Bible 3:28  : There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave^[a] nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (All men are created equal) 

Malaysiakini : "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”  -  Stealers Wheel ('Stuck in the middle with you')

COMMENT | People often caricature Abdul Hadi Awang when it comes to politics in this country. Partisans are dismissive of him as if whatever he claims is not mainstream politics. Hadi and PAS are relegated to the fringes of the political discourse. 

All of which is complete horse manure, of course.

The PAS president says what the politically correct Malay establishment does not want to say out loud, but in practice engages in exactly the kind of behaviour, which makes all this talk of democratic norms and rule of law meaningless when it comes to the ketuanan ideology.

Hadi’s latest attempt at some sort of restatement of mainstream Malay political discourse envisions a political landscape where undesirable Malay (Muslims) and non-Muslims are rejected:

“Maka, hendaklah disingkirkan langkah negatif yang diambil oleh kalangan penganut Islam yang lemah serta tidak yakin kepada agama sendiri dan rupa bangsa yang menjadi ketetapan Allah SWT. Kemudian diikuti dengan kumpulan bukan Islam yang ekstrem sehingga boleh merosakkan kaum mereka sendiri, bukan sahaja hubungan antara kaum dan agama.” 

All this comes at a time when the Malay political establishment is at war with itself. With some in Umno attempting to topple the Muhyiddin regime, the role of non-Malay political operatives - establishment and opposition – have come under the spotlight.

Umno has made it very clear that it does not want to have anything to do with the DAP, and the MCA – in the words of Nazri Abdul Aziz – are attempting to weasel their way to equilibrium between two disparate Malay power structures.

While the Sheraton Move has demonstrated the policy and ideological failure of a Malay uber alles government, it has also demonstrated that non-Malay power structures, as opposed to the plutocrat class, are completely irrelevant to the Malaysian political landscape.

The irony of course is that if Umno teamed up with PKR and the DAP, there would be a stable coalition with some sort of experience to replace Perikatan Nasional (PN), but since Umno cannot bring itself to work with the DAP, the most logical and effective strategy is rejected.

Of course, it is easier for the court cluster to reject the DAP on racial and religious grounds when the reality is that the DAP would have a hard time convincing its base of why working with kleptocrats is a pragmatic thing. 

PKR president Anwar Ibrahim, of course, apparently does not have the same problem. 

'Not to spook the Malays'

Hadi famously said that non-Malays have to be followers (pak turut), and of course, non-Malays were rightly incensed about this. But isn’t that the case already? 

The reality is that even with all the pandering by the non-Malay political operatives during their brief reign in Putrajaya, this was not enough for the Malay establishment. 

Post-Sheraton Move comments from the old maverick point to an extremely compliant DAP because everyone was worried about how it would look to the Malay voting base if non-Malay politicians were perceived to be proactive in policy decisions. 

Most non-Malay political operatives were warned not to spook the Malays and those who did were targeted by their own coalition partners.

Indeed,  Liew Chin Tong’s description of how the DAP gave everything to then home minister Muhyiddin Yassin but it wasn’t enough, points to how non-Malay political operatives were desperate for some sort of consensus or compromise but this still made them targets of opportunity for the Malay establishment.

While online non-Malay partisans were enforcing Bangsa Malaysia dogma, the reality offline was that non-Malay politicians in the name of "pragmatism" were doing exactly what successive BN regimes had done in the past. 

Non-Malay political operatives were still demonised even though they were selling out the interests of their communities.

And we know that these tactics were merely racial and religious attacks when Malay power structures could not defend the effectiveness of their policies. 

Non-Malay political structures, which have used issues such as egalitarianism and secularism, have never committed to those ideals. Instead, they have attempted to replicate the successful formula that had ensured the victory of BN for decades.

We are not talking about an alternative to a racist system, but rather a replacement in the status quo built on single-issue political narratives and political bromides.

'Even that was not enough'

The heady taste of Malay/Muslim rule has got so intoxicating that a PAS political operative stated in March this year that the party with the help of its allies (Bersatu and Umno) needed to win a two-thirds majority and “... the electoral boundaries need to be changed to benefit Muslims. We also need to increase the number of parliamentary seats in Malay-majority areas." 

Even with all the chaos that has mired this Malay uber alles government, the very idea of rejecting non-Malay/Muslim participation is a better bet than working with every community to achieve some sort of political, social and economic equilibrium. Even though such partnerships in the past have been unequal and non-Malays have had to placate their Malay partners. Even that was not enough.

It is not a question of kleptocrats coming back into power, it never was. It is a question of how are non-Malay political operatives ever going to be equals in this country when the system is predicated on relying on non-Malay acquiescence through economic incentives – "you can make a living in this country" – while sanctioning any kind of egalitarian policy which would benefit every citizen but would disenfranchise the Malay political elite which holds the keys to power in this country.

While the Malay establishment is convulsing because of the court cluster, what it has learnt is that it can effectively neuter non-Malay power structures and carry on ruling albeit in a milieu of chaos. 

If it wasn’t for the court cluster hampering the regime's efforts – no wonder Khairy Jamaluddin has trust issues with Ahmad Zahid Hamidi – the PN regime would be operating at peak inefficiency.

If Hadi's allies ever managed to come up with an electoral pact, it would be the dawn of the kind of society that he envisions. 

Or maybe it already is. Keep in mind that for ketuanan types too much is never enough.