Done making do : 1 party rule ends in Malaysia 9789671175927, 9671175929, 9789814459808, 9814459801

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DONE MAKING DO

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Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Singapore

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DONE MAKING DO 1Party Rule Ends in Malaysia

OOI KEE BENG

Kuala Lumpur

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Singapore

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More Than Diamonds

First Edition : March 2013 Copyright © Ooi Kee Beng, 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission. The author is wholly responsible for the views expressed in this book which do not necessarily reflect those of the publishers. Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Ooi, Kee Beng, 1955Done making do: 1 party ends in Malaysia / Ooi Kee Beng ISBN 978-967-11759-2-7 1. Political culture--Malaysia. 2. Political parties--Malaysia. 3. Malaysia--Politics and government. I. Title. 320.9595 ISEAS ISBN 978-981-4459-80-8 (Soft cover) 978-981-4459-81-5 (e-book PDF)

CONTENTS Acknowledgement

VII

Introduction

IX

1.

Towards A Post-Racialist Malaysia

1

2.

Colonialism’s Legacy Is A Defensive Psyche

4

3.

All You Hybrids, Emerge From Your Closet

6

4.

Labour Stripped Down To Bare Essentials

8

5.

How Will Nationalism Evolve?

10

6.

Selangor – The Battleground For Malaysia’s Future

12

7.

A Lesson For Countries Where Fear Of Political Change Runs Deep

20

8.

What Brain, What Drain?

23

9.

Can Pakatan Rakyat Continue To Inspire?

25

10. Tun Dr Lim, A Local And National Leader

28

11. Urban Parochialism, Rural Cosmopolitanism

32

12. How Will Najib Play His Cards?

34

13. Turning Isolating Distance Into Social Space

37

14. BN’s Systemic Weaknesses Are Not Going Away

39

15. Dr M: Politician To The Core

42

16. Bookstores And Our Weak Sense Of Self-Esteem

47

17. Malaysia’s Future After March 8, 2008

49

18. BN Feels The Sarawak Heat

53

19. Now’s Not The Time For Najib To Call A GE

56

20. More Federalism, Less Centralism

59

21. Bersih 2.0 Is Najib’s Biggest Challenge

61

22. Bersih 2.0: Malaysia’s King Steps Forth

64

23. Weighing The Political Cost Of July 9

67

24. Must We Stay Victims Of Past Strategies?

70

25. UMNO Turning Right Leads BN Downhill

72

26. ISA Repeal: Najib Should Push Ahead

75 V

27. Will Najib’s Election Goodies Be Enough?

77

28. Did Malaysia Mature When We Were Not Looking?

80

29. Securing Public Space In The Post-Imperial Age

83

30. In Malaysia, Reforms Take A Staggered Path

85

31. A Long Life Lived In Politics

87

32. Anwar Acquittal Boosts Malaysia’s Opposition

91

33. New Think Tanks For New Times

95

34. Malaysian Envelopment

100

35. Saving Federalism In Malaysia

102

36. Kuala Lumpur – Still Best At Being Middling

105

37. ASEAN – A Post-Colonial Sisterhood

108

38. General Over A Hesitant Army

111

39. “Heal Malaysia” – A Slogan For The Elections

114

40. Putting May 13 To Rest

116

41. Past Cures As Present Addictions

119

42. Rules Of The Road Are Best Practices For Good Governance

123

43. Dignity Is The Basic Human Right

126

44. The Nation Must Embrace A New Stage In Its Development

128

45. Marks Of A Sincere Malaysian Leader

131

46. Impressions Of Istanbul, Or How History Never Ends

135

47. School Is Dead, Long Live Education

138

48. Income Gap, Outcome Bad

141

49. The Deuce Position And Najib’s Incumbency Advantage

143

50. The Resurgence Of Social Activism In Malaysia

146

51. From Now On, It’s A Malay vs Malay Contest

156

52. If Only The World Would Remain Flat…

159

53. Education For What And For Whom?

162

54. Political Picnicking In KL

164

55. Malaysian Togetherness Survives Despite Its Leaders

167

56. Malaysians Done Making Do

170

VI

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Writing this section for a book is quite enjoyable work because it gives me pause and makes me remember how I cannot possibly accomplish much without the goodwill of others around me. This is my fifth collection of articles, and looking back at them now, I cannot help but feel that Malaysia as a whole has come a long way in quite a short time, and it has been an exciting time for all over the last 10 years. I would here like to thank all those who have been an inspiration, and who shared insights with me on Malaysia politics and other matters. It is a sign of maturity in Malaysia’s nation-building process that more and more aspects have to be studied in order for us to understand the complicated dynamics that are now evident in the country. However, what I would like to acknowledge most clearly here is not what I owe others in writing these articles, but the subject itself—Malaysia and Malaysians, and how they have been inspiring in their activism, and their hope for a better future for their children and their country. It has become clear to more and more of them that the ethnocentric arrogance, the race-based policies and the communal politics that have defined them for so long cripple their potential, and are demeaning. They deserve better, and the new empowerment they now feel is in turn an inspiration to others as well.

VII

INTRODUCTION

How long does a transition take before we should be calling it something else, like New Normal, for example? In Malaysia, the word “transition” has been used since Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed decided to retire as Prime Minister. The main reasons for that came out of the many successes and excesses, of the period between 1981 and 2003. The latter can be read in the choice of reforms that his successor Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi tried to carry out. The ballooning budget deficit was such an area; the sorry state of the police force was another. And coining “Islam Hadhari” was his attempt to moderate religious fervor and opportunism. Corruption and money politics were other major concerns back in the early days of post-Mahathir Malaysia. Ten years have now passed, and Abdullah Badawi’s slow reforms proved far from steady. In failing to carry out his promises, he failed to please neither his party nor his people. After voters in the general elections of March 8, 2008 turned against the central government on a scale never before seen in Malaysian politics, his own party leadership decided that they had had enough of his dilly-dally style of governance. Mahathir Mohamed made it his mission to dethrone Abdullah, and his followers within UMNO succeeded in doing that on 3 April 2009, and the Najib Razak administration took over. Post-Mahathir Malaysia was not as post-Mahathir as we had thought. Criminality remains a major issue; the police force is still not trusted by the public; the national debt is still growing; corruption continues as never before; the income gap is increasing; and money-for-vote politics is now routine and mainstream. Mahathir’s influence is still strongly discernible in increasingly dark corners of Malaysian politics; and religious intolerance continues to grow.

IX

Najib Razak was in fact ignored in 2003 by Mahathir for the position of prime minister. But as Abdullah failed in Mahathir’s eyes in 2003-2009, the runner-up now became the preferred option. Needless to say, Malaysia remains in reform mode today. Prime Minister Najib Razak has during his four years in power been putting a series of reforms in place. For that, he should be commended. The efficacy of his policies is still debated, however, and he suffers a long-standing credibility problem due to his inability to control the extreme elements in his party; and to the scandals that have shadowed him. His postponement of general elections until the very end of the mandate period strengthened the public view that he tends to be indecisive when he can least afford it; that he actually felt that the opposition might win, and that even if he won, it would not be by a large margin which could mean that his own party would lose patience and turn against him, as it had done with Abdullah Badawi. UMNO infighting is after all historically common and is par for the course. What is the New Normal in Malaysia then, for there is surely no going back to the old days when slogans about racial unity and rights, and threats of street violence were sufficient to silence oppositional voices? Even draconian laws can no longer be resorted to as easily as before. The New Normal seems then to be an arena where the Barisan Nasional continues to talk about “reforms” while the oppositional Pakatan Rakyat coalition calls for “change”. Whichever way the elections of 2013 go, the country-wide effort to formulate and construct a new Malaysia will go on for the foreseeable future. While we discuss how the power balance between BN and PR will develop, it is vital to remember that the social forces and consciousness that accompanied the end of the Mahathir era are here to stay, and they are can be highly influential. Unwittingly, by sacking and jailing Anwar Ibrahim in 1998-1999, Mahathir turned him into a lightning rod for popular dissent. Had Abdullah been serious and successful with his reforms, the opposition

X

parties would not have come so far as they have done. We must remember that he was a very popular leader in 2003-2005, and he was that because of what he signified—serious change from within. Najib tried to put on that discarded mantle, but it is still “serious change from within” that is missing. Despite his many reforms, public trust in his coalition has not increased accordingly. It is telling that surveys always show him to be much more popular than the coalition he represents. The new actor in the equation, and the one that will decide the New Normal, is thus the Malaysian People. This may sound glib, but given that the losses suffered by the BN in 2008 were due to Malaysians voting against the federal government more than for the opposition, we have to admit that political consciousness in Malaysia has increased beyond the point of no return. Public demands for good governance, for public safety, for reliable public utilities, for good schools, for leaders they can be proud of, for broad acknowledgement of the country’s multicultural essence, have risen tremendously. These are fueled by the increasingly urbanized nature of Malaysians, most notably the Malays; higher educational levels; the youthfulness of the population; the easy access to information; and the empowerment that the new media bring. This dynamic has over the last 15 years brought into being an opposition that is giving the federal government a run for its money. What we will see in the coming years will be the continued rise of a national consciousness in a people that is much less willing to “make do”. “Making do” was the mentality nurtured by decades of divisive racial politics and threats of violence. I believe Malaysians are done making do.

XI

XII

1. Towards A Post-Racialist Malaysia*

Yes, it is time for change in Malaysia. And with the advent of church burnings, time may be running out. But at the same time, what is it that is to be changed; and why only now? The two questions can be properly answered only if answered together. To start with, let us look at the immediate conditions. The electoral results of March 8, 2008, were a direct though largely unanticipated response to the steady deterioration of accountability in government, the rising income gap, and the flagrant undermining of the country’s once reputable institutions. The opposition parties managed to capture the mood of the times, and after their electoral victories, they have allowed the success of their campaign slogans to generate their policy arguments. This is the superficially obvious state of affairs. The second dimension of dynamic change has to do with the present state of the global wealth structure. The crisis that has hit the world, starting with irrational American consumption patterns and the adulation of greed on Wall Street, holds great significance for the future pattern of Penang’s – and Malaysia’s – economy. For 2009, Malaysia enjoyed a trade surplus with the USA of US$10.5b, which is more or less the level reached in 1998, just after the financial crisis. Though substantial, it had dropped from US$17.8 billion the year before. That was in the wake of a fall of US$2.1 billion from 2007, which in turn had dropped US$3b compared to 2006. This can be compared to the increase of US$6b between 2004 and 2005, and US$2.8b between 2003 and 2005.

* Editorial in Penang Monthly, February 2010.

