Without the support of the people and the voters, any political party will become irrelevant, and if this party becomes irrelevant, logic and past experience will tell us that the dominant party, UMNO, will just chuck this party aside, no matter how subservient and how obedient this party is to UMNO.
By Dr. Hsu
In September 2008, the Umno supreme council decided to suspend Ahmad Ismail for three years for uttering racist remarks. Many people had in fact asked that the ISA be used against him, but as an ISA opponent myself, I was against practising double standards, and I thought he should not be held under the ISA but should instead face the other existing laws of the country.
Politically, his antics in fanning the emotions of his members resulting in the pulling down and stamping on the photo of a head of a component party (Gerakan) were inexcusable, and the least Umno could have done is to expel him. A three-year suspension of party membership, without any legal actions taken against him, was grossly inadequate in the minds of many.
Recently, his suspension was lifted, after not even half way through this three-year sentence.
A top leader of Gerakan was quoted, according to a report in Malaysiakini’s Chinese website, as asking reporters when pressed about the lifting of Ahmad’s suspension: “Is this issue important?”
At the same time, a top Penang Gerakan leader was quoted as asking reporters: “What position is Ahmad occupying in Umno?”, implying that since Ahmad is not among top leaders of Umno, he need not answer their questions.
Whether they are right or not, I leave it to you to ponder.
I would only say that in this issue, a few considerations are in order:
Firstly, anything or anyone who stirs racial emotion in a multiracial society is serious and important matter. Anyone doing so, just like anyone committing any crime big or small, must answer to the laws of the country no matter how high or low his position is in society. Under the law, every man is supposed to be equal.
Secondly, politics is about perception. If you are perceived to not even be able to stand up to a second-tier leader of the dominant party, then what would the people think of you and what would the voters think of you? Especially when this bully has uttered racially sensitive words that have hurt the feelings not only of a person but of an entire ethnic group?
Thirdly, to a political party, support from the people is everything. That is why it is important to fight for the interest of the people and with that, support shall come naturally. But what will happen when you are perceived to not even be able to stand up to a person who has uttered words that hurt the very people who form your support base?
Lastly, as a result of the third consideration, how are the candidates from this party who have been so belittled going to face the voters come the next general election?
Without the support of the people and the voters, any political party will become irrelevant, and if this party becomes irrelevant, logic and past experience will tell us that the dominant party, Umno, will just chuck the party aside, no matter how subservient and how obedient this party is to Umno.
In politics, it is not about how subservient you are, but rather how useful you are to the dominant party. If you are of no more use (meaning, you no longer enjoy the support of the people), then no matter how diligent or obedient you are, you will be irrelevant.
The experience of PPP is a glaring example. This is a party which used to dominate the whole Kinta Valley, and had four MPs when it joined Barisan Nasional in 1974. What has become of it now? It has lost its relevance and hence it can only take the crumbs or leftovers at the pleasure of the master.
In Ahmad’s case, it is not about how insignificant his party position is, but rather the principle of double standards being practised.
Why is he not being investigated and charged under the laws of the country and merely made to face disciplinary action of Umno? Why aren’t the feelings of the people taken into considerations as in the case of Chin Peng, who has not been allowed to come back because of the “feelings of a certain segment of the people who have suffered from his action”?
Nizar shouting “Hidup Rakyat, Bubar DUN“
(Long Live the People, Dissolve State Assembly)
supporting his statement written on his songkok
“Bubar Dun!!!”
Umno leader and Pahang MB Adnan Yakoob teaching Malay youth how to behave in public.
Humiliating the symbol of Malayness and the keris: The Agong Tuanku by Umno the supposed ‘lone’ “protector” of Malay culture.
Najib Tun Razak teaching Malay youth through his son how to “protect” Malay culture.
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What worried Zaid was that the majority in Umno were now hardliners, perhaps in reaction to Abdullah’s apparently weak and ineffectual leadership. They saw Malay supremacy as the most effectual stick to beat back any dissent against the government.
