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By Dr. Kumar Devaraj It is painfully obvious that although we have been independent for over 50 years Malaysians remain deeply divided along ethnic lines. But can all our troubles be ascribed to ethnicity and religion?
In actuality, if one looks objectively at the major ethnic and religious issues that we have had to grapple with as an emerging nation, it is clear that we have arrived at a reasonable degree of consensus about the majority of them. But socially we are even more divided than we were at Independence. Why is this so? The answer I believe lies in the very nature of the political process in Malaysia. Two approaches to nationhood In the first few years after the re-occupation of Malaya by the British after World war Two, there were two dramatically different approaches to building an independent Malayan nation. The stronger trend was that of the radical nationalists who had strong links to the left. They advocated the fair distribution of wealth and the uplifting of all the working peoples of the country irrespective of race. The political expression of this strong movement for an independent Malaya was the AMCJA-Putera coalition that produced the Peoples’ Constitution. The radical nationalists were seriously considering the expropriation of all colonial investments so that the wealth of the country could be used for the development of its peoples and not be siphoned away to the imperial centre. The radical nationalists were also drawn to the non-aligned stance of Third World leaders such as Sukarno, Nehru and Nasser. The British, who handled the independence of their colonies more cunningly than the Dutch and the French, managed to thwart the radical nationalist movement through repression, arrests, detentions without trial, criminalization of organizations of this group, banishment and executions, while at the same time encouraging the development of a more conservative and compliant Malayan leadership comprising the economic elites of the three main ethnic groups in Malaya then. Rigorous suppression of the left coupled with graduated devolution of power to the Malay aristocracy and the businessmen who together made up the Alliance Party managed to defeat the radical nationalist movement. But this defeat (of the radical nationalists) also created the conditions that have resulted in the dysfunctional state that our country is in today. The AMCJA-Putera leadership talked of uplifting of the Malayan workers and farmers. They talked the language of class, not of race and were quite open to the culture and languages of the other races. They did not see cultural diversity as a problem as they believed that a workable compromise based on mutual respect would not be difficult to attain in a society where the economic boosting of all the poor was the major national goal. The political language of the Alliance on the other hand was quite different. The political organization of society was along ethnic lines and not along class lines. Political activity became the bargaining between different ethnic groups for their share of the cake. The “solution” adopted in the course of racial politicking that has characterised Alliance politics is the system of racial quotas that remind every Malaysian from school going age onwards that they come from different ethnic groups. Race has become institutionalized and permeates almost every facet of our society. The Escalation of Ethnic Politicking The risk of outbreaks of inter-ethnic violence is becoming more serious with time, and this is linked to three inter-related developments.
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However one analyse it, the problem with this country is it is run by a bunch of thieves, liars and murderers.
For thieves, liars and murderers anything is fair game...
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