1

With the structure of the world economy changing rapidly, and with China, India, Vietnam, etc. being responsible for so much of global economic growth, it is imperative for Penang – and Malaysia in general – to shift focus and consider how they can meet the new needs of Asia’s nouveau riche, and attract Asia’s impatient investment capital. Simply concentrating on supplying the increasingly isolationistic markets in the West does not hold the promise it did many years ago. We have seen how the old industry of tourism has been restructuring itself to satisfy new markets. Medical tourism, eco-tourism and heritage tourism all require changes in a whole string of professions, in the hotel business, in urban management, in marketing and in infrastructures. The private sector has responded to this, though in an uncoordinated fashion. What governments at state level, and especially at federal level, need to do and do quickly, is to make necessary shifts in their thinking, planning and investments in order to accommodate these global changes. Thirdly, the conceptual and institutional structure of Malaysian politics has finally reached a crossroads after 50 years. The formula for national integration in Malaysia had from the beginning been based on the exclusive notion of race. By building political parties along strict racial lines, and yet professing modernistic ambitions, Malaysia’s resulting coalition strangely supposed that it could somehow create an inclusive national consciousness. That myth is broken. Thus, for the present federal opposition’s attempts to reform governance and to redeem badly compromised institutions of state to succeed in a sustainable way, it has to look at the bricks on which it is to build the new politics. Politics is in the final analysis an individual and a local matter. New politics thus require a new localism and a new individual engagement in politics. Learning from the limitations of the imported notion of “race”, we know that this new localism must be open-ended (not to say openminded) in the sense that it is able smoothly to expand and function as an

2

inclusive idea at a state or national level the way the idea of race cannot and could not possibly do. What this means in concrete terms is that we must seriously imagine a decentralizing of the federal structure of Malaysia, fiscally, educationally, administratively, and also where electoral levels and political party structures are concerned. Hybridization and integration are necessarily slow and spontaneous processes that occur under unpredictably changing socio-economic conditions, and not in response to central dictates. Penang, being an old urban centre and regional port where localism was cosmopolitan, multiracial and multi-religious from the very beginning, has therefore a vital role to play in the very important project of creating a post-racialist Malaysia.

3

2. Colonialism’s Legacy Is A Defensive Psyche*

It has become more and more palpable to scholars that the geography of a place, with attendant peculiarities of terrain, climate, water supply, transport, flora and fauna, as well as the nature of adjacent regions, goes a long way towards explaining human history. Southeast Asia – and Penang – is no different. Continental conditions create polities and mindsets that vary remarkably from those found in maritime and riverine areas. Despite the nation-state straitjacket that territories making up the Federation of Malaysia are today forced into by historical contingencies, the underlying socio-economic structure and primary acculturating forces instigated by our archipelagic geography shine through quite clearly. Renowned Southeast Asianist Anthony Reid, when studying what he termed the “Age of Commerce” in the region, namely 1450 to 1680, found that cities of that period had a distinctive character: 1. They were culturally extremely diverse, and comprised of distinct quarters for many different groups; 2. Their population density allowed for thousands to gather for festivals and other celebrations; 3. The benign and generous environment produced leisure classes that put substantial resources into performing arts. Urbanized cultural diversity proclaimed through yearly festivals and rituals was the given state of affairs. Such urban diversity is sometimes attributed to the “archipelagic-ness” of the region concerned. Most notable are the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. Such a tendency in places like the Baltic Sea or the Yellow Sea * Editorial in Penang Monthly, April 2010.

4

is probably mellowed by the long and cold winters. During the “Age of Colonialism”, which for the English started with the settling of Penang in 1786, trade routes were secured and cultural walls constructed to serve and protect the interest of each colonial power. The adjacent civilizations of India and China which framed and influenced the region in between them were slowly overshadowed during this period, especially where economics and philosophy were concerned. As colonialism matured, cultural diversity began to be considered anomalous and not as normal. The modernist habit of perceiving nations, races, religions and other human categorizations as essential entities began to spread in the region, often because of colonial and administrative expediencies. This configured what is certainly the strongest legacy that colonialism left behind among its victims – a strong sense of passiveness and defensiveness (the latter expressed as nationalism). But now, in what must be called the “Age of Pacific Asia”, a mindset change is taking place. In cities created during the colonial era, such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, the ability to embrace present geoeconomic dynamics has been astounding. Penang certainly has the same potential if it can think regionally, and not only nationally.

Sources: Hirschman, Charles 1986: “The Making of Race in Colonial Malaya: Political Economy and Racial Ideology”, pp. 330-361 in Sociological Forum, Vol. 1, No. 2, (Spring,). Nordin, Hussin 2007: Trade and Society in the Straits of Melaka. Dutch Melaka and English Penang, 1780 –1830. NUS Press Singapore & NIAS Press, Copenhagen. Reid, Anthony, 1988-93: Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, c. 1450–1680 (Yale University Press). Sutherland, Heather 2003 (February): Southeast Asian History and the Mediterranean Analogy, pp. 1-20. In Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 34 (1), National University of Singapore

5

3. All You Hybrids, Emerge From Your Closet*

Ethnocentrism is not the opposite of multiracialism. For some reason, we tend to suppose it to be so. The truth of the matter is, the contradistinction between the two is political, not logical. Like all terms that lend themselves to political polarisation, these two result from a rationalising process through which constituencies are formed, ready to be manipulated. And so, while an ethnocentric policy favours a certain prescriptive community, a multiracial perspective involves or acts on behalf of various races. What both postures do in common, however, is entertain – though to different degrees – an essentialist view of ethnicity. While the ethnocentric bluntly champions his or her own self, the multiracialist admits that other groups are equal to his own group, at least before the law of the land. The strategy is that since we are different from each other, we have to circle each other like wary dogs. We have to tolerate each other. Multiracialism, being a political expedience, therefore harbours one fatal weakness. It does not give due acknowledgement to how we as individuals are endlessly changing, even culturally. As a result, we merely aim to tolerate each other, and not enjoy each other’s evolving selves. Instead of just adopting multiracialism as the political opposite of ethnocentrism, we should instead seek the latter’s conceptual opposite, which I argue, is the acknowledgement of individual hybridism. We live and we learn, and in this learning of facts and developing of social behaviour, we evolve. Individually, we mature culturally and emotionally in unique directions, and in time, we gain confidence to consider ourselves as being distinct in inherent ways from other members of our ethnicity or gender or class or family. * In The Malaysian Insider, 30 April 2010, and Penang Monthly, May 2010 issue.

6

To acknowledge our evolving selves therefore, is to acknowledge this individual hybridism. What politics does is to encourage hybrids to think of themselves as group creatures, and their individual differences, born of unique fates, meetings and experiences, as being subordinate to a collective essence. This is understandable, because without that type of consciousness, professional politicians would be without a constituency. Appealing to superstitions such as race and the like is the easy route to power for the charlatan. Imagine if they had to debate definite issues and discuss complex matters with their fellow men and women. Most of them might come out sounding like unelectable idiots. For the rest of us, professing multiracialism is not enough. Taking delight in human pluralism must extend to the self ’s experience of its own hybridism and that of other individuals. Hybrids need to stand up and be counted.

7

4. Labour Stripped Down To Bare Essentials*

A cover on migrant workers raises a lot more questions than we can hope to answer in a monthly magazine. But it is a worthy feat nonetheless. We really need to discuss the issue more openly. We are after all dealing with a human phenomenon, and the last time I looked, humans are more than mere economic beings. The basic issue – given how little we can immediately do to alter global economic structures – is that of dignity. When conditions of labour are unfair and uncertain, the labourer and the employer, along with all others involved in the process suffer a loss in human dignity. Statistics will take us only so far. The indulgence that migrant workers need us more than we need them, and that they are but a temporary fixture in our social panorama, make us ignorant and ignoring of their reality outside of the purely economic or legalistic. For starters, are they migrants or are they workers? Well, the tough conditions to which their contracts bind them are revealing enough. They are after all labour pure and simple. Tellingly, the length of time they stay in Malaysia does not increase their legal rights, as it would if they were migrants. The fact that most of them are lowly educated means at least two things. First, they are not always cognizant of their rights; in any case, their economic dependence makes the adopting of a recalcitrant attitude highly risky. Second, their contact with the world within which they labour is – aside from the dulling experience of their long working day – simplified into keeping themselves sufficiently nourished, sufficiently healthy, and sufficiently rested.

* Editorial in Penang Monthly, June 2010.

8

What we see happening before our eyes is a new stage in global production. While governments imagine growth being driven by overspending and the unimaginable excesses of financial players throw real economies into free fall, labour is stripped down to its bare essentials. Buying labour without taking on the social responsibilities that come along with it was always an attractive option for global enterprises. In colonial times, for example, transporting labour to where it was needed made good economic sense. And so, where Malaya was concerned, indentured labourers were brought in from India to work in rubber estates. Labour was mobile but not detachable from social moorings the way it seems to be today. The free trade zone idea puts a twist to the age-old dilemma of bringing labour and labourer together. Factories and productive resources are moved to where suitable labour is on attractive offer. Today throughout Asia, mobility of labour has developed to the point where it is detached from its social moorings. They come, they labour unobtrusively, and they leave without a trace. The migrant worker is “labour” personified.

9

5. How Will Nationalism Evolve?*

The biggest trick that the nation-state concept has pulled on modern man is the proposal that there is an essential line between the external and the internal. Sovereignty over precisely demarcated territory is the underlying notion. It is here the nation-state is most easily understood. And so, in all countries, the Home Ministry and the Foreign Ministry are powerful institutions, alongside the Defence Ministry. Here lies the hardware of the nation-state, where protocol and ceremony blend with threat of violence and incarceration to secure the state apparatus inwardly and outwardly. Domestic peace and international security exist in apparent separation, making up what is commonly called politics. No line is deemed clearer politically than the one between citizen and non-citizen, except perhaps that between ethnic groups in the case of Malaysia. However, what is external and what is internal become more difficult to distinguish once we move to the economy. No doubt, the management of the national currency and fiscal policies seem definable as internal matters. But once we move to economic growth and the balance of payment, and are aware of the mobility of capital and skilled and unskilled labour, the blurriness of the line becomes blinding. Today, Gross Domestic Product no longer reflects the health or wealth of the country’s economy the way it used to. This is because MNCs are now extremely mobile, and tend to enjoy tremendous tax exemptions, and the labour employed and resources used can be largely imported. To a substantial extent, their long-term contribution to a country’s nationbuilding is no longer easy to ascertain. This increasing mobility of capital and labour mounts a profound challenge to the nationalist mindset. For one thing, national policies have * Editorial in Penang Monthly, September 2010.

10

to compete through accommodation to global capital and mobile labour. Compromises are made between the basic state duty of benefiting citizens on the one hand, and the need to attract globally capital and labour by lowering demands for contributions to long-term nation building on the other. Secondly, governments are enticed to act as major capitalists in highflying global markets. In the process, the logic of profit maximization in gigantic government-linked companies grows to distort the idea of citizen ownership of national wealth. Thirdly, (and this carries the widest ranging import), not only are the duties and rights attached to citizenship becoming fuzzy, the notion of ethnicity and nation (as in nation-state) is losing relevance in the face of current dynamics of global production and consumption. A country’s concerns were once about notions of territorial safety, national sovereignty, ethnic reinforcement and economic independence. But with global economic competition now more or less liberated from ideological constraints, the need that the nationalist mindset has to distinguish the internal from the external be it couched in economic, ethnic or territorial terms, limits the options available and the policies thinkable for the future.

11

6. Selangor – The Battleground For Malaysia’s Future*

In most ways, Selangor and its politics cannot help but set the tone for Malaysian governance in the years to come. The federation succeeds or fails, depending on what happens in this key state. One could go so far as to claim that the nature of Malaysian federalism itself depends on how Selangor governance will develop over the next few years, how that will strengthen the Pakatan Rakyat in its bid to take federal power, and to what extent decentralisation of power will define Pakatan Rakyat’s federal politics. Geographically, Selangor is centrally situated; economically, it is the richest; development-wise, it is the most advanced; demographically, it is the fastest growing; and politically, it is the jewel in the crown for any party hoping to control the federation. Its industrial infrastructure is also the best in the country. All this has led to a powerful influx of labour of all skill levels into the Klang Valley over the last 40 years. This is of course reflected in the enormous investments that has come into the region from the private, public and foreign sectors. Whether Malaysians like it or not, economic growth relies on urbanisation and the free flow of labour, and although what is termed ‘agriculture’ contributes greatly to the state’s economy, this sector is based largely on agricultural industries such as palm oil and rubber.

