September 10, 2008
Crises and opportunities are two sides of the same ringgit. Given the stream of critical moments flowing so steadily in recent Malaysian history, the opportunities available to Malaysians must be quite endless.
When new crises become the daily bread in politics, the system must be out of sync with the times.
Racist remarks dropped by community leaders who then turn their bad judgment into race-championing claims; members of Parliament going overseas on trips that are suspiciously well-timed; leaders apologising for followers who are not sorry, and party and coalition loyalties under great strain; all these tell us one important thing.
Old Malaysia, along with its old leaders, its old stiffened structures, its old knee-jerk rhetoric, and its old model of government, is finding it impossible to renew itself. It has run out of ideas.
The fear now is that the old is allowed to chug on relentlessly for too long.
The matter is now in the hands of the young, the young-in-mind and the young-at-heart. These are more able to envisage a new Malaysia the way older Malaysians cannot. The young will have the space required if the old are insightful and honest enough to know that they have to stop their charade.
The aspirations of old Malaysians were framed by notions of social contracts, the inevitability of racialism, the need for compromise (which is not the same thing as consensus, by the way), the fear of racial violence, and the tight constraints of class.
The young are less constrained, and they demand more.
They are the ones to be specially envied, living at a time when the stalled Malaysia project is restarting. East Malaysia’s many ethnicities are moving onto centre stage; the Indian community is taking a stand against its own marginalisation; the Chinese are no longer as cowed by politics of fear as they had been for 40 years; and the Malays are looking beyond Umno politics.
The country is going back to basics, in a way. The old system had become a goal in itself, and its own survival had become its top priority.
March 8, 2008, was simply the moment when a new generation of Malaysians ~ helped by some not-so-old fellows decided to change the country’s priorities. Old arguments will no doubt continue for a while, but the trend favours new innovations in politics; it favours new compromises, new consensuses and new coalitions. It is about time, too.
The old has become an undeniable farce. The fact that Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is challenged, on one hand by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the man who immediately preceded him as deputy prime minister, and by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the man who immediately preceded him as prime minister, provides good material for any playwright with a dark sense of humour.
But despite the crises, daily life and the economy seem to flow on steadily. This suggests that the country does enjoy a social stability that the troubled political superstructure floating above it does not reflect, or might be doing its utmost to deny.
An objective look at the social, cultural, economic and political map of Malaysia today tells us how diversified the country actually is. The endless squabbles suggest that these parts have been too tightly woven into an uneasy whole. No doubt, the reasons for this may have been good in the old days, but the old solutions have perpetuated the problem. It may be the right time to end the medication.
Put another way, having too many family members in a small house must lead to quarrels. What is needed is a bigger house.
A looser political superstructure will reflect this diversity better, and allow Malaysians to celebrate it and not merely tolerate it. Tight hugs are not always a show of affection. Datuk Ahmad Ismail’s call for racial unity is evidence of that.
Demands for local elections presently being voiced are expressions against this suffocating closeness. Malaysia’s diversity requires greater socio-cultural space.
The federation is in need of devolution, which is not an altogether uncommon process in the post-colonial context. The strong central power exercised by Malaysia’s government since independence has its origin in the country’s past being so insecure, stemming from a time when communism was on the rise and colonialism was on the run.
The security situation did not encourage decentralised governance in the 1950s and 1960s. The post-May 13 days were no better. And from 1981 onwards, Mahathir’s sense of destiny made him run an ever tighter ship, with himself as the sole commander.
After Abdullah took the helm, many began to fear that the ship of state had lost its sense of direction. With opposition leader Anwar 30 parliamentary seats away from the captain’s cabin, it is not merely the capacity of the captain that is the issue. It is the ship itself that should be questioned.
One is forced to consider whether a flotilla of boats all moving more or less in one direction is perhaps a more efficient model than the rusty single vessel that is the Barisan Nasional.
The writer is Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.