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The feudal and racial conflict in Malaysian society

The Malaysian government is worried not enough non-Malays joined the armed forces and the police. The army chief, Gen. Tan Sri Mohamed Hashim Hussein, is convinced more Malays join the armed forces -- in Malaysia, you do not join because you want to be a soldier, airman or sailor; you join to serve the country -- as a direct response to historical events in the past -- the Emergency and the exploits of a Lieut. Adnan Saidi, since made into a film. Gen. Tan Sri Hashim describes Lieut. Adnan, conferred a dato'ship posthumously, as a Malay warrior, whose exploits encouraged Malays to join the armed forces. Few non-Malays, indeed Malays, had heard of Lieut. Adnan, whose exploits were glorified in the perennial search for modern Malay heroes. He makes no mention of the non-Malays or the need for them to join the armed forces. He was only interested in the Malays. The non-Malays have fought as gallantly but there is a conscious attempt to erase their role as there is to preserve the Malay, even if it has to be manufactured.

Conflicting comments ensure nothing would change, the non-Malay understandably suspicious of any attempt to bring him into the armed forces. He was deliberately excluded, after the 1969 racial riots, to ensure a Malay-only civil and uniformed services, to isolate him. And that now come to redound on the government. No one is keen to join a service, unless he cannot help it, in which he knows he is an object of fun or, at worst, an inconvenience or hindrance, there for the multiracial numbers and no more. This is not only in the armed forces. It is in every branch of the institutions of state. In 1972, less than a dozen non-Malays were recruited as police officers. All have retired or about to, their promotions stunted not because they are incompetent but because they are non-Malay. Examples are found in every branch of Malaysia's institutions of state.

The government's fear now of what this means is real. But the roots of it go back to the deliberate Malayisation of the civil service and the uniformed services after the 1969 racial riots. A quota system for non-Malays ensured only their token presence in all institutions of state. Twenty per cent of the civil service, for instance, ought to have been non-Malay; but less than ten per cent now are. It was a political decision taken after the 1969 racial riots to ensure Malay dominance in Malaysia. What helped it along was the utter collapse of the Chinese and Indian leadership, again not after careful thought but in anger that the Chinese community did not support them in the 1969 general elections.

There will come a time, as the apartheid South African regime in South Africa found out, when this boomerangs, as it already threatens. A Malaysian non-Malay professional or scientist must migrate if he wants to be recognised for what he does. Especially when a Malay of excellent professional or research credentials cannot survive either: one finds himself in a spot in a Malaysian university when he is publicly recognised by a visiting American professor in a lecture at the university. His colleagues thought his presence amongst them would undermine their mediocrity, with suggestions he ought to be asked to leave.

It is into this culture and world view that Gen. Tan Sri Hashim makes his pitch for mediocrity and Malay heroes. You either have a political or a professional army. You cannot have a professional army if it is confined to one race. Nor when senior non-Malay officers must salute the Malay officers they trained: One lieutenant colonel saw his young Malay captain rise to brigadier when he retired 13 years later -- still a lieutenant colonel. The traditions the armed forces built over the years were deliberately erased -- the one most striking was removing the distinctive uniforms the different regiments sported to one that is more neutral, another "reform" in the fallout of the New Economic Policy -- and an attempt is now made to rebuild them. It is probably too late. The Malay arrogance of the early post-1969 racial riots now come to haunt those in power. This is not only in the armed forces.

Malaysia is constantly in search of Malay heroes. They do not have many to fall back on. Even those of the mythical and legendary past. Hang Tuah is now not a hero as he once was. The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, in his 21 years in office, ignored him and backed Hang Jebat. The two represent an enduring conflict in Malay feudal society: blind loyalty versus principled rebellion. Hang Tuah was exiled for offending the Sultan, but when his best friend, Hang Jebat, rebelled, he returned to champion his ruler against his rebellious friend, and killed him. Malays, by and large, believe in blind loyalty to their ruler, and Hang Jebat was derided for taking up arms against his sultan. Dr Mahathir came into office to remake the Malay character. He failed. He became a modern day Hang Jebat when he took on the rulers, but the Hang Tuahs of modern Malay society all but bring him to his knees.

He needs the rulers more than ever. Especially when his own preferred successor, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, did a Hang Jebat on him. And destroyed him. But in such a manner that he has become a Phoenix about to rise from the ashes. Meanwhile, this uncertainty throws in doubt the succession to Dr Mahathir. The forces of Hang Jebat and Hang Tuah are marshalled against each other, and it is fought not on numbers or votes but on whether the Hang Tuah principle or the Hang Jebat principle should reign supreme in Malay feudal politics. This would be put to the test when whoever wins -- the Hang Jebatians have a tough battle ahead -- must come to terms with the modern Hang Jebat in Sungei Buloh who over his years in jail transforms himself into a Hang Tuah.

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