The First Cut

Selangor came into being in 1766 as a sultanate neighbouring an apprehensive Dutch-controlled Malacca. It was centred on Kuala Selangor, and was peopled by Bugis immigrants settled in a region earlier populated * In Malaysiakini.com, 21 September 2010. Also published as “Selangor: Where SocioEconomic Shifts Meet Political Inertia”, in ‘The Road to Reform: Pakatan Rakyat in Selangor’ (SIRD 2010), edited by Tricia Yeoh.

12

by Minangkabaus from across the Straits. As in the case of Penang slightly to the north 20 years later and Singapore half a century hence, huge numbers of migrant peoples soon moved into Selangor. This trend brought into being stable polities that exhibited strong political dynamism and enviable economic acumen. It was in Selangor that the Alliance model of politics was born in the early 1950s, which made it possible for the British to convince themselves that they could pull out and not leave their rich Malayan holdings to the communists. Kuala Lumpur was chosen as the new country’s capital, and yet no Malaysian prime minister has emerged from this ‘Abode of Sincerity’ (Darul Ehsan). It was also in Selangor that the country’s worst racial riots broke out on May 13, 1969. And it was in order to nullify the possibility that this important state headed by a sultan would ever again run the risk of falling to the nonMalay opposition that the central government of the day administratively cut Kuala Lumpur away from Selangor on Feb 1, 1974 to be controlled centrally as a federal territory. This left the population of the capital with a one-tier democracy, allowing them only the right to vote for parliament. Back in those days, Kuala Lumpur was very much a non-Malay city, and such considerations were important to the delicate balance of power. Forty years down the road things have indeed changed greatly and ‘the best laid schemes of mice and men’, not to mention of central governments, have unravelled in many complex ways. The demographics alone tell an exciting story.

Resistant To Racial Politics

Between 1995 and 2000, 131,400 people from Kuala Lumpur moved out into Selangor to join 13,000 other immigrants from other states, especially from Perak, Johor, Pahang, Kelantan and Pahang.

13

Interestingly, Selangor was the only state in Malaysia, aside from Pahang where the figure is dropping, to show net immigration by 2000. Figures from that year show that two out of seven persons registered in the state had migrated from elsewhere. These figures alone go some way towards providing the socio-economic reasons for the new political trends that became undeniable on March 8, 2008. We are seeing a concentration of young people of all races moving very quickly into the most lucrative part of Malaysia. The grounds for success for Pakatan Rakyat parties in Selangor are therefore as much socio-economic as they are ideological. Indeed, the two are hard to separate at this point. Not only does the urban and migratory nature of Selangor’s population make things difficult for systems based on patronage that the BN had been fostering, the fact that more than half of Selangor’s constituencies are racially mixed weakens campaigns propounding racialist and ethnocentric thought. In 2000, Muslims - meaning Malays - actually made up 53.3 percent of Malaysia’s population in urban areas. No doubt, three out of four rural people were from the Muslim community, but if one considers the fact that the urban population grew by 62 percent during the 1990s, and the rural population by 21.1 percent, the trend is clear. Aside from important factors such as the growth of the Internet and the lack of capable leaders in the BN, one has to draw the conclusion that the federal government was unable to read the changed situation or respond adequately to it. Even after March 2008, it has failed to counteract the opposition with a credible discourse, and the measures taken to oppose the new Selangor government have not been in the realm of positive discourse.

Pakatan Must Assess Weaknesses

Of the five states won by opposition parties in March 2008, the case of Selangor holds extra significance because of its centrality where economic development, demographic concentration, urbanisation, inter-ethnic

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relations and political fervency are concerned. Penang, Kelantan and Kedah are fringe states with conditions that are not typical of the rest of the country, while Perak lacks economic significance. Selangor’s fate is bound to decide the future of the country in a profound manner. The major challenges the Selangor government has had to face stem from several sources. This has strengthened the conviction in its ranks that the Pakatan must win the next general election if things are to change dramatically on all fronts. However, what seems the most effective way of ensuring victory next time around is for each state run by the Pakatan to structure policies, arguments and visions that the public can easily respond to. To do that, Pakatan parties have to do some serious soul-searching and consider their internal weaknesses.

Four Outstanding Issues

First, Pakatan Rakyat inherited a sustained administrative system and a public economy based on patronage, privilege and political contacts, where many civil servants continue to identify themselves with the old regime, and consider the new government an aberration. The power that the federal government still exerts at ground level despite having lost the state election has been a painful lesson for Pakatan parties and for the people who voted for them. How this is to be handled is a major concern for the Pakatan Rakyat state governments. Second, there is inexperience in Pakatan’s rank and file where the running of a government is concerned, and that significantly includes a tendency to underestimate the might of the federal government. This weakness can be overcome over time through experiences that are being gained, but also through a concerted effort to better the quality of Pakatan leaders. The painful decision of letting old loyalists go is being postponed in many cases and is damaging Pakatan’s reputation. The fear of legislators joining the BN if offended is a major problem.

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Unifying Ideology

Third, there is the lack of a unifying ideology, especially within PKR, many of whose members came into maturity in the BN school of politics. PAS had problems initially withstanding the lure of ‘Malay unity’ that the Umno dangled before some of its members. This issue seems to be shelved for the moment. While agreeing on a common platform is a start, it is still critical for Pakatan parties to reach a more compact consensus on issues of secularism and rule of law, if its image is to transcend the public suspicion that its politics may be merely tactical and expedient. Fourth, the fact that political opposition in Malaysia had for a long time been a self-sacrificial undertaking has created a ‘street-fighting culture’ among non-BN politicians and parties.

Party Discipline

Over the last two years, Pakatan Rakyat leaders have also had difficulties changing their behaviour and image from being oppositional in character to being credible policymakers. One major challenge for each party will be how they can convince their rank and file to be more inclusive. The DAP has to appear less Chinese in character, the PKR has to appear less of a collection point for the discontented from all schools, and PAS has to appear more concerned with humanitarian ideals than religious correctness. Over the last two years, Selangor’s Pakatan government has been able to show in many instances that it understands what is required of it. Aside from consolidating the three parties into a credible alternative to the BN coalition, it was compelled to showcase policy measures that differentiate it essentially from the practices – and most importantly, the ethics – of its predecessor. No doubt, this had seemed an easy job to do given the excesses of the previous regime under Mohd Khir Toyo.

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Best Practices

The future of the Pakatan does depend greatly on Selangor, the testing ground for the Malay-led multiracial PKR. Its measures must therefore not only clear the ground for a stable two-coalition political system, it must also adopt best practices evident in successful governance models in other countries. The move to register Pakatan as a single political party with a common policy platform has been welcomed by many, although there are worries among some that such a move of simplifying the opposition into an apparent united entity on too many fronts may shape Pakatan into a mirror image of the BN in the long run. Another example of a highly visible and effective measure aimed at defining the government’s ethos is the special Select Committee on Competence, Accountability and Transparency (Selcat) it founded in May 2008. This aims to enhance transparency. The initiative taken by the PKR to bring dubious courses held by the National Civic Bureau (Biro Tatanegara or BTN) into public discussion is a move that has gained the Selangor government a lot of credit and credibility. It had been an open secret for decades that these courses were propagating Umno racialist ideology on a national scale. The ambition to realise a Freedom of Information enactment is also popularly received and eagerly awaited. It is already becoming common for members of the public to call for the release of all sorts of public documents, showing increased interest and knowledge among the public in matters of governance. Such moves can no doubt run foul of federal legislation such as the Official Secrets Act, and even the Internal Security Act, but Selangor is pushing the limits both from within the government and from a public happily participating in the new and evolving mass media.

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Testing Ground

Selangor also has the initiative where the separation of powers at the state level is concerned. It is striving to enact a law that will make the state assembly independent of the state government and its administrators. Such an achievement will be difficult for other states to ignore. Indeed, that is the essence of politics in this transitory stage in Malaysia’s history, and that occurs behind the common rhetoric pronounced in the mass media. Policymaking competition is the name of the game, and with the help of the new media, this can be watched and judged by a large and interested public, unlike in the old days when the flow of information was strictly controlled by the BN government. Since many of Malaysia’s ills are often blamed on the New Economic Policy that had survived 20 years longer than originally planned, the Pakatan’s alternative of a needs-based programme has to be worked out in detail and publicly discussed. Given the special position that Selangor commands it is not merely the testing ground for future nationwide policies. It is where new solutions must evolve and where second chances will be rare. Any failure on its part to respond to the wishes of the somewhat fickle electorate and to new economic challenges will have grave repercussions on the country’s ability to manage globally. The most serious issue to consider when the next general election comes around is how much decentralisation of federal power Pakatan will publicly wish for. The chances for state power to be amplified vis-à-vis the centre will increase if an agreement is reached between the three parties before going into the election, than if the matter was left to be decided after an eventual taking of federal power. One of the greatest worries that voters have about the Pakatan’s federal ambitions is that it will retain much of the centralist model of BN. For in such a case, even if its policies were more transparent they would not be more democratic since the need for consensus between the three

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parties would compromise the goals of each party, and consequently the freedom of the individual states. These uncertain times when the federal government retains power but is unable to go on a convincing campaign to win back voters, and the opposition, though impressively strengthened, has to bide its time at the state level, develop its governing skills and knowledge about public administration, and recruit and train a better breed of personnel, are therefore a period of innovation, learning and soul-searching. Of all the Pakatan-ruled states, it is Selangor that can set the tone most significantly. Indeed, it is Selangor that is on the frontline where the battle between the ‘old politics’ of race and patronage and the ‘new politics’ built on international best practices is being fought. So far, the new is not doing too badly.

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7. A Lesson For Countries Where Fear Of Political Change Runs Deep*

Changes had been coming to Sweden for a long time. And ever since the Social Democrats lost power in the early ‘80s for the first time in decades, over the issue of nuclear power plants, the writing had been on the wall. The message became undeniable on Sept 9 when the Red-Green coalition failed to regain power, handing the Right-of-Centre parties its first retention of power in modern times. The Moderate Party under Fredrik Reinfeldt managed to win a second four-year mandate at the head of a coalition that includes the Liberal Party, the Centre Party and the Christian Democrats. But what holds greatest interest in these Swedish elections for the rest of the world is the fact that new political dimensions are clearly erasing the classic Left-Right dichotomy and this in one of the few countries where Marxist concepts are still commonly used. For one thing, the Moderates, once Sweden’s true-blue party, has gained ground - and credibility - by styling itself “The New Workers’ Party” destined to replace the Social Democratic Workers’ Party that was the architect of the much studied and much admired Swedish Welfare System. The Social Democrats are thus looking like one of the many powerful post-war parties in the world which have fallen and which cannot regain power without undergoing a comprehensive rejuvenation exercise. Asian countries have examples of many such parties, including Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party and Taiwan’s Kuomintang. Many are claiming that Malaysia’s United Malays National Organisation (Umno) is next in line, to which its many attempts at reform testify. By gaining 4 per cent in these elections, the Moderates are just 1 per cent short of overtaking the traditionally largest Swedish party. But what is also unfortunate for it is that its coalition is also 1 per cent short of a majority. * In TODAY newspaper, Singapore, 29 September 2010.

