COMMENT When you define your political and social aspirations through a racial lens or worse conflate them with religious preoccupations, the only way forward is backward and post-2008 GE, Umno has overtly attempted to define the changing political landscape as that of a racial or religious conflict with the fate of the ‘ummah’ in peril at the hands of a non-Muslim/Malay-influenced political alliance – Pakatan Rakyat.

Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s clarion call for Malaysians, specifically Malay-Muslims, to unite under the BN banner is problematic for a variety of reasons but he is absolutely right when he reminds non-Malay Malaysians to be cognisant of the fact that “future of the nation depended on Malay/Muslim unity”. I have, more or less, put forward a similar argument in my Malay matters in the nation’s future piece.

The narrative Umno likes to spin is that BN and the intellectually, not to mention morally, bankrupt ‘power sharing’ formula worked post-Merdeka and as custodians of the Malay community, Umno’s ‘struggle’ has always been to uplift the ‘Malay’ race from the inequities of colonialism and the avarice of the ‘immigrant’ races that held sway over the land.

Of course, this bears no resemblance to reality but as propaganda goes it was fairly decent in forming some kind of cohesive society bound by fear of the ‘other’ and an acceptance by non-Malays of their limited role in government, which belied their enormous contributions to this country.

This post-Merdeka Umno ‘myth’ and the myopic belief that Umno and Umno alone should lead the Malay community is something of a doubled-edged sword.

This bears some resemblance to the (neo) conservative Straussian principle of the creation of ‘myths’ as a form of societal cohesiveness and the political relevance of BN is much like the ANC of South Africa, which for years was coasting on its own myths but presently riddled with corruption and is on perilous ground where discriminate voters are concerned.

The tendency to believe their myths is the trap that Umno has fallen into and the irony here is that for a certain section of the voting public, these myths no longer hold true.

New myths are desired which is why Pakatan has caught the attention of a certain segment of the electorate, one which obviously poses a clear and present danger to Umno dominance.

The outsourced Umno thugs

Whatever ones views on ‘racialist’ ideologies are, the cold comfort reality is that if they work, they will continue to be legitimately endorsed. Umno’s problem is that by whatever credible criteria that is put forward, they have failed in their self-appointed role as guardians of the Malay/Muslim ‘ummah’.

I would argue that the rejection of a certain section of the Malay voting public of Umno is not an endorsement of the egalitarian ethos of Pakatan but rather an admonishment to Umno for failing in carrying out its responsibilities to the Malay community. Part of this failure is the dilution of the ‘Malay’ community with the Umno-approved influx of ‘foreign’ nationals to bolster the electoral rolls.

But what exactly is the ‘Malay’ community? We could argue till the cows come home about the specificity of what actually constitutes a ‘Malay’ but the reality is that Umno by its own doing has so mangled the concept that what we are left with are groups who self identify with the concept purely because of the economic or social advantages it delivers.

There has always been this sense of apartness in the Malay community, no doubt a relic of our colonial history, that has been used by Umno to further its own political ends.

The most overt examples of this are the various ‘Malay’ institutions that the British created, be it elite educational facilities or military branches that fostered the feudal mindset or encouraged a perspective of singular ownership over the destiny of this nation.

Islam, of course, has slowly but surely over the years been imposed as a unifying force for the culturally diverse ‘Malay’ community and as a reminder to non-Malays that they are separate from the national polity.

Of course, what we are really talking about here is an Arabisation process that conveniently rejects some of the more ‘liberal’ traditions of Islam which conveniently seems the mode favoured by most authoritarian ‘Islamic’ regimes around the world.

Malay nationalism these days is defined by the rantings of the outsourced thugs of Umno and the pious declarations of state-sponsored ulamas who say nothing of the rampant corruption that permeates the system, but seem obsessed with concepts such as ‘Ketuanan Melayu’, ‘defending Islam’ and upholding the dignity of the sovereign.

All this is extremely amusing since it is Umno who is responsible for all the ills that these groups claim to be fighting against, not to mention that the said groups are in reality funded by Umno, with Umno members openly declaring their memberships of these groups.

So what is Umno hawking?

Gone are the days when Malay nationalism was not about maintaining the status quo but rather about shaking up the establishment and shining a spotlight on the Malay underclass, which has always been at the mercy (throughout history) of an entrenched bureaucratic system.

I have some admiration for the political roads taken by Malay nationalist like Onn Jaafar, who at least for brief periods either were credible advocates for the Malay community or would be pioneers for a truly 1Malaysia.

Of course, in the end they too were held hostage by racial considerations but it is to Umno’s downfall that they fail to heed the lessons of their own historical personalities and continue to marginalise the contrarian intellectual voices of their party.

Prime Minister Najib Razak’s warning to youths not to be taken in by “those selling idealism” in wanting electoral reforms is indicative of how out of touch Umno is with reality.

What the regime’s propaganda of Bersih 3.0 being an attempted coup or some sort of war against the police has done is alienate those who were not sympathetic to the goals of Bersih and hardened the views of those who think that Umno’s time has come.

If Pakatan or Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim is peddling ‘idealism’, what is Umno hawking?

Behind the gilded cages or the crime-infested Malay settlements, a sense of anomie has settled in. Islam, or the brand Umno perpetuates, is slowly losing a hold on a disenfranchised Malay polity.

The diversity that Pakatan offers, be it the so-called moderate Islamic stances of PAS, the middle ground of PKR or the secularism of DAP, provides choices the Malay community never had.

With Pakatan becoming a credible ruling alternative post-2008, Umno’s malfeasances which for so long were overlooked because the Malay community had no alternatives suddenly doesn’t seem like such an insurmountable obstacle.

The fact that Umno chose to wield its federal power in such a vindictive manner in the PTPTN (Higher Education Loan Fund) fiasco is further evidence that Umno has no problem considering certain segments of the Malay community as collateral damage in their ongoing war to retain power.

Malay politicians like the late Onn Jaafar (at one time at least) realised that the burden of a nation’s future in a diverse multiracial society should not rest solely on the shoulders on one community. This is a lesson Umno has failed to learn or rather it is a lesson they could have overlooked if they actually carried out their responsibilities towards the Malay community.

At the end of the day, all we need to understand is that Umno was dealt extremely good racial cards, but played their hand badly.

S THAYAPARAN is Commander (rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy.