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UMNO's great plan to rejuvenate the party through the young

WITHIN DAYS OF ITS general assembly, UMNO has two momentous decisions before it: fulfil Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's dreams for Malaysia and UMNO and overcome his greatest challenges; and help Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak capture the hearts and minds of the young so UMNO could survive. Nothing else matters in front of the assembly. The delegates are on autocue; loyal marionettes, who nod when they have to, clap when they must, praise the leaders at the right occasion, reduce the nation's problems to irrelevant asides and jokes. It does not, of course, matter that this charade is repeated every year without fail, and ignored after the UMNO general assembly. It is all in the UMNO belief that talk equals action, that once a leader says it, it is done. This is not new. Nor that this enthusiastic agenda for the nation and for Malaysian youth turns cold within a week of the general assembly.

Pak Lah's dreams and challenges are the stuff of dreams. "These are great challenges: and equally great obstacles. I am not only expected to guide the Malays but also to generate changes that can make them more successful. [But] I also know that as UMNO president and chairman of the Barisan Nasional I am leader of all Malaysians. They [other ethnic groups], too, have expectations of me. The president of UMNO is expected to chart the future of country and Bangsa Malaysia. This is my greatest challenge," he told the UMNO-owned Mingguan Malaysia. This is how the New Straits Times reported it today (20 September 2004). Instead of spelling out what the challenges and obstacles are, it goes on to speculate what he would talk about at the general assembly.

What are his "great challenges" and "equally great obstacles"? I have no idea. Nor, I suspect, Pak Lah. But it is enough to tell Malays and Malaysians that he knows what needs to be done, and he would do it. Trust him. President Bush knows what he does to resolve the great challenges and equally great obstacles facing him in Iraq. Why should not Pak Lah in Malaysia? They are cut off the same cloth. Did you say they flounder? Of course not! What you see is what is not. Mirage and reality are two things: if you cannot see the truth of what he says, it is a mirage; if you can, it is reality. What could be simpler than this? Rest assured, "the great challenges" and "equally great obstacles" would be met. Pak Lah gives you his solemn promise. The naysayers ought to be shot. They do not understand what spin doctoring means. If they do not know what that is, how could they survive in UMNO's Golden Age under Pak Lah?

The new UMNO deputy president, not to be outdone, would overcome his "equally great obstacles" to fulfil his "great challenges". His vision of UMNO is to target the hearts and minds of the young so it would survive. To survive, you understand, the party must renew itself constantly. "Whether UMNO lives or dies will depend on how successfully we win the hearts and minds of the young," he thundered. "There are parties, some of which are stronger than UMNO, which have become weak or even disappeared," he said. UMNO, in the eyes of UMNO, is the greatest political party in the land. No UMNO leader would dare say otherwise. But Dato' Seri Najib says it. At least he is honest about it.

UMNO is, in its deputy president's considered opinion, not the strongest and the best organised party in the land. He wants the the young turned into automatons and robots. He says Malaysia goes against the worldwide trend and of an anti-establishment and anti- government youth. Here the young vote only for the BN and UMNO. It was not always so. In 1999 ungrateful undergraduates and students influenced their UMNO parents to vote for the opposition. This trend is reversed. Look at the recent university student council elections: UMNO won hands down. Party affiliations are not allowed, but the universities moved heaven and earth to ensure that all the right candidates won.

UMNO and the coalition government it leads are cock-a-hoop of this success. They have turned the youngsters around. They control the hearts and minds of the undergraduates at all Malaysian universities. How did they manage this? By knocking some sense into the students a la Abu Ghraib so that they would see the light. Those who dared to challenge the official slate were subject to third degree methods: forced out of their hostel rooms, raided in the middle of the night, threatened with failure in their examinations, and other acceptable softening-up measures. Life was made difficult for all of them. They were warned that in the name of national unity, they must withdraw, or they would face the consequences of thwarting national unity. UMNO and the government had its way.

But this practice is a double-edged sword. It rubs the students the wrong way. Many in fear of their future would stomach the indignities if at the end of it all they would be titled multimillionaires and driving around in a garage full of luxury cars living in mansions costing what it would cost to feel ten thousand hopelessly poor for a year in some comfort. The danger to the government is not from them, but from the tiny minority who see this as a denial of their freedom within the published rules. You deny them that, and resentment sets in. An UMNO personality met a score of these undergraduates over the weekend, and they reacted like scalded cats about what happened. They were naturally pro-government, but they are not anymore. They resent this demand for absolute loyalty to the UMNO-led government, and absolute loyalty from birth to the grave. They resent that they are nothing but cannon fodder to be used at UMNO's absolute discretion.

UMNO dismisses this dissent as irrelevant, of no consequence. It did in the 1970s too. It jailed and arrested hundreds of undergraduates and fresh graduates of Malaysian universities when matters got out of hand. Many repented, accepted the government's shilling, and went on to great heights. One who did not, spent two years in detention under the Internal Security Act, was persuaded to join UMNO, which at the time thought it a coup, showered him with titles and honours, went on to be its deputy president and the country's deputy prime minister. But he never forgot the slights or his belief.

The issue that started it all was when poor villagers in Grik were driven to eat poisonous wild tapioca. It brought students and undergraduates into a confrontation with the government, led by this student. Thirty years on, the poor villagers in Grik are reducing their children with tea without milk and sugar and condensed milk. Does it bother UMNO? No. It is more worried about that one graduate who stood up to be counted. Today UMNO is paranoid and in mortal terror about him. His name is Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. How many Anwar Ibrahims would surface from this latest hamfisted attempt to force the undergraduate to think the UMNO way? I don't know. But one could well threaten UMNO, if it exists, three decades from now, or be the country's leader on a reformasi platform to make mincemeat of all UMNO stood for.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com