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In order to avoid a minority government, Mr Reinfeldt has either to get the Environmental Party to switch sides, or recruit into his coalition the xenophobic Sweden Democrats - which in winning 5.7 per cent of the votes have come into Parliament for the first time. The latter would be a very unpopular move that will certainly hurt him in the next election. Whatever his solution will be, the diversification of political discourse in Sweden stretching over a couple of decades can no longer be ignored. Increasing xenophobia among Swedish voters brings into focus issues of immigration and attendant inter-cultural tensions worsened by difficult times. These matters do not seem to subsume easily within the Left-Right dichotomy the way they used to and pose a serious challenge to popularised Swedish values of solidarity with the unfortunate of the world, egalitarianism for all peoples and equal rights for women. One positive development at the same time and one that acts to defuse the pessimism of many, is that environmental issues seem to have gained tremendous traction. With this election, the Environmental Party is now Sweden’s third largest party. Although it associates itself with the Left, its legitimacy transcends labour or capitalist rights. But what makes it impossible for it to join the Moderates and their allies at the moment is that the governing parties have throughout the electoral campaign been calling for 12 new nuclear plants to be built. Nuclear plants have always been a touchy matter in Sweden. The Greens, on the other hand, have tactically been arguing - and effectively so - that the Swedish economy’s future lies in the country championing production methods and consumption habits propelled by enormous investments in green technology. This stand holds substantive appeal to the common man and one that promises to save the Swedish self-image of the country being a global technological and humanitarian leader.

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For the rest of the world, the homeland of the Swedish Model that no nation-building agenda had been able to avoid studying, including by Singapore’s leaders, continues to hold a deep fascination. How it will handle xenophobia and how it will solve environmental problems, not to mention how it will emerge from the present economic crisis, are worth observing. Indeed, the smooth manner in which Sweden’s discursive and power shifts occur is a lesson in itself for countries where the fear of political change runs pathologically deep.

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8. What Brain, What Drain?*

In the days before nation states, polities in Southeast Asia were largely trading ports. These dots constituted the maritime routes along which fortune-seekers of old travelled. All sorts – those with brains as much as much as those with brawn – went where conditions were most promising for the moment. These could be people who originated in the region or from outside the region. This is my first point. Migration was the norm in Southeast Asia. From founders of city ports like Parameswara down to the common Minangkabau, migration was a necessity. A voyage to greener pastures was – and is – the best career path to take in a maritime trading region. The “drain” of people from A to B was a basic economic dynamic. It did not need to be permanent, and it could flow further afield or simply loop backwards. Today, calling this flow a loss of brains confuses the matter badly. My second point is that the notion of a brain drain comes from the biased perspective of the nation state. There is no lack of people who are educated by the state, who then move to work elsewhere. The state does not like this phenomenon because it thinks it somehow owns the people it educates, at least for a time. It does not see it as its duty to educate its citizens for their own sake. These people are most easily denoted as part of the brain drain. But then, there is a huge group of mobile citizens who moved first and then got their skills and their education somewhere else. They would have been more correctly considered part of a Brawn Drain when they left. It was only after they became successful that the jealous state decided to consider them as talents lost. My third point is simply that “brain” is a difficult concept to use in this context. * Editorial in Penang Monthly, November 2010.

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But my main point remains this, that it was the norm for Southeast Asians to move between urban centres in search of a better future for themselves and for their family. And it still is. What hides this is that following the fall of colonialism, national leaders tended to champion the rural hinterland, mainly because that was where the numbers could be recruited to support them in their struggle against other urban elites. The most dramatic case of this was Mao’s use of the peasant. Closer to home, we have Malaysia’s UMNO trying hard to represent the rural population despite its leaders being urbanites. On the other end, we have a place like Singapore, which not only did not have to deal with a rural population and its pre-modern culture but latched itself to the global economy. In that sense, tiny Singapore, despite being the most modern city in the region, is highly reminiscent of the old port city.

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9. Can Pakatan Rakyat Continue To Inspire?* The results of the double by-elections in Batu Sapi and Galas last week were not surprising. What is surprising is how strong the Barisan Nasional (BN) came out looking. The parliamentary seat in Batu Sapi was won handsomely by Ms Linda Tsen Thau Lin, the widow of the Member of Parliament whose sudden death triggered the by-election. She managed to attract the same impressive support as her husband had done for the BN in the general election in 2008. No doubt, incumbency is a powerful factor. In Kelantan, the state seat of Galas won by the Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) just two years ago by a small margin was lost to the BN by a relatively large margin. This constituency had traditionally been a BN stronghold but one cannot even in this case discount the significance of this achievement. What plagues the two-year-old opposition coalition, the Pakatan Rakyat (PR)? Without the ability to counteract the electoral machinery of the BN, the PR’s steep path to Putrajaya rises into a cliff. One thing that has always worried fence-sitters is that the PR, being a collection of diverse parties, may not be up to the job despite its attractive principles of social justice and good governance. Better the devil who knows himself than the angel who doesn’t. For the PR to replace the BN is one thing, but what has been a major problem in Malaysian politics over the last few decades has been the rampant centralisation of governance and the economy by a system not known for transparency, fairness or competence. What the PR needs to sell to the voting population of Malaysia is, therefore, more than a mere need for a change of personnel in the federal * In TODAY newspaper, Singapore, 9 November 2010.

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government and in Parliament. Aside from better governance, it has to excite the masses with the idea of decentralisation and capture their aspirations for local empowerment. The big mistake that the PKR - and the PR - committed in Batu Sapi, therefore, was to highlight the BN-versus-PR struggle ahead of the Centre-versus-Periphery dichotomy by entering the fray as an outsider. All it managed to accomplish was share between itself and the Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) the same number of votes that had already gone against the BN in 2008. The SAPP’s agenda tellingly pushes for greater autonomy for Sabah. Exchanging one centralist coalition for another may not be the common Malaysian’s idea of change. What the PR parties need to do - and this is as valid for East Malaysia as well as the peninsula, for urban as well as rural constituencies - is to revisit their idea of centralised and wholesale change. Although the three parties are quite independent of each other, they attempt to project a unity and a consensus that is simply not there. Their political understanding and electoral strategy seem to require them to project themselves as a centralised alternative to the centralised BNcontrolled state. This hurts their credibility. As we can see in the BN itself, its many parts are in trouble. Centralism is losing its appeal very quickly.

Young Blood Needed

Something else now gone missing in the electoral battles is the youthfulness that once characterised the PR parties. While leaders tend to be from an older generation, the work that needs doing on the ground must rely on the enthusiasm of the young. The heavy artillery does not work if the light infantry is weak. By definition, serious change requires youthful exuberance. No injection of youth means no real change; that would be the far from unreasonable assumption of the common voter.

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This is perhaps the PR parties’ greatest challenge at the moment. Having worked on consolidating themselves since 2008, they have a harder time projecting themselves not only as parties of change but also as parties that are self-critical and honest enough to rejuvenate themselves. Having an attractive moral agenda is far from enough during times of change. One has to excite young blood.

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10. Tun Dr Lim, A Local And National Leader*

Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu – if known at all to young Malaysians today – is remembered as a politician who was most active at the state level. He was after all the Chief Minister of Penang for 21 years, from 1969 to 1990. However, it is far from true that his politics were not national in character. It was only that the political path that his struggles took him along after he joined politics in 1951 was one that was far from straight or predictable, and not easily described. He was 71 years old when his electoral loss in 1990 convinced him that it was time to retire. By then, he had been in politics for 40 years. Coming from a wealthy Penang family, he showed great promise from the beginning. He performed well at Hutchings School, and moved to Penang Free School in 1932. When he was awarded the coveted Queen’s Scholarship in 1937, the Straits Times informed its readers that the 18-year-old was a “keen sportsman and cadet, holding the rank of second-lieutenant in the Free School Corps, a ‘crack rifle shot’, and was interested in history and geography”. Following in his father’s footsteps, he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and when the war broke out, he served with allied troops in China as medical officer to General Chen Chen, who later became the vice-president of the Republic of China. After the war, Dr Lim competed regularly in tennis tournaments. When the first municipal elections took place in Malaya in 1951, we saw Dr Lim leading his first political party, the Fabian-inspired Penang Radical Party, to victory in George Town. He was thus at the forefront of Penang – and national – electoral politics from the word “Go”.

* In The Star, Malaysia, 29 November 2010.

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In 1953, Dr Lim was the only Chinese fielded by the Radical Party, and this was in the Malay-majority seat of Jelutong. He lost badly. The Umno-MCA alliance won in all the three contested Penang municipal seats. Communal-based politics seemed to have found a formula that could gain support, at least for the time being. Dr Lim told his party members in June the following year: “We believe the present stage of limited election should not be considered to be the ultimate one nor even the beginning of the final phase, but merely one which will give the people of Malaya the chance to learn the principles and practice of what living democracy means and therefore the more the people get this experience, no matter under what conditions, the safer are the chances that a self-governing Malaya will be democratic”. He did not seem to have considered this learning process to be a long one, though. In July that year, at a well-attended public debate, he proposed a motion for immediate self-rule for Malaya. He argued that the idea that Malaya was not ready for self-government was “antiquated” “We are rich not only in natural resources but also in population potential. And we have also a high percentage of literacy”. Apparently courted by MCA president Tan Cheng Lock, Dr Lim soon joined the MCA, and in April 1955, as Penang Settlement councillor, he moved successfully for Malay to become the council’s joint official language, together with English. In July that year, he was made Federal Legislative Councilor. The following month, Dr Lim, now head of Penang Alliance, managed to push through a motion in the Penang Settlement Council calling for George Town to have a fully-elected Municipal Council headed by an elected mayor. On the eve of Independence in August 1957, a key issue for Penang was who should be governor and who should be chief minister. There seemed to be a consensus that one should be Malay and the other a Chinese.

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In the event, the governor was Malay, and the first choice for chief minister was Dr Lim, but he declined, citing “personal reasons”. His father, Dr Lim Chwee Leong had died in May 1957, and being a Confucian, his son, following tradition, did not wish to take high office while in mourning. Dr Lim denied that he was holding out because he was aiming for a higher office at the national level. Splits within the MCA, ostensibly between an Alliance group, a proChinese group and a moderate group wishing to balance the two, saw Dr Lim leading the moderates in a challenge against long-time party president Tan Cheng-Lock. On March 23,1958, Dr Lim succeeded in displacing Tan with a victory margin of 22 votes. In 1959, Terengganu state elections were won by the Islamist PAS. This caused worry among non-Malays, and helped fuel the MCA’s wish to field candidates in a third of the parliamentary seats that were to be contested. In a historic showdown with Tunku Abdul Rahman, Dr Lim lost and soon resigned from the party. He was back in the thick of things in 1962 with a new party, the United Democratic Party. The formation of the Federation of Malaysia through merger with Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak was now in motion, and his attempt to create a united non-communal opposition to the Alliance stumbled on that very issue. Despite the UDP’s strength in municipal elections, it managed in the 1964 general elections to win only one parliamentary seat – Dr Lim’s. The poor showing by the non-communal parties in 1964, including Singapore’s People’s Action Party, saw them coming together as the Malaysian Solidarity Council in July 1965. This had only one general meeting before Singapore separated from the federation under tense conditions.