“Adnan is constantly accusing and insulting me. Some people say that he was one of the strongest proponents of my sacking from Umno,” said Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s latest high-profile signing.He has vowed not to rejoin “the present Umno”, which he said practised double standards. He has, however, denied rumours that he would join the opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition.
The son of Kelantanese farmers, Zaid became a member of Umno in 1985, then “got entangled” in politics so as to win back Kelantan after Umno lost all its seats in the state to the opposition Pas in 1990.
The former Scotch-tape salesman, who trained as a lawyer on a government scholarship, founded his law firm the same year he joined Umno, and made it Malaysia’s largest, with offices in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. He has since sold off his share in the firm. “I needed the money,” he said.
The father of three now wants to help groom tomorrow’s leaders. He set up My Future Foundation two months ago to build bonds among Malaysian youth through various artistic pursuits in the hope they will forge a Bangsa Malaysia.
When Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng invited Zaid to his DAP dinner in the state last month, it did occur to Zaid that accepting the invitation might get him into trouble with Umno.
He recalled: “Guan Eng has always been very polite, very nice to me. So I said, ‘Okay, I’ll come.’
“And then they asked me to say a few words. And I said, ‘Oh, no’. Of course, they were 99 per cent Chinese. But they were clapping and very happy. So I said a few words about Bangsa Malaysia, what I was trying to do with my foundation. I said, ‘I got no job. I want you to help me achieve this success’.
“It was just a five-minute speech.”
What worried Zaid was that the majority in Umno were now hardliners, perhaps in reaction to Abdullah’s apparently weak and ineffectual leadership. They saw Malay supremacy as the most effectual stick to beat back any dissent against the government.
The problem with that approach, in Zaid’s view, is this: “You cannot have peace and stability by force. And if you don’t have peace and stability, then you don’t have the economic ability to be productive and competitive. And the world doesn’t deal with people like that anymore.”
He bemoaned the fact that over-confidence in the 1980s saw Umno veering from its early days of seeking consensus with the other races on major issues. “It was a simple formula of Umno being the major partner but always in consultation, always open to ideas, always able to keep the pieces together.
“Not by a show of power, or a show of strength, but by a show of magnanimity.”
Zaid on…
The problem with Umno today
“They see provocation, they see enemies everywhere.”
What his detractors say about him
“They say, ‘Ungrateful Malay, you benefited from the system and now you criticise it’ — you know, that sort of stuff. Some say I should not be a Malay. I don’t know how that is possible… But it doesn’t really hurt me that much.”
Being chummy with the opposition
“My problem is that I always don’t view politicians from the other side as enemies. They’re all my friends. (DAP veteran Lim) Kit Siang is my old friend and Anwar (Ibrahim) and everybody.”
Attending the opposition events that got him sacked
“I was merely being naive or being silly but they were my friends, what’s wrong with that?”
Being kept in the dark over the sudden detention of three civilians under the Internal Security Act in September
“I read about it in the papers. I thought that, as a minister, especially when you describe me as a Minister for Law, you know, it’s a bit embarrassing when I don’t know anything about it.”
How much Malaysia has lost out to Singapore
“I was in school in Johor Baru in 1967, and I’d go to Singapore on a bus over the weekend. Singapore was then a shanty town, of no significance. But today, it is the pride of the world. If they can do it, why can’t we?”
Why he thinks differently from most in Umno
“I did not join Umno when I was young, so I was not subject to much conditioning.”
Talk that prime minister-in-waiting Najib lacks fire in the belly
“Yes, exactly. He has never shown himself capable of enunciating something. He can sound good, but all prime ministers sound good at the beginning.”
Those who want a Malaysia for only Malays
“How do you benefit? In the first place, how do you let the Chinese go? Where do they go? Where do you send the Indians? Where do you send disgruntled Malays like me?”
