, joined Bersatu, I threw a little hissy fit, arguing that he was better of stirring the pot outside of political cabals. However, since he is now in the maelstrom, so to speak, this would be the perfect opportunity for Harapan to use the talents of young people like Wan Saiful to carry out reforms, especially when it concerns the state security apparatus. After all, it was Wan Saiful and Nicholas Chan who argued for decentralising the powers of the IGP, which I concurred with and Chan summarised it well:

“This paper aims to posit a scenario of reform whereby the accountability of the IGP is enhanced through having more structurally independent police chiefs in the country.
“The basis of this proposal stands on the premise that the IGP’s wide-ranging powers and interlocking relationship with the federal executive need to be dispersed, moderated and restructured in a way that is more reflective of Malaysia’s federated system and rising demands for local democracy from its populace.”

The IGP cosying up with whoever is the grand poobah in charge is, of course, part of the problem. A major part and what I found interesting about the Straits Times piece (if credible) is that all those special units which are supposed to handle specific crimes are, in reality, fronts for corrupt police officials to organise their schemes in a systemic manner which separates them for the rest of the police force.

Look at it this way. Say you are a group of corrupt cops linked with various drug syndicates. You know that your activities get in the way of regular policing. The top brass - not all of whom are corrupt - understand this too. So it’s more convenient if there is a specialised unit to handle the business of policing drugs than involving the rest of the police force. So cops get to look away and do not have to answer for and to with these specialised units. Consider this. In a functional democracy, in the West, there are already problems with these units so what more a country like Malaysia which has always been run by kleptocrats.

Going back to my piece on the slavers and killers of Wang Kelian, consider what the immigration officers told their interrogators when asked who was involved in the criminal activity: "It would be easier if you asked us for the names of officers not on the take." It is the same situation if we actually discovered the level of corruption in the police force with these so-called specialised units.

Keep in mind the state security apparatus is extremely protective of their operating procedures and tradecraft, some of which are no doubt immoral or illegal but part of maintaining the security of the realm. We are not talking about these things now. Not yet. We are talking about the corruption which has become a beast of its own.

Till this day, I get calls from former comrades who tell me that there are elements in the state security apparatus, both retired and still serving, who take exception to what I write. Why am I stirring up trouble, they ask. The country has made a turn for the better. Why write such pieces?

What keeps me going is that there are still serving personnel in our security apparatus who encourage me to draw attention to the decrepit state of the state security apparatus. Former police personnel who point me in the right direction, because after years of serving in a corrupt system and keeping their heads down – for fear of their lives in some cases – they see the Harapan regime as the final chance to get the state security apparatus back on track.

COMMENT | The quote that begins this piece is courtesy of the Federal Court which rejected the appeal of P Uthayakumar who sought to compel the federal government under the Najib regime to establish a royal commission of inquiry into prison reforms. In an interview with Uthayakumar last year, I opined that such a move was a 'Hail Mary' but this did not deter him. If you ever wonder why criminals never reform in this country, all you have to do is read my interview with Uthayakumar and understand that the system is predicated on turning flawed people into damaged ones - “I look around and see so many people who go back to crime because this atmosphere encourages them to embrace the life they left behind outside prison instead of channelling their energies to something useful.”

Kudos to PKR’s Women vice-chief Sivamalar Genapathy and (as usual) Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) executive director Eric Paulsen for highlighting the Mariappan Manivannan case, which is merely a continuation of state-sanctioned murder in prison, detention camps and sometimes even “drug rehabilitation centres” in Malaysia. The Mariappan case is harrowing in its banality. Just last year, G Ganeshwaran died while in custody and as usual his symptoms were as familiar as Mariappan's as with most deaths in custody.

In Ganeshwaran’s case, his slow death happened after he was interrogated by the state security apparatus, and as told by Klang MP Charles Santiago, the victim's mother related to him that, "During a brief chat, Ganeshwaran told her he was kicked in the throat... and refrained from eating for two days as he could not swallow food. She told me Ganeshwaran had blood in his mouth and lost consciousness while talking to her."