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By 1968, Lim’s non-communal movement had taken the form of the Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia. Times had changed, and for the first time since independence, the country was not under any serious security threat. The Gerakan enjoyed immediate success, and won solidly in Penang in the 1969 general elections. Dr Lim became Penang’s chief minister, a position he had refused 12 years earlier. The racial riots that broke out in Kuala Lumpur on the evening of May 13 that year radically changed the political scenario in Malaysia. Discussions were held between the wounded Alliance and major opposition parties like the Gerakan, the People’s Progressive Party and the Islamist PAS to form an expanded federal coalition. These were successful. By 1973, Dr Lim was once again the leader of a party within the federal coalition. The compromises he made following the riots made it possible for him and his administration to industrialise Penang and end its economic stagnation. Along the way, however, especially after his retirement in 1990, his party, once a promising voice of non-communalism, lost its ability to inspire. In Dr Lim’s long life, we see a good example of how national politics is local, and how local politics is national. We also see how the major dimensions in Malaysian history – communalism versus noncommunalism, centralism versus local democracy, personality versus personality – played themselves out.

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11. Urban Parochialism, Rural Cosmopolitanism*

Something that increasingly troubles me is the common supposition that urbanites are cosmopolitan by virtue of being urbanites. Not only does that bias attribute what in modern eyes is a morally desirable quality to the mere experience of living in densely populated areas, it also assigns the negative quality of parochialism to non-urbanites. The thing is, the line between urban and rural is no longer as clear as before, and therefore the association between urbanity and cosmopolitanism – a tie that has been shaky from the start in any case – becomes ever more tenuous. This overstaying of associative logic is a common enough error. The connection between urban living and a cosmopolitan mindset was certainly stronger in the old days when city living was clearly separate from rural living. But then again, that may only be so because the meaning of “cosmopolitan” has changed radically. To start from basics, the term combines the Greek words, cosmos and polis. The first signifies the universe, considered as a harmonious and orderly system, while the second denotes the Greek city-state. The Order of Nature and the Order of Man are necessarily coined at the same time in dialectic relation to each other. And so, the Cosmopolis is born. Generically, this is the beginning of civilisation. Much of human knowledge derives from this nexus.The constructors of these two dialectically connected orders were the learned – the administrators, oracles/prophets and astrologers of old. They invented scripts, calendars and philosophy, the creation of which in turn endowed its creators with power. Together with aristocrats who benefited from their services, these men – for they always tended to be men – defined what the original urbanity was. In fact, they went further than that; they actually defined “rationality”. * Editorial in Penang Monthly, December 2010.

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This was as obvious in the Egyptian or Greek tradition as it was in Indic or Sinic thought. Interestingly, the present Malay term for “country” – negara – is derived from the Sanskrit word nagara that refers to “township” or “being a citizen”. Indeed, the urbanite of old was cosmopolitan by definition. But what we mean today by cosmopolitanism is something quite different. Ideally, a cosmopolitan today is a sophisticated person who is adaptive and tolerant, and who feels at home in most places and is not tightly bound by local and national habits and prejudices. At the same time, we do differentiate between cities. We imagine that trading ports house the modern cosmopolitan spirit more happily than other types of cities do – especially administrative hubs. That is paradoxical indeed for these latter cities were the centres of cosmopolitanism as understood the old way. Not only are cities different from each other, but with the rise of suburbia and satellite townships, not to mention the advent of easy travel, information communication technologies and popular education, most of us are no longer clear about our urbanity or rurality. In this muddled situation, new social phenomena spread, and however paradoxical this may at first seem, some of these are best described as urban parochialism and some as rural cosmopolitanism. It seems to me that being cosmopolitan nowadays is to have rural habits alongside urban ones.

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12. How Will Najib Play His Cards?*

Rumours that snap elections will be called shortly have grown intense in Malaysia. No doubt, these have been floating around for quite some time, and like forecasts of rain, or even predictions about the world ending; sooner or later, the soothsayers will prove right. I remember the same excitement throughout 2003 about a possible snap election. It turned out that then-Premier Abdullah Badawi did announce snap elections in mid-February 2004, more than a year before he needed to hold polls. As we now know, where he was concerned, that was a bad mistake. But what is different this time around is that the combinations of elections that can be held are many, and all of them hold different significance for the coalitions and parties involved. In Malaysia, state elections do not need to be held at the same time as parliamentary elections. Traditionally, the two tiers of elections were conducted simultaneously, because few state assemblies were outside federal control. In recent times, Kelantan has been the effective exception. In principle, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) could have held state elections at any time it saw fit. That had, however, never happened for the simple reason that should it hold elections separate from federal elections, all the cannons of the Barisan Nasional (BN) would have been freely directed at it. That was, and is, a scary prospect for PAS. Holding state elections while the BN was busy campaigning throughout the country at the same time had, therefore, always been a comfortable choice to make. The situation today is quite different. As many as four state governments are not being ruled by the BN, and although two opposition parties are

* In TODAY newspaper, Singapore, 26 December 2010.

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going through some bad patches at the moment, the BN itself is not as sturdy as recent by-election victories might suggest. Its component members have not been able to attract new members, and that is not an encouraging sign. Reforms carried out by the BN have been superficial, which indicates that its appeal to urban voters is unlikely to have increased substantially. This means the Prime Minister will have to tread carefully if he does not wish for the result of a snap election to be as unpleasant a shock as that of March 8, 2008 was for Abdullah Badawi. The following options are open to Mr Najib Razak: First, he can time the 13th parliamentary elections to coincide with state elections in Sarawak, which must be held by July next year. Although one can safely suppose that the BN’s double victory in the recent byelections held in Sabah and Kelantan has heightened its confidence, it must be remembered that it was not long ago that the BN suffered a demoralising if narrow loss at the hands of the Democratic Action Party (DAP) of the parliamentary seat in Sibu, Sarawak. If Mr Najib decides not to hold parliamentary polls at the same time as the Sarawak elections, then chances are he will let the latter take place first in order to gauge how the wind is blowing nationwide. This is necessary because he has another important decision to make on the road back to Putrajaya: Should he let state elections in the peninsular states that he controls be held alongside parliamentary elections or should he separate them? As DAP strategist Liew Chin Tong, the Member of Parliament for Bukit Bendera, points out, it is at the state level that the worst power struggles within Mr Najib’s United Malays National Organisation (Umno) will surface. That is not something the Prime Minister can afford at the moment. Another question Mr Najib has to ask: Which is wiser—calling for snap elections before Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy trial is settled, or after?

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The opposition’s strategy will vary according to the judge’s verdict. Although the opposition parties are not in the best of shape, they have the option of not dissolving the four state assemblies that they control. Such a choice would free their many leaders to campaign freely in BNheld states. That is a challenge the BN’s weary leaders would prefer not to face.

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13. Turning Isolating Distance Into Social Space*

Like people in most developing countries, Malaysians suffer automobiles not only as a necessary tool for modern living, but as a purported key driver of the economy. Having a car-making industry supposedly generates an army of suppliers of parts from simple nuts and bolts to sophisticated electronics. The consumption ringgits needed to keep a car running also fuel the capitalist economy, and in the process create status symbols for the wealthy, the new rich and the faux affluent. Thinking this way, however, left us with epidemic urban sprawl and a sorry lack of good public transport. This is a trap that will take us a long time to get out of, if at all. Governments overseeing developing economies tend to consider themselves cornered into building more and more miles of motorways to feed the voracious car. Dependence on the automobile – worshipping the car – has filled society with monuments dimensioned for speed. Or more correctly, urban space today outside of buildings is largely occupied either by tarred roads to handle hurrying cars, or by tarred rectangular surfaces for these cars to rest between journeys. Car parks, car lots, parking houses, slip roads, motorways, expressways, highways, roads, roads and more roads, define modern human space. Where does the human dimension fit into all this? The human body is the size it is, and it moves at the speed it does. What the automobile has done to humanity is to turn space into distance. We move from Point A to Point B. In between lies merely expanse which has to be traversed for the occasion. To make that traversing more efficient, the pedestrian has to be ignored, and often turned into jaywalkers.

* Editorial in Penang Monthly, March 2011.

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That is the legacy of the automobile. The spot we stand on; the air we breathe; the sounds we hear; the smells we suffer; even the deaths we die; bow to the booming and zooming iron carriages that jam the tarmac that covers the ground on which we live our lives. Solutions? Well, long-term ones are hard to picture. For one thing, governments, developers and planners would have to stop kowtowing to the automobile. Instead of supplying the automobile with tarred roads, which is an endless project, the car would need to be tamed and knocked off the developmental pedestal. Medium-term solutions, however, are easier to imagine. Improving public transport and lessening urban sprawl would go a long way towards making cities more liveable. In the short term, what is attainable is for us to shift the symbiosis between pedestrian and car to favour the former more clearly. For example, areas left over by highways and parking houses can be easily landscaped into space more conducive to human presence. Small parks can appear in areas where old building material now collects. No park is too small. The greening of such abandoned areas requires only commitment from elected representatives, innovative developers and imaginative civil servants. They only need some committed pushing from the rest of us. “They paved Paradise And put up a parking lot” – Joni Mitchell

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14. BN’s Systemic Weaknesses Are Not Going Away*

Just when things were starting to look up for Malaysian Premier Najib Abdul Razak and the ruling Barisan Nasional, come disturbing reminders to voters that the essential nature of the UMNO-controlled ruling coalition has not changed. Although Mr Najib’s 1Malaysia initiative and economic reform documents such as the Economic Transformation Programme and the Government Transformation Programme may have won him some support, they do not go so far as to promise betterment of governance or the diminishing of racialism in governance that voters had been demanding. Be that as it may, the BN has been patting itself on the back after winning five by-elections in a row, the latest being the twin polls on March 6 in Merlimau in Malacca and Kerdau in Pahang. The last two victories were largely expected, but still, a victory is a victory. And within the government’s adopted strategy of “small reforms but big spin”, that is encouragement enough. However, Mr Najib’s achievement over the last months is not so much in the winning of by-elections or in using foreign consultants, as in managing to keep old and new controversies from reminding voters of the reasons they deserted the government throughout the northern states three years ago. Furthermore, the ongoing sodomy trial against opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has kept the latter disoriented and his Parti Keadilan Rakyat unable to take bold initiatives. During the latter half of the Abdullah Badawi period, in 2007-2008, it was the blatantly unequal treatment of citizens by the administration on issues of political affiliation, religion and race, coupled with the unaccountability of ministers and others associated with the BN, which * In TODAY newspaper, Singapore, 16 March 2011.

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made it impossible for mild-mannered but concerned voters to continue supporting the federal government. The strategy of allowing the formation of a Malay Supremacy NGO like Pertubuhan Pribumi Perkasa Malaysia to take over the traditional racially strident role of UMNO Youth, while keeping controversial UMNO leaders out of the limelight, did lessen the pressure on the Prime Minister. But without serious reforms, the systemic weaknesses of BN’s governance were bound to shine through again sooner or later. Home Affairs Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, whose infamous waving of the keris at successive UMNO assemblies lost precious votes for the government in the last general election, had to reappear on the mass media stage to threaten to leave no stone unturned in investigating critics of Sarawak state’s long-time Chief Minister Taib Mahmud. Mr Taib came to power in 1981, the year Dr Mahathir Mohamad became Prime Minister, and is today, 30 years later, also the state’s Financial Minister and Planning and Resource Management Minister. He is a Melanau, whose Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu is one of the 13 members of the BN. Elections in the state have to be called by July this year, which explains the federal defence of Mr Taib’s ill-repute at this time. Allegations of corruption and of abuse of power from national and international quarters have been a constant companion during his time in power. The latest such critic to grab the international headlines is Radio Free Sarawak, run from London by Sarawakian DJ Peter John Jaban and former BBC journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown. The latter is the sisterin-law of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, which naturally adds to the wide interest in the controversies. Instead of investigating the allegations and giving the new though already badly tainted anti-corruption agency, the MACC, the chance to repair its damaged reputation, the federal government has decided to go after the whistle-blowers instead; in the process, giving Malaysians a strong experience of deja vu about the state of governance in the country.