Malaysia’s future
“I worry that we will become a Fiji or Zimbabwe, that we will be dominated by a certain group using the machinery of government to keep control.”
More mRacistischief from Utusan’s Awang Selamat
ColumnistsAwang Selamat
WRITTEN BY HELEN ANG
MONDAY, 15 JUNE 2009 17:28
Utusan’s Awang Selamat in an op-ed yesterday repeated his earlier leitmotif about the Malays being betrayed, how there are traitors to the country and cautioned that if any Barisan Nasional component party [i.e. MCA] hints at wanting to leave the coalition, it should just go.
The Awang Selamat column is the editorial voice of Mingguan Malaysia, the weekend edition of the Utusan newspaper considered to be Umno’s mouthpiece.
In ‘Apa muslihat MCA’ (What tricks are MCA up to?), Awang Selamat questioned the motive behind a just concluded online poll in MCA president Ong Tee Keat’s website, which had 76% of the respondents voting that his party should leave BN.
Awang Selamat conjectured that the survey was a deceptive manoeuvre by MCA to pressure Umno but adding that such a strategy would not bear fruit as the flailing Chinese party is unable to counter the influence of DAP “which is so aggressive”.
“Even with MCA’s presence, there is no assurance that BN can win Chinese hearts (in the next general election),” commented Awang Selamat who also believed that it is of no consequence to Umno if MCA intends to withdraw and nor should the former attempt to prevent its departure – “why give face”?
Awang Selamat suggested that Umno might care to review the tried and tested BN methodology because “most importantly, Umno should not be so generous in trying to make a go of the power-sharing when the component parties are always applying pressure.”
“They [the disgruntled Umno satellites] only want what’s advantageous to them and are indeed ‘too much’. What need is there for a power-sharing that is more beneficial to others?”
‘Malays can’t be silent anymore’ Beer on one hand and the keris on other other: sheer hypocricy of the Umnoputras.
Kerismuddin behaving like a professional samseng. Under his watch, education has failed and corruption claims against him are abundant. May be that’s “Malay supremacy” for you. God the Almighty!
Umno leader and Pahang MB Adnan Yakoob teaching Malay youth how to behave in public.On the unity government talks, Awang Selamat referenced MCA’s concern that an Umno-PAS merger will marginalize the minorities and said that any effort working on Malay unity is met with opposition because the non-Malays mostly want Malays “to continue to be weak and divided”.
Taking up again the theme ‘Melayu dikhianati?’ that stirred controversy a fortnight ago, Awang Selamat asked: “Does this [hidden agenda] not carry the message that Malays are willing to let themselves be stabbed in the back [“betrayed”] after making all the sacrifices for the other races?”
He concluded: “There are so many issues currently confronting the Malays that the community cannot remain silent any longer and be content only to moan quietly”.
Utusan is clearly fanning racial sentiments and deliberately racializing matters like Chin Peng’s wish to return home. Its front page editorial cartoon featured a speech bubble with the snide remark, “Just appoint Chin Peng as PKR advisor …”.
Putting in his two sen worth, Awang Selamat accused the Pakatan Rakyat supremo of trying to gain “political dividend” and Chinese support through his statement declaring that he [Anwar Ibrahim] did not want to see a situation where it is alright for a Malay communist to return but not for a Chinese communist to do the same.
Contrary to Anwar, Awang Selamat opined that any support for Chin Peng is “wicked” and [a threat] just as dangerous, if not more dangerous than the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) itself. The Utusan editorial then alluded to how betrayal can cause the downfall of one’s race, and proceeded to ask rhetorically: “Who is the betrayer [of his race] in our era today?”
Powerful majority yet petulant
An anonymous Malaysian blogger thoughtfully pointed me to a commentary by American Glenn Greenwald, a political author on the New York Times bestseller list, which is similarly an apt reflection on Awang Selamat and his ilk.
