COMMENT | There is a thing that people do when talking about Malaysia. Everyone defines the context as if politicians do not know what the problem is when it comes to what is destroying Malaysia. This of course is not true.

Malaysian political operatives can be roughly divided into three categories. The first are those who acknowledge the problem and want to do something about it. These folks do not get far.

The second, those who understand what the problem is, but for political self-interest have no desire to address the problem. These folks by far are the mainstream. 

The third are those who do not think that the problem is really a problem and that it is merely the natural order of things. These people have always been in power.

The dialectic when it comes to reforming Malaysia has always been centred between the second and third types of political operatives. Meaning people who are voted in for change have no real interest in change but sustaining their own positions are in conflict with people who do not think that there is a problem at all. 

This is why we get nowhere in this country because the political system is predicated on dumb personalities and of course race and religion.

So what is the problem in Malaysia? Take your pick - systemic racism, corruption, the degradation of our public institutions, religious extremism and the systemic dismantling of our civil liberties. All these problems seem insurmountable but they are not.

The connective tissues between all these issues are the racial and religious agendas of successive Malaysian governments that desire a narcotised majority and a disenchanted aggrieved minority. This plays into the Manichean political narrative that communal agendas need to safeguard political interests.

It is not that political operatives do not want to sell progressive ideas to their base – even though they live progressive/liberal lifestyles and the religious bureaucracy does not hassle them – it is that they want to keep existing narratives alive so they can profit for them politically. Amanah is a craven example.

When people ask me, why do I always write about race and religion, this perhaps is the dumbest question ever because everything in this country is defined by race and religion. 

In newsrooms and supposedly independent media in this country, folks have to be careful about not hurting the sensitivities of the majority but nowhere are the sensitivities of the minorities considered.

Remember the kerfuffle when PAS central committee member Khairuddin Aman Razali publicly considered the long term needs of the majority: "There are long-term (needs) that require us to win the next general election with a two-thirds majority. (Upon achieving this) the electoral boundaries need to be changed to benefit Muslims. We also need to increase the number of parliamentary seats in Malay-majority areas." 

Folks were upset but this is really what defines the political discourse in this country. PAS grassroots activists have been telling me this for years. They were happy when Umno was attempting to do it, even when they were at “war” with Umno. 

Why? Because they understood the long game. And when Pakatan Harapan was in power they did nothing about issues such as these - instead, blaming everything on the old maverick when they were coddling him and praising him as if he was the second coming.

Affirmative action

I’ll give you an example. Anwar Ibrahim a decade ago, during an interview with CNN, said this about the deliberate politicisation of race and religion of that time (which has not changed):

“The antidote for this behaviour is to restore credibility to the institutions of civil society. The media should be free, politicians must be held accountable through free and fair elections and the judiciary must be able to operate without interference from politicians. 

"Economics also factor importantly into the equation. Income inequality in Malaysia is among the worst in the world. Despite decades of an affirmative action policy designed to uplift the poor and marginalised Malays, in Malaysia the rich get richer while the poor stay poor - and that includes poor Malays, Chinese and Indians.

"We need to revisit the design of economic policy and how the country allocates welfare and resources. Affirmative action remains essential to ensure that the poor and marginalised are not forgotten. 

"But there is no reason to exclude poor Chinese and Indians from the policy, as has been the case for so long. Endemic corruption has led to the enrichment of a few well-connected businessmen and politicians but the vast majority of their wealth never trickles down.” 

So that is it. Those are the words but the “opposition” had no real intention of turning these words into action. 

Take affirmative action, forget about where you stand on this social and economic policy but the majority would lose nothing if affirmative action was inclusive and needs-based. Instead what Harapan did was to further justify disproportionate funding to "not spook the Malays" and gaslight their base.

Indeed, the goal of political power in this country has never been to reform the system but rather to realign political interests to sustain the system without radically changing how it interacts with the majority of Malaysians, regardless of their ethnicity or religious beliefs.

You know how some folks say that the political elites have hoodwinked the Malays. Well, non-Malay political elites, especially those in Harapan, are part of those political elites. And by voting for these political elites who sustain the system to retain power, voters are complicit in sustaining a racist system.

Malaysians who think that there is something wrong with the system have never really had an alternative. There is no alternative when it comes to the bumiputera system, and the reason why there is no alternative is because there are no political alternatives that political operatives are offering to the majority.

I have no idea if it is too late to reform the system that seems like everyone is concerned about, even the very people who created or helped to create it. I do know that with the fractured political landscape, there will be no coalition willing to undertake such reforms.