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Another issue that holds serious consequences for the coming elections in Sarawak - and the expected snap general election later this year - is the seizure of 35,000 bibles at the port of Kuching in Sarawak and at Port Klang near Kuala Lumpur. These books are in Bahasa Malaysia and are largely meant for the many Christian bumiputeras who are indigenous to the states of Sabah and Sarawak. What’s worse, this impoundment by officials seems to be occurring against the will of the Prime Minister. While this has riled major Christian and other bodies in the country, the influential Muslim organisation, Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia, is demanding that Mr Najib state his final stand on the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims. The High Court had on Dec 31, 2009 disallowed a Home Ministry directive banning such usage, but that decision had since been stayed by an appeal from the government. The key question stemming from these developments is: Can the BN really change? While in these days of DNA engineering, a leopard should be able to change its spots, putting the animal to sleep and getting it to surgery is not without its dangers - even for PM Najib Razak.

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15. Dr M: Politician To The Core*

Believe it or not, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has been a part of Malaysian politics since World War II. Thus, his long-awaited memoirs easily drives home the fact that his influence runs deep and continues unabated, over 60 years later. Not one to shy away from controversial views, he expressed grave disappointment with every one of Malaysia’s prime ministers and deputy prime ministers, barring Tun Abdul Razak Hussein. Studying his words, one also sees that Mahathir was often in conflict with himself, for example when denying the key role he must have played in many failures and controversies. He is also known for his willingness to do whatever it took to remain in power once he had reached the pinnacle in 1981. His deputies never had an easy time, and all of them fell by the wayside. Not even Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, despite being the only one to reach the position of prime minister, could remain safe from Mahathir’s assailment. The stamp of ownership Dr M put on Malaysian nation building is undeniable, and no one today doubts that both the good and the bad from his long period of dominance will continue for quite some time yet. His 22 years in power were controversial ones, during which scandals broke one after the other, and opponents were at times arrested without trial. The latter actions, he now claims, were against his will. But his tenure was also the time when Malaysia gained global prominence, not only as an economic wonder and a showcase for “moderate” Islam but also as a multiracial society that posed as champion of the South and the Muslim world as well.

* This review of Mahathir Mohamad’s autobiography A Doctor in the House: The Memoirs of Tun Dr Mahathir (MPH 2011) was first published in The Star on March 25, 2011.

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However, after he stepped down in October 2003, the long-term effects of his method of nation building have become obvious. Institutional degradation threatens to be his lasting legacy, and the establishments ruined in his time include Umno itself. One can thus understand that his memoirs were eagerly expected. Many wish to know how he perceives his own achievements, and even more want to see some regret. Now that he is no longer a politician, can he exercise enough distance from his own past to achieve a credible narration of his life and achievements? As it turns out, he can’t. Dr Mahathir cannot not be a politician. Perhaps how he sees himself is best noted in what he says about his daughter: “Marina turned out to be a lot like me: argumentative, stubborn, opinionated and always believing she is right. She does not mind expressing her views: and that makes things very difficult sometimes. (Tun Dr Siti) Hasmah always said that an elephant could get crushed between two people who think they are always right”. (Page 216.) Doctor In The House, stretching over 800 pages, varies in style. It varies in depth as well, with some subjects studied much more at length and in detail than others. Taking too long to finish a book has many drawbacks, the chief of which is that the parts will not gel well, making the final product feel like a collection of chapters written by different people. It does not help that Dr M dwells excessively on the chapters that are lessons in official history and are not biographical. I was certainly left wishing that he had had expert help or that he had listened more to whatever expert help he may have had when finishing the book. The lack of proper referencing gets exasperating after a while since many claims made in the book certainly cry out for verification. Yet, it is not historical errors that are the major irritant. Many concepts, especially

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nationalistic notions, are thrown in without any consideration of their dubiousness. “Tanah Melayu” is used as if it were a reference to a bygone polity and not a term used by early anthropologists. Mahathir’s potential for controversy was obvious already when he began publishing articles in The Sunday Times after the war. His first piece saw the light of day on July 20, 1947. It was about Malay women empowering themselves, and about how their “fervent nationalism and sympathetic understanding” actually inspired their men to struggle for their own survival. This view on women is one of the more commendable aspects of Mahathir (page 235), as is his affection and respect for his wife, Dr Siti Hasmah, and his joy in fatherhood. Some of his passing memories are amusing to read as well, and I am sure they bring a recognising smile to older Malaysians the way Lat’s cartoons do; by capturing passing pedestrian scenes that otherwise remain outside description. Most other areas that he draws attention to are done in a much less amiable fashion. The issue of race, a 19th century notion that most social scientists today find well nigh impossible to define, let alone use, is not a problem for Dr Mahathir. And he does realise that much of what he has to say can be construed as racist or narcissistic (page 24). But although that is not his stated intention, I have to say that the fervent and categorical use of “race” is disturbing and certainly makes his book unnecessarily racialist, if not racist. Some narcissism is apparent when he exaggerates his role in the resistance against the Malay Union (pages 92-95) or when he claims that after his expulsion from Umno, “no one else was championing the cause of the Malays” (page 210). He is probably right when complaining that he became persona non grata after Tunku Abdul Rahman kicked him out of Umno in 1970, but

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to be flabbergasted and to protest as avidly against being ignored after his retirement in 2003 is surely unjustified (pages 210, 243). “Successors, even if they are of the same party, do not wish the people to remember their predecessors. Many try in different ways to obliterate memories of the recent past. This is easy if the predecessor is disgraced, yet even if the predecessor willingly surrenders power, a successor may be uncomfortable if he is remembered too kindly (page188). The lack of a serious class analysis in the book is disturbing, as is Dr M’s tendency to place blame on others in analysing history. He accuses the British of being unfair in devaluing the pound sterling without first telling Malaysia about it (page 189). But currency devaluations do not work unless they come as surprises; that is how capitalist finance is played. And accusing voters of being vindictive when not supporting him in 1969 also shows a warped understanding of what popular will and democracy is (page 196). Dr Mahathir claims that Umno was being magnanimous in not playing racialism to the hilt when they cooperated with non-Malays back in the 1950s instead of embracing the Islamist splinter group, PAS, thus forgetting in the process that independence would not have been impossible otherwise (page 222). Here, the myth of complete Malay unity as a default situation looms large despite the evidence. Umno’s subsequent weakness is blamed on non-Malay demands and not on the obvious reality that, for most people, ethnicity-based dominance is not always the paramount consideration in politics. Other dimensions such as inter-personal conflicts, profession, class, gender, education and urbanity, not to mention an endless array of historical circumstances, are equally relevant. Needless to say, PAS is also blamed for being betrayers of the Malay cause (page 223), while Datuk Onn Ja’afar is not judged the same way despite his departure from Umno and his forming of alternative parties.

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The Malays as such are also blamed. Shortcomings in the New Economic Policy are not blamed on the state and its administrators but on the greed and poor money management of the individual Malay (pages 232, 267). Doctor In The House seeks to be more than a mere memoirs but ends up disappointing this reader, both as an autobiography and a lesson in Malaysian history. If the goal is to leave to posterity a simplified version of history easily digested by people prone to ethnocentric thinking, and highlighting the role Dr Mahathir played in it as understood by him in his twilight years, then that is immediately achieved. But in presenting half truths, selective recollections and opportunistic rationale, Dr Mahathir’s book fails to bring greater understanding to his time in history.

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16. Bookstores And Our Weak Sense Of Self-Esteem*

I shall tell you a secret. Whenever in Dublin, I actually prefer browsing through bookstores to bumming down at a public house for a piece of steak washed down with a stout. And truly, only in Ireland does Guinness Stout taste like it should. No, I cannot keep away from Irish bookstores. The range is amazing, and as in London, the shop stretches from floor to floor. But what gives me reason to pause and contemplate is that they always have huge central sections that are solely dedicated to Irish literature. This literature can be academic, covering Ireland’s painful yet colourful history; or biographical, studying the lives of the Emerald Isle’s many heroes and villains. Or it can be fiction, or poetry. Now, the literary bent of the Irish is legendary, their authors having filled the roll call of the Nobel Prize Committee ever since it began giving out prizes 110 years ago. What interests me, however, is more than their ability to create great works of literature. It is not only the presence of a sophisticated reading public that encourages these works. It is their strong interest in their own stories, their own people, and the struggles in their own history. When in Malaysia, or Singapore for that matter, what is striking about bookstores is the presence of small sections titled “Asian Interests” or “Local Authors” or “Malaysiana”. And the parade of Bestsellers is not of books that have been sold locally, but of titles taken from foreign lists. The latter could be due to foreign owners or whatever. The biography section showcases the life of Bill Clinton, Mother Teresa, Margaret Thatcher and anyone else who is not local. If you wish to find a biography about Tunku Abdul Rahman, then you go – yes, you guessed it * Editorial in Penang Monthly, April 2011.

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– the sections titled “Asian Interests” or “Local Authors” or “Malaysiana”. But what gets me most is the New Arrivals section in our bookstores. They do not showcase local books at all! They do not mean new arrivals from the publishers. They clearly only denote new arrivals from Western publishers. New arrivals from local publishers are found under “Asian Interests” or “Local Authors” or “Malaysiana”. Alright, one can blame it all on the apparent Eurocentrism and Americacentrism of bookstore procedures and ownership. But surely the managers of these bookstores are not foreign, and should realise how ridiculous their modus operandi is. Summarily, what we see here is the habit of not taking ourselves seriously. It has certainly not helped that the country whose politics thrives on the citizenry being divided against itself on issues of culture and religion. Any serious expression of our diverse cultures is potentially controversial. Not a conducive atmosphere for cultural creativity and self contemplation indeed. And since we do not celebrate our diversity, we tend not to contemplate our being and our past. The country that does not proudly fill its shops with exciting and impressive cultural products is a museum, either captured in the conceptual claws of nationalism, or in the identity prisons left by its colonial past.

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17. Malaysia’s Future After March 8, 2008*

With the election results of March 8, 2008, not only did the landscape of Malaysian politics change, more possible futures could be envisioned. This was because the results actually brought into focus certain aspects of Malaysian nation building which had been overshadowed by the political discourses favoured by the ruling parties since May 13, 1969. This is a wonderful time we live in, where studying Malaysian politics is concerned. Things are opening up, and that is always exciting. We have to think of Malaysian history as a post-colonial phenomenon. That way, we can easily understand where we are at now, and we can see where we got stuck and where certain people staked their claim and had been trying to protect their positions ever since. The decolonisation process was derailed in many ways, and it is now that young Malaysians can again discuss the kind of Malaysia they want for the future; and most importantly, they can decide how they can participate in creating that future. Now although we should be optimistic, we have to be realistic. So what we are looking at where a positive development of Malaysia’s politics is concerned is more a mitigating of certain unhappy circumstances than an end to them. To simplify what is essentially a complex story, let us focus on the areas of contention.

