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Most of what I have written so far concerned “other places”. This time, I shall try to present my views of the situation in Malaysia. I do so with unease not only because the subject is bound to be controversial, but because it is actually a very difficult and complex one.

I begin at the time of the 1st elections in Malaya because it has direct and powerful consequences for the present. The country was under an Emergency. UMNO and MCA formed the Alliance and agreed to work together to form the future independent government (MIC joined a bit later). This was an alliance of the town and country. UMNO represented the aristocrat and landlord classes as well as civil servants. It was mainly based on land, status and position, while MCA comprised mainly of the merchant class as well as planters and miners.

As can be expected, things are never static. Although they formed an alliance there was also competition and mutual suspicions between the partners. UMNO which is rural and agriculture based cannot hope to overpower the town based mercantile and moneyed classes (in spite of the small numbers that these classes represent). From the start UMNO suffered insecurity and fear. 51 years of independence have not succeeded in removing this fear. The only way for UMNO to compete was to win the support of the masses of farmers, fishermen and agricultural labourers. This it did with spectacular success and UMNO has remained the dominant partner in government ever since even if it slips up and shows its true class character every now and then through arrogance, corruption and abuse of power.

In the meantime, the communists whose support came mainly from the urban labourers and students, transport, dock and mine workers as well as rural squatters (towns’ people displaced by the Japanese occupation) were being pushed back and isolated. The urban working masses came under an oppressive weight that they could only escape from by getting an education or starting small businesses of their own and as the country progressed and developed, their places were filled by agricultural labourers and displaced small farmers from the rural areas. This I believe is the Malay proletariat. The government succeeded in dispersing a large part of the urban labouring classes which were the main support of the communists, but have created in its place a Malay proletariat.

After 51 years of independence, the experiences and value systems of this working class is no longer strongly connected with rural conservative values. In addition, the education  system is churning out thousands of young men and women who cannot find jobs. Most of these people now have some trouble going back to the rural areas and hang about the towns because they no longer fit into the rural areas. Of the few that do go back to their villages, they bring with them new values and experiences – experiences that teach them the brutal fact that they cannot depend on the patronage of feudal ties and that they have to fend for themselves like their working class cousins, who can be thrown onto the streets without jobs and without any back up at any time.

However in spite of their new “awakening”, these people have no organized structure and are subject to influence of the government mass media as well as conservative religious bodies linked to the government. Still, the 12th GE saw a swing of support against the government which I believe to be partly from this group, where we saw a very clear town – rural divide.

In desperation, UMNO is now re-visiting the old concepts of Ketuanan Melayu and NEP to re-capture the support of this group of people in the hope that hope itself and promises can turn the tables. It is also offering goodies such as subsidies and minimum pensions to sweeten the package. Not content with paltry actions, it tries to limit the damage by importing foreign labour in the hope that the size of this group will not grow to unmanageable proportions.

As far as Ketuanan Melayu and NEP are concerned, UMNO is playing with fire. There is a parallel in Cambodia that we could all learn from if we wish to be honest with ourselves. When the Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh of its 1 million residents and 1 million refugees and sent them into the countryside to grow food, a phenomenon arose which I think was beyond their control and which they probably never bothered to control. The rest of the population of Cambodia (also about 2 million) who were from old Khmer Rouge bases in the rural areas started to differentiate and discriminate against the newcomers from the towns. They called themselves the “base” people (for people from the Khmer Rouge rural bases) and new arrivals from the towns were the “new” people.

In a situation where the civil war had seen burning of food stocks by the retreating Lon Nol troops as well as general carnage and destruction and where food was already scarce, where 2 million peasants had to feed themselves as well as additional 2 million city dwellers and refugees, where there was discrimination between “base” (rural) people and “new” (town) people, a tragedy of epic proportions was on the cards.

A second tragedy occurred about 3 years later, the events being shrouded in mystery and may have involved international intrigues. What is well known however is that there was a power struggle and Khmer Rouge bases in the east were suspected of siding with the Vietnamese. The population was shipped en masse from the conflict zone to other Khmer Rouge bases in the west. This time, however, the tragedy took on really sinister proportions. The people from the east as well as the west were both from Khmer Rouge bases, so they could no longer discriminate on the basis of  “base” people and “new” people. What happened was the discrimination now centered on “loyalists” and “traitors”. This time round, the discrimination took on murderous overtones.

For us in Malaysia, the differentiation between “bumiputras” and “immigrants” as well as loyal Malaysians and Malaysians of questionable loyalty and where UMNO continues to be seized by insecurity and fear, fill me with utter dread. Granted, the situation is not as serious as in Cambodia, but no good comes out of a divided population based on race discrimination. I hope that the new Malay proletariat will find its feet and bring us out of a dangerous rut by doing away with absolute power and bringing about a balance of power. Such a proletariat will have big reservations about the merchant and moneyed classes but at the same time also strongly opposed to bureaucratic corruption and abuse of power. I think we have the beginnings of a Malay proletariat. Do we now have a Malaysian proletariat? After all if the moneyed classes cannot unite due to competition for property and status, the lower classes have a chance to unite based on common struggle against the excesses of the rich and powerful.

By batsman

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