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Malay Unity And Disunity?

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 00:50:53 -0700 (MST) From: M G G Pillai To: SK , Sang Kancil

The Prime Minister knows not, it seems, why Malays are divided, fractious, ungrateful, ignore him and, horror of horrors, believe the Opposition understands them better than an UMNO which takes them for granted. He insists the Malay must unite behind him and UMNO, or be forever irrevocably split. He, after all, is the benchmark of Malay comfort. Not that corrupt sodomite prisoner in Sungei Buloh, nor any who insists the Prime Minister has lost his right to the Malay cultural mantle. Corrupt sodomite? Of course, the brightest and the best in the Malaysian judiciary, their integrity so peerless and unquestionable that going on holidays with lawyers who get the judgement they want burnishes it, has so decreed. It is beyond the Prime Minister's understanding why the Malays want to be so divided and disunited by supporting a man who could not lead them before 2020.

Malay disunity upsets him much these days. This time, he did his bit for Malay unity by weaning 300 PAS members from Trengganu into UMNO. But he cannot understand why many, many UMNO members move the other way -- without benefit of cash and other benefits. A few hundred thousand UMNO members joined KeADILan and PAS in the two years he, as Goliath, was put in his place by David, one Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, now in solitary confinement in Sungei Buloh prison. Several opposition leaders, including members of parliament and state assemblymen were once UMNO members. That more Malays prefer him to the Prime Minister is, in the latter's view, proof enough of Malay disunity.

What better example of Malay disunity can there be that 26,000 electors of Lunas elected not an Indian he preferred but a Malay in a Malay-dominant constituency? How dare the Malays elect an opposition state assemblyman? Do not the Malays know that UMNO has now lost two constituencies in Kedah to the opposition in byelections and now threatens National Front political equanamity in that Malay-dominant state, and proof, yet again, of how Malays divide and disunite by supporting the Opposition! It is terrible, these Malays, who refuse to understand why UMNO and National Front must be preserved in office, if not electorally than in a museum.

The Prime Minister asks now: "What has become of the Malays? They were united before but now we are very weak and there are people who try to divide the Malays further. They offer bribes to ensure that there are Malays who will oppose other Malays, particularly the Government." In other words, he insists the Malay's only role is to support the government blindly and without thinking to ensure a corrupt government that loses its way is a far better bet than the opposition which challenges all this. To put it another way, when the Malay-controlled government is corrupt, arrogant and capricious, it is proof that there is Malay unity. When this is challenged, as now, then not only Malays but Islam is also threatened.

It is not. The feudal leaders demand blind leadership. The followers accept so long as feudal norms are met. This was not in how Dato' Seri Anwar was humiliated and jailed. It struck at the core of Malay cultural sensitivity. And they rise to question. This does not mean the Malays would not fall back into line under a new feudal leader who follows the cultural rules. The Malays behave as they do now because they find their feudal leader, the Prime Minister, flawed. And would until a successor emerges.

Who could that be? There are two in the horizon: one in UMNO and one outside. Both do not hold, indeed were prevented from, office. But it is on them the Malay depends upon to bring him back to his cultural comfort. The Prime Minister finds this inimical to his governance. The evidence he totes out ignores that UMNO's cultural role of protector cannot sustain so long as he is in office. He cannot address Malay gatherings out of Putra Jaya. His writ does not run in UMNO general assemblies and supreme council. In the Lunas byelection, he cancelled a promised gathering, his first before the people who elected him into power. If he had, it is now clear, the opposition majority would have been more than 500 votes.

It is by now clear that the Malays move away from him and UMNO. Does this mean the Malays are disunited and in dissarray? Would the Malay ground return to UMNO if the Prime Minister eats humble pie and release Dato' Seri Anwar from Sungei Buloh prison? Would Dato' Seri Anwar let bygones-be-bygones and return to UMNO to succeed the Prime Minister as he was meant to? If he did, would that begin another around of Malay unhappiness and uncertainty that he then leads a party long past its sell-by date? If the Prime Minister is so firm about legal niceties, why are his nominees talking to his nemesis's nominees on a deal that would ensure a free royal pardon? The Malay unite behind Dato' Seri Anwar as cultural leader, that Malays who back the Prime Minister, by his definition, inhibit Malay unity. So, yes, there is Malay disunity, but not for why the Prime Minister thinks it is. The Malays move to unite under an opposition leader.

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