Decentralisation Of Power

The Coalitionism of the Barisan Nasional (BN) functions by having one party as the clearly dominant one, while all other component parties play at being little brothers. What the emergent dual-coalitional system today * Talk given at Malaysia Forum (Singapore) 2011, held on 10 April 2011 at Hackerspace.sg, 70A Bussorah Street, Singapore.

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must develop from now on has to be a coalitionism that seeks stronger federalism. This is the only way that the diversity that makes up Malaysia can be properly accepted, celebrated and taken full advantage of. Let the states have more power, and more fiscal authority. A stronger federalism will allow for POLICY COMPETITION AMONG STATES. This is how Malaysian politics can be made to excel. Look at what Selangor has done. They actually have a Freedom of Information Act in place. Imagine that. Pakatan Rakyat is still very much an electoral strategy; and the best way for it to grow is to recognize that its component parties represent a varied constituency. Properly representing this varied constituency must mean that the power structure they wish to attain must be a strongly decentralised one. And this need to decentralise power must be made clear among themselves before the general election, not after it. I do not think the PR parties wish to have a BN-like structure that works only through the dominance of one of the component parties. Allowing for a new and more equal relationship between East and West Malaysian states can have a greater revolutionary impact on the country than one might think. The two parts are so different in so many ways that the constricting concepts of race and religion used on the peninsula have to unravel when the twain meet.

Centrality Of Good Governance

Developing democracy must involve greater public participation. It is only this participation that can guarantee good governance. Politics is too important to be left to the politicians. It must belong to the citizens. I would like to say here that Nation Building or State Building is not complete unless you also have Citizen Building at the same time. That is where Malaysia has failed most badly. I for one think that Malaysians are a very patriotic people. It is only race-based politics that have tried to divide and rule, and in the process embark on a fake process of unification.

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Good governance is something that the public must demand, or it will not happen. What good governance boils down to are (a) equality before the law; (b) protection of body and property; (c) accountability of power; (d) democratic values; and (e) the providing of competent public service. It is difficult to envision the federal government succeeding in improving its style of governance. It cannot lift itself by the hair. What is more probable is that state governments will encourage citizen engagement to such an extent that a cultural change comes to the country as a whole. This is already happening, helped by the New Media and the Social Media.

Deracialised Democracy

What we have had in Malaysia, and what have certainly overstayed their welcome, are the perspectives and solutions that seemed appropriate in the early post-colonial period. At the end of the 1960s, after about a decade of democracy, limits were put on political discourse, and this was backed by an array of draconian laws, such as the ISA, the OSA, the UUCA, the PPA, the Sedition Act...Centralisation of power was deemed necessary if nation building was to succeed. The times have changed, perhaps partly due to the success of this centralism. But that centralism has certainly overstayed its welcome; it has led to rampant power abuse, corruption, the degrading of key institutions, including UMNO and its allies. With the reformasi movement, with urbanization and with the younger population we have, the higher level of education, the increased confidence of the Malay community, together with the more global view becoming predominant today, fuelled by education abroad as well as the New Media, are factors that make the break away from the detrimental effects of early post-colonialism seem possible. Not long ago, this was not even thinkable to most people. How is the deracialisation of the political discourse to work? Bans will not work, as we have seen over the last 40 years, especially when law enforcers are biased towards certain groups. The only way for a

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healthier and more inclusive discourse – such as the welfare discourse – to overshadow the race-and-religion hang-up is through the direct use of it – in public space and in policy making. The diversity in governing parties will help this along. Poverty may not be as big a problem as it once was, but the enormous income gap is just as dangerous and as unfair a situation.

Regionalism vs Nationalism

Nationalism was something we consider good because it was seen as a counterbalance to Colonialism. Be that as it may, that has led to racialism and introversion in Malaysian political discourses. This was encouraged by the insecurity felt by the first independent governments, as well as by the Cold War dividing the world into two halves. Today, the dynamics are very different. Regional developments in economics and politics make the nationalism of old seem rather out of date, and ineffective. How well we respond to these changes, at the government level as well as the individual level will decide how well Malaysia will manage in the coming decades. Our domestic conflicts must not continue to overshadow the challenges posed by regional dynamics, and thus cripple Malaysia and Malaysians. With the new balance in economic power globally, the country’s leadership and Malaysians in general have to think regionally, and to seek opportunities abroad, even as it tries to attract foreign resources to the country, in the form of investments and skilled manpower. The movement of people to other countries to educate themselves and to work is not the major problem. The major problem is that they see no good reason to come back. Maintaining a discourse that alienates one ethnic group from another plays into the hands of competing nations that are more able to act in a concerted manner, and that are able to expand more effectively financially and in other ways.

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18. BN Feels The Sarawak Heat*

Judging from recent events, the ruling coalition in the Malaysian state of Sarawak is feeling very unsure of its ability to retain its two-third majority in tomorrow’s state election. Not only are the rallies of the Barisan Nasional (BN) not drawing the crowds, its candidates are failing to excite voters except through offers of money and apparent quid pro quo development. This has caused Prime Minister Najib Razak and a host of other Federal Cabinet ministers to fly to Sarawak to provide whatever support they can to their coalition partners there. Long-time Chief Minister Taib Mahmud has adamantly refused to provide his apprehensive allies with a definite date for his retirement from office. While the Prime Minister has publicly stated that the Chief Minister would leave after the elections, Mr Taib himself, claiming that he has been grooming a successor, said he will not leave until sometime in the middle of the next mandate period. The Prime Minister’s concern is national, while the Chief Minister is about securing his own retreat. Mr Taib’s defeat may not be on the cards but an impressive advance by the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) in Sarawak three years after its triumphs in the last general election will ensure it smoother sailing into the next one. Breaking BN’s two-third majority in Sarawak would be a bonus for the PR. The BN’s Achilles heel this weekend may not be Mr Taib’s party, the Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), but the Chinese-supported Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP).

* In TODAY newspaper, Singapore, 15 April 2011.

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The latter is the one feeling the heat of the effective campaigning being carried out by the opposition Democratic Action Party and Parti Keadilan Rakyat. In desperation, it has now called in the top brass of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), the Chinese-supported BN member from West Malaysia. MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek, secretary-general Kong Cho Ha and former party president Ong Tee Keat have all agreed to fly in. Being politicians who have recently suffered bad drops in voter sympathy and moral standing, their presence may be more a bane than a boon for the SUPP. It is doubtful that they can counteract the dynamic campaigning being carried out by the Opposition and its supporters. This is despite several key PR supporters being refused entry into the state. The BN tactic of handing out goodies and long-delayed development fares badly in the face of accusations of power abuse aimed at them by the Opposition. The more talk about money the BN throws into its rhetoric, the less trustworthy its candidates appear. But alongside the obvious disenchantment in the BN felt by the Chinese community throughout Malaysia, flows the trend among urban populations with access to cyber information and who participate in that new arena to turn against old discourses of race, religion and patronage. The BN’s sense of desperation is also seen in the incessant cyber attacks on chosen websites it considers hostile to the government. But although effectively crippled, these sites’ contents have been quickly made available elsewhere. Malaysiakini.com, which since the 2008 general election has been a key source of streaming information during elections, has suffered a denial of service, and is now available at sites such as www.facebook.com/ Malaysiakini and www.Malaysiakinicom.wordpress.com instead.

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Sarawak Report, a London-based website that is highly critical of the power abuses of Mr Taib Mahmud and his relatives, has suffered a similar fate. Some of its contents became nevertheless immediately accessible at www1.sarawakreport.org. These attacks come too late and are never as effective as the shutdowns may imply. Strangely enough, the issue of religion has not been playing as big a role as one would have expected, given the recent controversy over the delayed import of Malay language Bibles. Sarawak is, after all, the Malaysian state that has the largest population of Christians. This avoidance could be a conscious effort on the part of the Opposition to avoid diluting the highly effective tactic of focusing on Mr Taib himself and on the power abuses of the BN government.

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19. Now’s Not The Time For Najib To Call A GE*

The results of the Sarawak state elections last weekend were extraordinary in the sense that one cannot strictly say that they were expected. Nor can one claim that they were unexpected. This in truth reflects how uncertain things seemed during the 10 days of campaigning. Wishful thinking mixed freely with insider information, and strategic statements pretended to be pronouncements of facts. For example, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, after taking over the campaigning, surprisingly stated that the two-thirds majority was under threat after his invitation to Sarawak’s Chief Minister Taib Mahmud to declare that he would soon resign was rejected. The final results were that the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) has retained power with their two-thirds majority intact; Mr Taib, Chief Minister since 1981, stayed rooted in his seat despite a strong international campaign alleging rampant abuses of power by his government; and rural support for the government remained steady despite the abject poverty in some areas. At a superficial level, the status quo remains. However, a closer look reveals a strengthening of trends that have become increasingly obvious after the general election three years ago. For starters, where campaigning is concerned, the Opposition retains the initiative, having the oh-so-easy advantage of pointing the finger at bad governance on the part of BN parties. This has made it difficult for BN campaigners to draw or excite crowds. Distributing goodies and goodie bags of various shapes and size became the alternative - and effective - tactic instead. Second, urban sympathies continue shifting away from the BN. This strongly suggests that the swelling population of young and educated citydwellers will continue to gain in importance as the constituency of the * In TODAY newspaper, Singapore, 19 April 2011.

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future. This spells big trouble for dominant parties such as Mr Najib’s UMNO and Mr Taib’s PBB, and making inroads into this area will remain a great challenge for them. As of now, we have a strange situation where both Kuala Lumpur, the main city in West Malaysia, and Kuching, the main city in East Malaysia, are practically fully represented by the opposition, excepting one seat in Kuala Lumpur. This trend is evident in many other urban centres as well.

Weakening Model

Third, we are witnessing a steady weakening of the BN Model itself. With the trouncing of the once Chinese-supported SUPP by the DAP on April 16, one must not only draw a comparison with how the latter wiped out the ruling Parti Gerakan Rakyat in Penang in 2008, but also recognise that there is a trend here that stretches further. Three years ago, the BN suffered weighty retreats through not only the Gerakan’s losses, but also through those suffered by the People’s Progressive Party, the Malaysian Indian Congress and even the Malaysian Chinese Association. These are all parties whose mission within the BN is to secure the non-Malay vote. This they failed to do, which calls into question the coalition’s ability to represent the country’s diverse population under the dominance of UMNO. Serious efforts at renewal have not been forthcoming either. The SUPP is the latest BN member to pay for being a subservient party for too long within the BN power structure. Fourth, the practice of malapportionment in electoral representation had undoubtedly been a useful tool for the BN in retaining power. However, common sense tells us that a weighing scale cannot be continually engineered to BN’s advantage forever. Beyond a certain point, this misrepresentation seeks out a new expression for itself. In Sarawak, the BN won 77.5 per cent of the contested seats last weekend. However, the popular vote cast in its favour was only 55 per cent. That gives us a mismatch of 50 per cent! Just looking at these figures, we

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see that a readjustment in representation was long overdue. An immediate effect of the Sarawak election result is to discourage Prime Minister Najib Razak from calling a snap general election - due only in 2013 but widely speculated to take place within a year. His coalition lost vital ground that he cannot possibly regain anytime soon without first making serious structural changes to the BN model of governance. Getting a new mandate that he can call his own essentially means winning back the two-third parliamentary majority his coalition lost in 2008. Now, if support for the opposition in Sarawak is kept at the present level, a general election now would mean a loss of at least three parliamentary seats for the BN. All else being equal, what Sarawak tells Mr Najib is that calling a general election any time soon would not be worth his trouble.

