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Would there be another 'May 13'?

NATIONAL UNITY IS NOT possible in Malaysia so long as there is the New Economic Policy, which in practice is for one race, the Malays, only. And the NEP is not for 20 years, as when initiated in 1970, but extended for ever when it was renewed in 1990. The races are kept apart, as a result, and go their own way. The Chinese, for instance, are intent on seeing that they can do what they like. The recent Extraordinary general meeting of the Lake Club was an exercise in racial superiority by the Chinese to ensure that a vote to expel the club president, who happened to be Chinese, for hiding his past , just as the DAP's was unthinkingly on 12 May 1969 in the Chow Kit area of Kuala Lumpur . There was RM30 million in the club, the previous president, an Indian, had built up. It was not right or wrong but brute racial strength that kept the president in office after the meeting. The 1969 riots was engineered by several in the government to ensure that the Chinese are kept in their place. It was not a rational decision but political. If the pressure by the Chinese builds up, as it has, another May 13 is inevitable.

But this is not to say the other races are exempt from this mad rush. The Indians, through the MIC, in the National Front, do what they like, and make noises when they shouldn't, so that the MIC President can stay on in the cabinet. He has done so badly that even UMNO decided the Indians needed help, or become the worst of the lthree major races. The PPP, once in the opposition and whose leaders when it was in the oppposition took the right decision in Perak that the rioting in Kuala Lumpur during May 13 1969 was not replicated there, is largely Indian in its latest incarnation, but it is of no use. The Gerakan Rakyat Malaysa, once in the opposition, today rules Penang as it has for 36 years. It was brought in to check the excesses of the MCA in the National Front. But like the MCA and MIC, it has no policy except to retain the Chief Ministership of Penang and its president in the Federal cabinet. In Sarawak and Sabah, the parties are, almost each one of them,. beholden to the National Front.

No new thinking is allowed in the National Front. Only the leaders matter, even in UMNO, the leading party in the National Front. They talk of unity of the races but do their best in practice to keep them apart. Some of the more thoughtful in the National Front accept that this. The Malays are widely divided as the other races in the country, as between the peninmular and Sabah and Sarawak. In Sabah and Sarawak, Kuala Lumpur is seen in the two states as a coloniser, and the superficial unity there ignores the nationalism mostly on religion and race. UMNO one thought it needed to be in Sabah, and deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, took it there. Today, it is the dominant party in the government but the infighting in the National Front there, and non-Malay parties having accepted the UMNO shilling, it is Partai Keadilan Rakyat, whose eminence grise is the same Dato' Ibrahim, could be the party to drive UMNO into the opposition. The PKR has taken the precaution of allowing the Sabah unit complete independence from headquaters. People in PKR headquarters do not like this, but not the people in Sabah. PAS tried with UMNO and was rejected.

The recent withdrawal of the publishing permits of the three newspapers in Sarawak for publishing cartoons about the Prophet is seen by people in Sabah and Sarawak is seen as unfair, when the UMNO paper, the New Straits Times, and the television stations were excused for publishing the same cartoons. This one rule for us and one rule for the others adds to the reality that it is the National Front Government that takes the lead in dividing races, religions and areas in Malaysia. To this is added the agencies of government. The police, for instance, is not seen as neutral but its goon squad. The state police are the contingent of the Royal Malaysia Police, and often acts against the state government of other parties than the National Front. Is it any wonder that it helps in these divisions?

There is much sloganeering about national unity these days. But can there be national unity if the New Economic Policy remains, when the government only employs Malays into the civil and uniformed services, and the other races only as a token. In practice, they ignore the races other than Malay. The recent flap over nude ear quatting in the police station became an international issue when it was alleged that Chinese tourists women were forced to ear squat in the nude for no apparent reason. A Malay girl was produced, who admitted the picture of the nude squat on the handphone, and which was widely circulated, was hers. But not after a cabinet minister when to China to apologise. He should have known before he left, and he gave, in the end, an apology that was not necessary. But was the police telling the truth, when newspapers in China had horrendous stories of Chinese tourists being manhandled by the Malaysian police?

Fifty years after independence, the problems facing Malaysia has changed. But the country is governed as if they were not. The recent rally in Batu Pahat, Johore, to honour UMNO's president, Dato Onn bin Jaffar, was not as successful as the party had hoped. They could not draw crowds today that gathered 60 years ago to hear the UMNO founder. The irony of this was that after he left UMNO on principle in 1951 till his death in 1963 he was a non-person to the party. His son, Hussein Onn, became prime minister, and his grandson, Dato' Hussein Onn, is in the present cabinent. But nothing for the man in his liftime, or for 40 years after his death. Dato' Onn was a dato' because he was menteri besar of Johore, and was not given any Federal awards, which adorn many an irrelevelant figure in modern Malaysia, to add to those from from the various states. The UMNO leaders shed crocodile tears over Dato' Onn in organising the meeting in Batu Pahat. It is organising it for a narrow reason: the Malays do not support UMNO the political party as they did the nationalist organisatin Dato' Onn founded. UMNO today was founded in 1987, because the then President, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, did not want Tengku Razaleigh to challenge him in the future. There is of course a difference between a political party and a nationalist organisation, but UMNO today does not accept that.

The superficial unity in Malaysia, which the National Front government promotes, hides the larger flaws of government policy. It can hide for a while, but the reality will reveal itself. The Lake Council extraordinary general meeting is one. But there are others elsewhere in the country and as serious. Aiding this is the Malay assumption of superiority, and the consequent acceptance of inferiority by the parties in the National Front. What is worrying UMNO is that the younger Malays are rejecting it as once they did not. Many are well educated, are unemployed, with no hope of a job after government policiy had educated them. On the ground, this alienation strikes all races. There is now attempts to unite them under a common banner of being ignored. This is not going to unseat the National Front yet after 50 years in office, but it is already creating divisions in the country, The May 13 was the Malay response to Chinese aggressiveness. But would the next 'May 13' be a Malaysian response?

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