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Is A State Of Emergency On The Cards?

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 11:04:14 -0700 (MST) From: M G G Pillai To: SK , Sang Kancil , SKMGG

With the Lunas fallout sharply etched into its future, the National Front government is nervous and found scapegoats in Chinese educationists and the Suqui NGO. It is caught in its own rhetoric over Vision schools and wisely retired it from public discussion. But the Suqui's 17 points with its 83 demands is now used to raise racial tensions. The MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling Liong Sik, says the government acepts "98 per cent of the 83 demands", or at most two demands raise the ire. Another National Front party, Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, says Suqiu did not demand the removal of Malay privileges. Why did not UMNO discuss this with its Chinese partners before it shot off its mouth in public? The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, wants Suqiu to withdraw its demands and "heal the fissures". So long as he rails about it as he does in public, it must raise racial tensions.

The foreign minister, Dato' Seri Syed Hamid Albar, meanwhile, plays to the Malay gallery, to taunt, not mollify. The federation of Peninsular Malay Students, GPMS, wants to explain its 100 demands, its answer to Suqiu's, to a crowd of 100,000 in the Klang Vally and in smaller groups throughout the country. If it does, it needs police permits. This is where the government is caught. If it gets its permits, as the opposition Barisan Alternatif did not for its gathering in Klang last month, not only the police but also the home minister, one Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, would lose further face. This is why the deputy home minister, Dato' Chor Chee Heung, pleads with GPMS not to proceed.

Chinese educationists and Suqiu have kept cool. UMNO and its satraps have not. It raises the racial ante to wean back its lost Malay ground, but hardly a tremor. Which is why the government raises the ante with each speech. UMNO is a wounded tiger, roaring in pain and anger, with no one, but its own satraps and their satraps, to succour it. The usual barometer of Chinese comfort, the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index, reacted indifferently, its drift not racial tension but economic bad news.

Which is why I hear, I suppose, more talk these days of a a state of emergency to halt UMNO's political drift. But could the Prime Minister impose one and be fully confident he could then rule what is left of his roost? Could the armed forces be trusted to go back to the barracks after their work is done? After the 13 May racial riots, it did. Would it now? Would the Prime Minister's political health be enhanced should, after an emergency is imposed, He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost is released from Sungei Buloh prison to become president of Parti KeADILan Negara?

Malay drift, not Chinese demands, frightens UMNO and the National Front government it leads. Until Lunas, it could count on Chinese votes. UMNO reacts vengefully and in anger. Even Malay backing for its demands is in doubt. The ghost of May 1969 and racial clashes is toted out once too often. A generation of Malaysians know of it only as what they do not want to happen. But they also view it as the government crying wolf once too often. So they do not view it as fearsome as it once was. This upsets the government. Even the Malay ignores its claims of Chinese perfidy. The wounded tiger cries wolf to frighten the Chinese dragon. The Malay is unconcerned.

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