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The National Front's ambivalence towards women

DAT0' SIR ONN JAFFAR, Menteri Besar of Johore, UMNO's founding president, father of the prime minister, Tun Hussein Onn, grandfather of Dato' Hishamuddin Hussein, is also known for having got the Malay women of Malaysia to protest against the British plan to neutralise the Malay rulers. The British did not know what hit them. The National Archives is full of reports, written usually in amazement by British officials on the scene, of how the normally placid women protested against plans to remove the powers of the Sultans. The British officers did not know what to do, dare not allow a 'lathi charge' as they would have against the men. The normally apolitcal women were organised by Ibu Zain, who was given a Tan Sri in the 1980s because her daughter, who worked as a journalist for a while on the New Straits Times after she left the education service on a point of principle, would not accept any medal or title if none was given to her mother.

Few remember history in Malaysia, but there were officials at the time who remembered what Ibu Zain did, though they were surprised she was alive. Dato' Onn died in 1963, an MP from Trengganu, not of UMNO but the ultra nationalist Parti Negara. Tun Hussein Onn, who hero-worshipped his father, made a special trip to Trengganu on becoming prime minister and saw his father's compatriots there. Dato' Onn died out of UMNO, got no awards for his contributions as lesser men and women have, but that is the fate of former Presidents of UMNO. He is treated now with respect, his photo as that of UMNO presidents since hang on the walls of PWTC. He died outside of UMNO, as did his successor and his son. UMNO the nationalist movement that he founded is not UMNO the political party that Tun Mahathir Mohamed founded in 1987, and who remains the only former UMNO President. But it is out of sight out of mind in UMNO.

The UMNO General Assembly had seriously argued banning those who left UMNO from returning, aimed at preventing the former deputy president and former Malaysian deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim for returning to UMNO, but the resolution was hastily withdrawn when it was discovered that three UMNO presidents, two alive, would have been banned. The prime miniser, Pak Lah, when he was foreign minister, had gone to Johore Bahru for the byelection in which Dato' Shahrir Samad, now of the Backbenchers' Club, had stood as an independent against the UMNO Baru candidate, and he was supported by the old UMNO hands who disagreed with the new UMNO. Pak Lah had joined the new UMNO crowd going to file nomination papers. He said he did not know what to do when he met Dato' Shahrir Samad pushing the Tengku in a wheelchair, and followed by thousands waving the UMNO flag. The Tengku and Tun Hussein Onn remained loyal to the UMNO which had been declared illegal, and refused to join the new entity. The only difference between the two UMNO flags is that the insigna is smaller on the new UMNO.

Women in the new UMNO are treated badly although they have played a valiant role in the early days. Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, in prison, thought up a wing of educated women different from the women's wing. But the opposition did not agree with him, dilly dallied over it for months. UMNO ran with it, and created a revolution in politics. All political parties, in the government and in the opposition, are toying with the idea of a special young educated women's wing. In UMNO, they proved to be efficient campaigners. In the Indera Kayangan byelection in Perlis, Puteri UMNO made its mark. Since then, it has been active in all elections. UMNO has found the most important political weapon ever but spoiled it when it founded Putera UMNO which became a vehicle for the UMNO Youth deputy president and Pak Lah's son-in-law, Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, to unseat the UMNO Youth leader, Dato' Hishamuddin Hussein.

While UMNO redirects political strategies – Puteri UMNO, for example – it does what it can to them. It knows the statistics. About 54 per cent of UMNO members are women, about the same for the electorate of Malaysians. Yet the National Front government, where it orders the non-Malay parties about, passed a law whereby women are beholden to their husbands for money that is theirs. The Lower House of Parliament passed the Bill without a murmur but women senators, from UMNO, objected at the last possible minute. Three ministers had to tell them to pass it, in return for amendments at soon. The Bill has therefore passed both Houses, got the Agung's signature, but it was not gazetted into law. The women have taken the battle to the women elsewhere in the country. The National Front is trying to extricate itself from the mess it created, especially it has got the non-Malay, particularly the Indian, angry. The women, on the rampage, want at least 30 per cent of all candidates to be of their sex.

But it also shows the National Front's attitude towards women. But the National Front attitude is UMNO's. It could do what it wanted. But not any more. When more than 50 per cent of UMNO, and the Malaysian electorate, is women, such short sighted policies will have to be altered. In many government departments, had it not been for the women, there would be no work done. I recently went to apply for my Mykad. The office was full of men, supervised by a man, who gave orders but otherwise did nothing. It is so in every government department. The Malay men are caught out, and do not like it. The Islamic Family Laws Bill is only applicable to the Federal Territory. But it is a foretaste of what is to come. After all, Islamic laws happened in states that had National Front or UMNO in power. In Kelantan, PAS amended the laws to tighten it. It did not pass an Islamic Act, only amended what the National Front had passed.

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