Greenwald wrote:
“The most predominant mentality in right-wing discourse finds expression in this form: ‘I am part of/was born into Group X, and Group X – my group – is better than all others yet treated so very unfairly.” This claim persists – indeed, is often intensified – even when Group X is clearly the strongest, most privileged and most favoured group’.”
In a previous article titled ‘The right’s two-pronged religion of rage and self-pity’, Greenwald summarized:
“Petulance and self-pitying grievance is what fuels them. This endless need to self-victimize would be one thing if the groups to which they belonged were small minorities targeted by a hostile and more powerful majority. But the exact opposite is true. By and large, the groups to which they belong (and therefore see as oppressed and treated with unparalleled unfairness) are the most numerous and the most powerful in the country and always have been.”
Awang Selamat’s polemics on ‘Malay generosity’ and his scaremongering that others are hellbent on undermining the Malay race is reminiscent of what Greenwald terms that ‘tribalistic self-absorption’ which precludes any capacity for empathy.
The tribalistic self-absorption of Utusan Malaysia is evident in it incessantly playing up Chin Peng’s ethnicity.
When Anwar made his statement on Saturday, he correctly predicted that the paper would put spin on it. The very next day, as anticipated, its article ‘Anwar melampau’ appeared, whereUtusan solicited a reaction from maverick politician Ibrahim Ali, among others.
Ibrahim, also Perkasa (an NGO) president, obliged by denouncing Anwar as a man willing to cast aside his own race for the sake of political survival.
But as Anwar rightly points out, other former communist leaders such as ex-MCP chairman Musa Ahmad, and prominent guerrillas like Shamsiah Fakeh and Rashid Maidin have been permitted return. So why persist in waving the race card at Chin Peng?
Communism is an ideology that transcends skin colour; there are communists in Cuba, in Nepal;West Bengal has the longest serving democratically elected communist state government in the world. Internationally, communist parties are legitimate political players.
The response by Ibrahim is a follow-up to his thoughts a week before – ‘Perbetulkan perjuangan pribumi’ which prominently covered three-quarters of the broadsheet’s editorial page.
Ibrahim penned: “Kalau gagal ditangani, dilema [Melayu] boleh menyebabkan nasi menjadi bubur … Tanah Melayu mungkin menjadi milik orang”, and incorporating the formulaic attack on Anwar as someone who is so power hungry that he is seemingly gambling away the Malays’ future to non-Malays.
Blowing up a non-issue
It is unbridled mischief-making to insinuate that the country could somehow cease to belong to the Malays. Ibrahim also premised the alarmist, surely unfounded, scenario that Malay dignity is being challenged, that the fate and future of the Malays is in the doldrums, and parroting the unity mantra, that is, if the Malays are split they will lose.
Ibrahim, Utusan and Umno are consumed by the zero sum game and their imaginary enemy whom the Malays purportedly have to unite against.
The trifecta of Umno, its Old Media and its New Media-cum-bloggers network have lately been inflaming sensibilities with their Chin Peng sideshow, attempting to create an ethnic schism by drumming up grievances on one side when there is really a corresponding indifference on ‘the other side’.
The communist insurgency, or Emergency, officially ended in 1960 long before I and the majority of Malaysian Chinese today were born. Many of us would probably mistake Chin Peng’s image for Mao Zedong although our community (and even those nowadays in China) are nonetheless blue jeans-wearing capitalists, and hardly a Mao-jacketed proletariat.
The communist struggle is remote to us latter-day Malaysians where roughly 73 percent of the population is under the age of 40 … has anyone read any significant Chinese writer here ardently promoting communism? We are far removed in age and understanding from Chin Peng, although a few may harbour some compassion for an 85-year-old in exile.
It is counter-productive when Utusan’s race-soaked invectives fail to discern Chin Peng’s intense longing for ‘Tanah Melayu’ (so much so that he desires to spend his last days and perhaps to die and be buried on Malay soil) but is instead tied to a race-blinkered argumentative itinerary taking Malaysians backward to the lost jungle.
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