We often talk of how the political elites get away with murder. How many people care what happens to inmates in prisons? How many people pay attention to the way the state operates against people who are deemed by society as criminals or suspected as criminals? Make no mistake. As usual, in this country, race, religion and other economic and social dynamics play into this whole sordid mess. Sometimes in my darker moods, I wish those fat cat politicians who allegedly steal billions of ringgit from our coffers are exposed to the same treatment as the countless nobodies who are killed, tortured and abused in our jails.

You want to witness real corruption? Look no further than our prison system, where with the right connections and money, you could lead a life which is half way decent or more. You want to understand real abuse of power? Look at our prison system, where sadistic men and women exercise power over those they think that society has abandoned. You want to see a petri dish of diseases and how a person can slowly waste away and all the while uncaring officers do not bother looking away but sometimes take gleeful pride in this misery, look at our prison system. Is it any wonder that there is very little reforming, but rather the hardening of the human soul that eventually makes any inhumane act permissible, so long as you get away with it? This is what prisoners learn in prison.

These 'murderers' understand that their crimes will never get the attention like those crimes the political elite get. They understand that they can commit the most debased of acts, torture people who sometimes are not even acknowledged by the state, take out their frustrations on inmates with impunity, and then they can go home and pretend to have a normal life. They know this because, unless some nosy civil society groups make some noise, nobody cares what happens behind the wall of our prisons. Nobody cares about the drugs, money and the profiteers of human debasement that is our prison system.

RCI on prison reforms

I interviewed one drug dealer who made more money in prison than he did when he was on the outside. I know of one prisoner guard who was obviously suffering from some sort of mental disorder, who delighted in the punishment he meted out to prisoners all under the guise of religious enlightenment.

And what kills me is that this is the kind of reforms that could be easily done. Of course, digging into the situation in our prison system will reveal how corrupt the system is in a way the 1MDB issue could never do. We are talking about the intersection between political power, criminal enterprise and a public who really do not care that criminals are mass produced in our penal system.

Remember the former Court of Appeal judge, Mohd Noor Abdullah, who said that conditions in prison should be made worse, “making it infested with rats, cockroaches and mosquitoes as a form of deterrence.” I bet that when you think of rapists and child molesters, you would not disagree with this judge, right?

Nobody really thinks that what the corrupt wardens and their officers are doing is what contributes to crime in Malaysia. Nobody ever considers that when we treat prisoners, who are already paying for their crimes in an inhumane way, we are merely creating more monsters who roam our green and pleasant land.

Every time a state security personnel gets away with murder, it tells every other corrupt personnel that what they are doing is acceptable. Indeed, one cop told me that compared to some others, he is an angel. What does this tell you about the society we are living in? Some people do not waste much time and energy on prisoners because they believe these people deserve what they get.

What does this kind of thinking tell the state security personnel who are there to reform prisoners, but instead commit crimes? What does it say about politicians who go on about reforming the system but who turn a blind eye to this subject because they feel it brings them no political capital?

News flash - most times, the issue that bring no political capital are the ones which are the most damaging to society. When the state security personnel think they can get away with murder because those killed are rejected by society, they will continue destroying the apparatus from within.

Murder and corruption is endemic in our prison system. Criminal enterprises and allegiances are made in our prison system, all under the watchful gaze of corrupt men and women. You may not care about the people who are killed or tortured, but you better care that our prison system is creating people who are a danger to society. You better care that because nobody holds murderers and sadists accountable for their actions, sooner or later their actions will be visited on the general populace.

COMMENT | Besides being a co-conspirator to the Najib regime, what Mohamed Apandi Ali is really infamous for in my book, (as detailed in The Wall Street Journal) is recommending that caning form part of the punishment for those who violate the Official Secrets Act – “At present, those who violate the law will serve one to seven years in prison. Apandi has proposed that sentence be extended to life, and that caning be administered as well.”

I will not even bother going into the details of the sacked AG malfeasance because it really just stains this article, which is about an appointment that I am cautiously optimistic. When Tommy Thomas was announced as the Pakatan Harapan choice for the post of AG, the predictable backlash from the ‘bangsa’ and ‘agama’ crowd reverberated through social media. On the other side, there was the predictable rhetoric that a person’s race or religion does not matter.

