In multi-ethnic Malaysia, constructive criticism is often met
with a vexed stare; any whiff of its loner cousin, dissent, has
traditionally been met with force and attributed to "traitors".
Odd, then, that Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi chose in his maiden
speech as president of the country's dominant political party the
conservative United Malays National Organization (UMNO), to hit out
at his core constituency, the Muslim Malays.
Yet, following in the footsteps of his Machiavellian predecessor,
the long-ruling Mahathir Mohamed, that's what Abdullah did,
implying that some 30-plus years of generous affirmative action
have failed to make Malays the competitive race Mahathir had
envisaged they would be by now.
In some ways, Abdullah's charge - in which he urged Malays to get
rid of their "crutches" or risk ending up in "wheelchairs" and said
Malay success will depend on a "mental revolution" - is a logical
next step: developing the country will depend largely on
transforming the mindset of the majority Malays (partly because of
their special rights, Malays dominate many of the country's key
sectors).
And what really was to fear? Haven't many of the Malay delegates
taken stock in Abdullah's calls to reform, seeing them as key
contributors to the party's success in the March parliamentary
elections? Isn't the party's youth wing filled with a "new breed"
of foreign-educated progressives, at odds with the intolerant
backwardness that has long tainted the UMNO elite?
Think again. What the 55th General UMNO Assembly made clear is that
any suggestion that Malay rights should be scaled back or repealed
will be sententiously attacked every step of the way - even by
empowered, educated Malays.
At the assembly, deputy chairperson Badruddin Amiruldin -
brandishing a book on the 1969 racial riots here, which paved the
way for pro-Malay policies, as the economic disparity between the
Chinese and the Malay is widely thought to have triggered the riots
- likened questioning Malay rights to stirring a hornets' nest and
warned to rapturous applause that "if it were disturbed, these
hornets will strike and destroy the country".
"Let no one from the other races ever question the rights of Malays
on this land. Don't question the religion, because this is my right
on this land." Aside from the majority Malays, there are sizable
Indian and Chinese minorities on the Malay Peninsula.
The next day, UMNO Youth executive council member Dr Pirdaus Ismail
defended Amiruldin's comments and said they should remind "Chinese
chauvinists" not to question Malay privileges. "Badruddin did not
pose the question to all Chinese in the country," Ismail was quoted
as saying. "Those who are with us, who hold the same understanding
as we do, were not our target. In defending Malay rights, we direct
our voice at those who question them."
Then there was Higher Education Minister Dr Shafie Salleh's remark:
"I will never allow non-Bumiputra students to enter [Universiti
Teknologi Mara] UiTM. I will not compromise on this matter."
Bumiputra means "sons of the soil" and refers to Malays and a
handful of indigenous minority groups, such as the Ibans and Orang
Asli. Government policy grants the Bumiputras privileges.
Intolerance of this sort is not new in UMNO, with its race- and
religion-centered agenda; last year the youth wing's information
chief Azimi Daim said, "In Malaysia, everybody knows that Malays
are the masters of this land. We rule this country as provided for
in the federal constitution. Any one who touches upon Malay affairs
or criticizes Malays is [offending] our sensitivities."
Not too long ago, UMNO members threatened to burn down the Chinese
Assembly Hall. So it was par for the course when Pirdaus said, "If
the Malay agenda were strengthened, wouldn't Islam be strengthened?
This is an order of Allah, [for] which UMNO has [striven] for a
long time."
But what makes the recent spate of vitriol notable is that it comes
at a time when the Malay community here is more anxious than at any
time in recent memory - trying to balance progress while clinging
to religion and traditions in a world it accuses of conspiring
against Islam.
Progress itself has been a struggle. The New Economic Policy (NEP),
launched in 1970 and which ended in 1990, was intended to help the
Malay community, traditionally agrarian, catch up economically. And
while Malays' economic holdings reportedly rose from 2.4% to 19.3%
over that period, the Malay bourgeoisie that developed was smaller
than hoped for. So Malay favoritism was extended; meanwhile,
between 1990 and 2002 Malay economic holdings dropped to
18.7%.
One writer to a local website attributes this "failure" to the
founders of the NEP missing the essence of Malay
"backwardness".
"The truth is that the Malay backwardness was more due to
psychological hang-ups than economic shortcomings." While the NEP
and its reincarnations have nurtured many competent, talented
Malays, on the whole the community remains insecure and suspicious
of the outside world.
Abdullah seems to recognize this, hence his call for a mental
revolution among Malays; and his promotion of Hadhari, or
progressive Islam, which, Abdullah says, will breed moderation and
mastery of knowledge and greater integration with the larger world.
(Abdullah was set to release a book in early September detailing
this concept, but the launch has been indefinitely postponed to
"fix mistakes", according to an UMNO official.)
Indeed, some of the Malay community's hangups are attributable to
how it tends to identify with Islam. In Malaysia's multi-ethnic
fabric, where the Malay is born into the faith, his Muslim identity
is particularly race-based. Non-Malays, whether they're Indian,
Chinese or Western, are assumed to be non-Muslim. This has created
a barrier and sealed off the mind.
With the United States' "war against terror", read also as a war
against Islamic extremism, the Malays' aversion to these
"outsiders" has swelled. "Because of fear, [the Malays] revert to
old habits, look for quick fixes and blame others," Abdullah said
at the assembly.
And while Malaysia may be a model of inspiration to the larger
Islamic world - Muslims from elsewhere have praised and come to
study the "success" of Malaysia's Muslims - Abdullah knows his
community to be taking on a different shape.
He is concerned with their willingness to grasp only the basic
skills of the globalized economy. "They need to be a race that can
communicate and interact through a global lingua franca such as
English to facilitate trade and allow us to disseminate and acquire
knowledge effectively," Abdullah stressed at the assembly.
(Diminishing English-language proficiency has been a hot topic in
the local press of late.)
Abdullah also urged Malays recently not to retreat into Islam; not
to focus more on the afterlife, with its promises of virgins and
gardens and rivers flowing underneath, than their responsibilities
to this one.
But will his voice of reason be heard through the babel of
rage-filled entitlement simmering within the UMNO party and
trickling down through the rakyat? And how likely are the Malays to
help themselves without a less self-righteous leadership prompting
them?
Part of UMNO's strategy all along has been to use Islam as a
political tool, flexing its Islamic "credentials" to garner
support. It is the Malay, not the party, that has suffered, as
Malaysia finds itself ever more visibly a wounded society, long
fated by distrust and pent-up resentment among the nation's three
main ethnic groups.
Abdullah knows it's high time to change this. It's the UMNO machine
he's up against, but that machine is in no mood to change course.
Several of Abdullah's hand-picked cabinet members lost at the
polls; and the election was said to be marred by the worst case of
vote-buying in recent memory - this at a point when party members
say fighting corruption is at the top of their agenda.
The assembly has made that clear Abdullah's dream of a mental
revolution and a progressive Islamic community will likely never
take hold here, unless it first backtracks to rescue the party
merrily lagging behind.
