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UMNO GA II: Of skyscrapers and pasar malam

The Putra World Trade Centre is a hive of activity during the UMNO General Assembly, but one diametrically apposite to the UMNO president's view of Malaysia at the centre of modernisation and technological developments. The ground floor of the PWTC is an instant "pasar malam" (hawker night markets) at which the hawkers, mostly women, and from Kelantan and Trengganu, sell their wares as they have done for centuries. The PWTC encourages this for it brings them a sizeable income -- the stall space is not cheap -- and UMNO leaders, certainly not Dr Mahathir, does not see the incongruity of it all. While the Prime Minister in his presidential speech talks of the modernising path he has cut, the object of his policies is at his or her best hawking their wares as a medicine man snake oil.

What do they sell here? Every thing from instant potency pills to costume jewellery to books to cakes and biscuits, clothes, brocades to personal computers to items costing thousands of dollars. But UMNO has not, it seems, lost sight of making a buck either. This year, it is rings similar to class rings in US universities. One fly-by-night entrepreneur has sold the idea that UMNO officebearers should have rings to distinguish them from the rabble. The several models are to distinguish one from another, so that a divisional chairman should never be mistaken for a branch committee member.

UMNO's organisation is feudal. But its president has convinced the faithful that feudalism is not practiced any more -- never mind that it is more ingrained in UMNO than ever under a president who promised to root it out when he became prime minister but whose power depends on it -- so it is necessary now to have a ring to show one's feudal place. The man who thought up this idea hopes the ring would establish rank among UMNO officials as a bow to a Japanese. If that is not enough, UMNO now has a credit card for those who qualify. There is much hype about this. The normal checks and balances on issuing the card is there, not all qualify, and unless it is carefull monitored, it can backfire. But then this "sophisticated" marketing, if you consider it, is no different from the pasar malam two floors below.

This year is more chaotic. Every nook and corner is taken that it is more than an effort to get through. Visitors to the PWTC and others edge their way through this typical pasar malam crowds to get to the conference hall. The police are around as always on these occasions, but the organisation of it has deteriorated. In previous years, there was a place where one could hail a taxi. Not this year. One waited all over the place, and got a taxi only when one was nearest to where the taxi would stop. The taxi lanes are closed, so even a queue could not form. This is as disorganised as the pasar malam a few feet away.

So while the Prime Minister dreams of a Malaysia which would be the most advanced in the world but for the pesky Malays who inhabit it, the Malay is content to live in his 17th century worldview, wanting to move to neither extreme -- be it Dr Mahathir's belief that he should be brought screaming and against his will to the modern world and now that that has failed then into his brand of a Malaysian Islamic state or PAS's desire that he should live in an antiquated world of 7th century Islam -- while accepting his place in society as God-given.

When Dr Mahathir decides it is business and money which makes the world go around, turns his country into a cash cow, reducing every government service to a financial digit. The Malay on the other hand sees his hawking as a means to get what he wants to continue living as he has for centuries. He is well rooted in his feudal worldview -- in this he is no different from Dr Mahathir -- and he will move at his pace. He is rooted in his Malay culture in which Islam plays an important part but no more. He is caught in a bind now with having to chose between two branks of Islam that would impinge on his life so dramatically that he could well rebel. So when he beams at the "modernity" he has brought to Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley, not to the Malay heartland, the Malay does not see why he should be proud of it. The one damaging impact on Dr Mahathir's feudal modernisation, for it is no more than that, is that the Malay is more alienated from the feudal leader than ever that he recedes more into his comfortable and confident coccoon.

The more his worldview clashes with the leaders, the more likely he would desert them. The Malay word for leader has a connotation different from the Graeco-Roman view. The Malay leader leads by holding hands, marching a step ahead leading his flock by holding their hands and they edging him forward that should one fall lthe other is around to help. This is not how a Western leader behaves who moves ahead and leads them by marching ahead and wait for the flock to catch up. Dr Mahathir, during his 21 years of leading the country, behaved as a Western leader, and finds he is out of tune with his Malay constituency. He broke a fundamental feudal code and for that, no matter how brilliant leader he is or war, he would not be forgiven.

So, the presence of the pasar malam on the ground floor of the PWTC is a celebration that the Malay has not changed nor is he likely to under pressure. He would change only in his own time and pace or at the behest of a leader he trusts. The first three prime minsiters were of that mould, the fourth is not. That is why more than the skyscrapers and buildings Dr Mahathir is so proud of, it is the pasar malam that reveals the real Malay. Which is the Malay the Prime Minister is so anxious now to get approval for what he has done so his future in Malaysian history books is preserved. He talks of what he has done to demand that respect, but the Malay judges him for what he could have done but has not, and for doing what he should not.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my