Both sides do a disservice to this country. When Lim Guan Eng, the current finance minister, blathered on about being a Malaysian as if race did not matter, it was Deputy Prime Minister Wan Azizah Wan Ismail who said, "To have a Chinese finance minister is actually a very good way forward - this is integration of all the races." Dismantling the “ketuanan Melayu” ideology as the deputy prime minister conceded is a difficult hurdle to overcome and it does Malaysia no good to engage in sophistry when it comes to race relations in this country.

The same thing happened when Tommy Thomas was announced as the only candidate for the AG’s post. It is an extremely big deal that a non-Malay was chosen for the post, which is not to say - like in the case of Guan Eng - that this is merely “tokenism”, as denied by Wan Azizah when a non-Malay was chosen to be the finance minister. Tommy Thomas no doubt meets the necessary requirements but more importantly, although many would choose to ignore for various reasons, this is another reminder that things are slowing change.

Furthermore, whether there is a conflict of interest when it comes to the appointment of Tommy Thomas with his links to the political elite of Harapan is a question only time will answer. Mind you when I say time, I mean a very short time. It would become immediately apparent if Tommy Thomas is biased towards certain personalities, so what we have to do is wait. This being Malaysia, we would not have to wait long.

The rather vexatious qualifier that the new AG will protect the special privileges of the Malays and defend Islam is problematic because as the Harapan grand poobah, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, rightly points out “many who claim that they supposedly protect Islam, but we find that their actions are contrary to Islam.”

So do the ‘bangsa’ and ‘agama’ crowd have a point? Does the AG really have to defend ‘bangsa’ and ‘agama’? I put it to you that this idea of defending anything is part and parcel of the ‘ketuanan’ ideology that needs to be dismantled and that it is merely propaganda that people could be weaned off if there is a political will to do so.

I put it to you that there is nothing in the role of the attorney-general where anyone needs to defend the special rights of anyone but rather uphold the constitution in a manner which nobody's rights get trampled on by the state.

Let the man speak for himself

Whenever there is an issue with ‘bangsa’ and ‘agama’, the grubby fingerprints of the state are always around it. If the state does not condone religious extremism, the religion in question would not need to be defended. If the state does not condone and make provocative racist or bigoted overtures, the rights of a specific race would not need to be defended. If the state does not manipulate the religion for political gain, then there would not be any need for religious arguments to intrude into the civil discourse.

While there have been many public testimonials on Tommy Thomas, I prefer to let the man speak for himself. In ‘The constitution is supreme, not religion’ (Malaysiakini, 2013), he clearly articulates his position when he writes – “Neither the government nor any other authority can dictate to any person his right to choose a religion, relinquish a religious belief (with limitations for Muslims), change religion and not to be religious (whether as atheist, agnostic or otherwise). This right is absolute, entrenched and inalienable.”

Expanding on this, racial and religious issues should not be viewed ahistorically and if the state does not make an issue out of them, then we would not have these “crises” where servants of the state have to intrude into public policy and wade into racial or religious discourse/discord. See also his public comments on ‘hudud’ law – “Accordingly, any attempt to introduce hudud, even if limited to Muslims, by any state legislative assembly would be unconstitutional because in ‘pith and substance’ punishment is a matter of criminal law and procedure, coming solely within Parliament's legislative competence.”

Another example of state/federal mendacity from Thomas’ articles is his condemnation of both the BN federal government and Pakatan Rakyat Selangor state government of the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) raid of the Bible Society of Malaysia – “Finally, the Selangor state government should not have permitted Jais, as its agency and subordinate to it, to carry out the raid. Hence, both the BN federal government and the Pakatan Rakyat state government are responsible for this state of affairs.”

Here is why I am cautiously optimistic. If Tommy Thomas is the same AG as the writer who wrote passionately but professionally of the state of this country, then we have an AG that this country desperately needs. If Tommy Thomas is the AG who believes in the separations of powers and who understands – as his writings demonstrate – that for far too long this country has been run by charlatans and bigots with no respect for the constitution and this has to change, then we have an AG that this country desperately needs.