Malaysia: Winning Hearts And Minds


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Winning Hearts And Minds

Malay Parties and Their Prospects

by Maznah Mohamad

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A return to the inner sanctums of much nobler private lives

The 1999 general election was indeed a historic challenge for UMNO. The idea of a split Malay community appeared very threatening at that juncture. Four years later, at the just-concluded UMNO General Assembly of 2003, Dr Mahathir, in his last appearance as president of the party, slipped in an important fact to his rapt audience: there were only 3 million out of 11 million Malays who were members of UMNO. The idea that UMNO represented the interests of all Malays had suddenly become quite presumptuous.

So the next general election will be a test as to whether UMNO, by then, would have regained its Malay consensus, which had been partially lost to the Reformasi-inspired opposition in 1999.

Some Issues

But the aftermath of the NEP and the advent of a new �competitive� age have also affected UMNO�s dominance in the system. There is now an open rolling-back of state support for Islamic religious schools. Anything resembling what authorities consider as �extremist�, or �deviant� or worst, �militant� (all, unfortunately, stereotyped as having links to Islam) would not be tolerated.

It is quite obvious that the two Malay parties will find it quite difficult to seize upon any sound-bytes or buzz phrases to win over their traditional supporters.

Added to this is the government�s new zeal to apply �meritocracy� as the basis for admission into public universities, and the re-embracement of English as the new lingua franca of success. This onslaught of policies for economic liberalization and deregulation have reduced, if not thwarted programmes for social redistribution (and celebration of anything nationalist), which had largely benefited the bumiputera community. Where will UMNO then find its new source of legitimacy to galvanize its constituency?

A departure from a race-based politics would be good, except that UMNO�s other partner, the MCA, is riding high on its reputation as the premier champion of a celebrated ethnic-concern. Its successes in delivering welfare services to the community and the setting up of UTAR as a symbol of Chinese pride in education would reinsert the idea among UMNO leaders that a balance would still have to be provided by an equally efficacious if not stronger Malay party. This is perhaps the issue that will confront UMNO members as they prepare themselves to face the two battles ahead - the battle for leadership succession on the one hand and the battle for relevance on the other.

Idealism vs Pragmatism

And at the other end of the Malay politics spectrum - can PAS as the electoral representative of a resurgent Islam still be able to retain its support, post-Sept 11 and post-American invasion of Iraq? How is the strengthening of American global imperialism helping or hindering PAS�s agenda for the Islamic state?

While Islam can still be used to retain loyalty towards a cause it cannot be used to guarantee jobs for the thousands of unemployed bumiputera university graduates. And there are many pragmatic issues that will concern the youths of today, pushing idealism to the backburner of politics that is simply too arcane for the likes of this generation.

The politicization of Islam which emanates from the oft-professed dictum that politics cannot be separated from the faith has descended to become too ideological a world-view. For many adherents, more and more of them would rather that Islam be returned to the inner sanctums of much nobler private lives. And if secularism was a prohibitive ambition in the parlance of resurgent Islam there are now open debates and even confessions among pious Muslims that they would much prefer that the system be secularized than �theocratized�!

It is quite obvious that the two Malay parties will find it quite difficult to seize upon any sound-bytes or buzz phrases to win over their traditional supporters. There will be a political, social and cultural vacuum created by these emerging Malay-Muslim modern predicaments. Who will pick up the slack?

The outcome of the next general election will probably not be able to capture the full length, breadth and intensity of these issues. But it is time that we move on to other indicators and not depend too much on electoral shenanigans to understand society�s moods.

Maznah Mohamad is Associate Professor in Developement Studies at USM and Aliran Exco Member.

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