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20. More Federalism, Less Centralism*

Malaysians are known to be multilingual as a rule, especially in urban or semi-urban areas where flows of cultures crisscross. This mingling can take place in an ad hoc and spontaneous manner like at a market place; or in a more regularized way like at a work place; or most intimately through intercultural marriages. This is not particular to Malaysia. In fact, this seems to be the normal human situation wherever groups of people discover that peaceful interaction is more useful than mutual annihilation. But more often than not, and especially in the age of the nationstate, this amorphous multilingualism and multiculturalism is seen as a weakness. This is because the model of a nation-state expounds the idea of one nation – meaning one supposed people united by one common language and culture – maximising its sway in the world by way of a centralised state that is the expression of that language and culture. Now, much of archipelagic Southeast Asian culture has always been seafaring by nature, which is not surprising given the geography. But placed also between giant civilizations to the West and the Northeast, the region became not only a source of raw material and goods, it functioned as a maritime silk route as well. This backdrop of trade configured political economics in the region. Cultural intermingling had to be the order of the day, and the Malay language came to function as a lingua franca for traders. Things got really complicated with the coming of the Europeans, not least in the area of language use. The languages of the colonial masters became not only the effective lingua franca, but also the language of control and knowledge.

* Editorial in Penang Monthly, July 2011.

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This was powered by the industrialisation in Europe and the scientific revolution occurring largely in English and European language. And with the endlessly accelerating rate of scientific knowledge generation, the centrality of English seems secure for a long time to come. This leaves Southeast Asia’s new countries such as Malaysia with a serious problem. How do they acknowledge the modern nation-state fixation with national language; accommodate that to the effective multilingualism of the region; promote English, the global language that cutting-edge scientific knowledge that economic development relies on; and achieve political stability at the same time? Singapore simply put economics first, and pushed English as the key language. That has its own costs. Malaysia has, since 1970, been giving increasing space to Malay ethnocentrism, a long-term stance that damages national unity and degrades its educational standards. How do we get out of this hole? Whatever the solution we adopt, it has to be acknowledged that ideal nation-states do not exist and the notions of monolingualism, monoculturalism and political centralism that emanate from that kind of thinking do not suit maritime Southeast Asia. Hybridisation has a rhythm that cannot be forced. A family that is big and varied cannot live in peace in a one-room house. But the more rooms there are under one roof, the more harmoniously family members can interact. Thus, what Malaysia needs is more federalism, and less centralism.

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21. Bersih 2.0 Is Najib’s Biggest Challenge*

As July 9 looms closer, the administration of Malaysia’s Premier Najib Abdul Razak feels itself more and more pushed into a corner. This coming Saturday threatens to be a day of reckoning for his administration, which from the beginning preferred tweaking the system to reforming the system. Now, two years after he took power from Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, another leader who failed to live up to his own reformist image, he is running out of options. At the same time, many of his countrymen have run out of patience. Even those sitting on the fence had been hoping against hope that the Barisan Nasional would be able to somehow reverse the degradation of governance that the country has suffered since the days of Mr Mahathir Mohamed. A non-government organisation calling itself Bersih 2.0 is arranging a huge demonstration in Kuala Lumpur on July 9 to demand electoral reform. The first time such a rally happened was on Nov 10, 2007. That had amazing results. An estimated 40,000 people took to the streets wearing yellow to symbolise loyalty to the King, not the government. A huge Hindu rights rally followed a few weeks later and the impetus from these protests almost floored the Barisan Nasional government in the general election that followed soon after. Now with the many deliberate signals sent by Prime Minister Najib recently that fresh elections may be around the corner, there is reason to believe this second Bersih rally will hold great consequences for the country’s democratic development. The government certainly believes so and has been making arrests for offences such as wearing yellow T-shirts and even the “hidden” wearing of the apparently seditious apparel.

* In TODAY newspaper, Singapore, 4 July 2011.

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Solidarity rallies in support of Bersih 2.0 are planned in Seoul, Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney, Osaka, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York and perhaps other places as well. In Kuala Lumpur, at least twice the number of participants as before is expected to march for fairer elections. As before, a memorandum with eight demands will be handed to the King. No demonstration permit has officially been sought by Bersih 2.0 or Perkasa, the right-wing UMNO-supported group that will be carrying out a counter demonstration. UMNO Youth, which under Mr Khairy Jamaluddin will also hold its own march on that day, has formally applied for a permit. In what seems like a bad overreaction, Home Affairs Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has banned Bersih and arrested members of the Parti Socialis Malaysia while taking no action against UMNO Youth and Perkasa, despite threats of racial violence from the latter. Perkasa’s eccentric leader, Mr Ibrahim Ali, has been issuing warnings to Chinese about taking part in the demonstration. This makes little sense since a large majority of the marchers are expected to be followers of Parti Islam SeMalaysia. In truth, the government’s unwillingness in recent months to charge Mr Ibrahim with sedition or take the UMNO newspaper Utusan Melayu to task for making statements of this kind, has been a source of anger for many.

Electoral Fairness

To be sure, demanding electoral reforms has shown itself to be a cogent way of mobilising Malaysians and increasing their political involvement. There are different reasons for this. First, a democracy’s credibility and efficacy depends on the perceived fairness of the electoral system and Malaysia’s has not met that requirement for a long time now. This point is intuitively understood by the common man and woman.

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Second, electoral fairness is an issue that does not turn racial easily and has herefore functioned well as a lightning rod for general discontent. Third, there have been many by-elections in Malaysia and these cannot help but showcase official disregard for clean and fair elections. What Prime Minister Najib should be learning from this is that his barrage of reform terms - 1Malaysia, New Economic Model, Economic Transformation Program or Government Transformation Program suffers a serious credibility problem. His coalition may not have lost much ground but it has not gained any either, as the recent Sarawak state election showed. Now in his third year as prime minister, his failure to be decisive on reform is perceived as conscious policy, and not the result of inexperience or bad advice. His nemesis - Mr Pakatan Rakyat, the opposition coalition - has survived three impressive years and more and more Malaysians now believe that elections can lead to change even when the dice is loaded in the government’s favour. Should the demanded reforms be carried out, the ruling Barisan Nasional would lose more ground in the next elections. To conclude, the fourth and most important reason for civil society to call for electoral reforms is that the demands are clearly sensible. The fact that things are now coming to a head and the police are making arrests with no credible legal grounds, shows the inefficacy of parliamentary debate in Malaysia today and the government’s inability to reverse the wave of dissension that has been growing since before the first Bersih demonstration in 2007.

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22. Bersih 2.0: Malaysia’s King Steps Forth*

The showdown scheduled for Saturday between the Malaysian government and the group of non-government organisations calling itself Bersih 2.0 has simmered somewhat. What would probably have been a long peaceful march by 100,000 Malaysians of all races, dressed in royal yellow T-shirts, towards the palace to hand over a memorandum seeking wide-ranging electoral reforms, will in all likelihood now be a rally taking place inside a stadium. This compromise was reached after a momentous meeting between Malaysian King Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin and three leaders of the non-government organisation (NGO) coalition: Front person Ambiga Sreenevasan, steering committee member Zaid Kamaruddin and national laureate A Samad Said. The aged and highly-respected A Samad Said is being investigated under the Sedition Act and the Police Act related to unlawful assembly. His offence was a recent recital of a poem at a Bersih 2.0 event. But, whether the stadium rally happens peacefully will depend on how the Malaysian police chooses to handle the issue over the next few days. An application for the demonstration will still be required of Bersih. It is also vital that Prime Minister Najib Razak, whose suggestion it was initially to move the rally to a stadium, show some national leadership and get the Home Ministry and the police to simmer down as well. If the Home Ministry continues to feel that the compromise is a victory for the government, then one may expect more flexing of muscles from the beleaguered and agitated police force. In the weeks prior to the march, the Home Ministry and the police had been taking messy Draconian measures to intimidate the public and discourage supporters of Bersih 2.0. These included roadblocks, arrests of members of the * In TODAY newspaper, Singapore, 7 July 2011.

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Parti Sosialis Malaysia on the ludicrous suspicion of trying to revive communism in the country, the detention of people wearing yellow shirts and the holding and questioning of opposition leaders and activists. For now, calls for the release of detainees have gone unheeded, and the police has been causing huge rush-hour traffic jams outside KL with roadblocks at entrances and exits to major highways. This is highly reminiscent of the days before the first Bersih rally in November 2007 and the Hindraf Hindu rights march in December that same year. As with these earlier cases, the rally planned for Saturday was also banned, along with Bersih 2.0 itself, by the highly unpopular Home Affairs Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, who is the Prime Minister’s cousin. The drama of recent weeks, ending with compromises on both sides, has, to an extent, overshadowed the key issue - and this is what has left many Malaysians unhappy about the compromise stadium rally. Once the impetus of the march has died down, there is little that suggests the Prime Minister will be more willing to negotiate with Bersih 2.0 than before the intervention of the King. Electoral reforms may not take place at all. Indeed, it is the King’s intervention that carries great significance. Whether it was the Prime Minister or not who had asked for him to intervene last Sunday, the fact remains that Mr Najib has failed over the past three years to build up his standing as a national leader, despite his various reform initiatives and One Malaysia slogan. His refusal to act against right-wingers in his party for apparent sedition has undermined what was a weak reputation to start with. By failing to use the law in a clearly fair manner and through the continuation of dubious electoral practices, he bears responsibility for heightening the public’s need to respond against the downward trend in governance. In the end, only the institution of the King could act as mediator between the two sides.

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Through his intervention and decision to meet Bersih leaders, the King basically neutralised the Home Ministry’s ban on Bersih. It is now up to the government to act in accordance with the unique stand taken by the King, or run the risk of being disrespectful to the only office left in the country which commands nationwide esteem.

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23. Weighing The Political Cost Of July 9*

After the events of July 9 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak may be making a mistake if he calls snap elections any time soon. A day after the police suppression of the Bersih 2.0 demonstration, he continues using a confrontational tone in public and seems to play more the role of United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) party leader than of Malaysia’s national leader. This strongly suggests that he is psyching himself and his party into election mode. However, no event since the last general election has generated as much outrage as the suppression of the Bersih 2.0 demonstration on Saturday did. After all, the list of demands that the group of non-government organisations (NGOs) wished to hand over to the Malaysian King was but a call for electoral reforms. These issues are racially and religiously neutral and most thinking people would find them at least worth discussing. By letting the police shoot chemical-laced water cannons and aim tear gas canisters into the crowds and apparently at the heads of opposition leaders such as Anwar Ibrahim and Khalid Samad, the government angered many and left even more stunned. It was outrage over how Anwar Ibrahim was treated in 1998 that ignited the Reformasi Movement and led to UMNO losing control over Terengganu state to Parti Islam SeMalaysia the following year. Outrage over police brutality on July 9 and the arrest of 1,677 demonstrators, provides opposition parties with a common experience on which to build a unifying narrative. The manner in which the government handled Bersih 2.0 will help consolidate Pakatan Rakyat in a way little else could have done. Some would say this was its Long March.

* In TODAY newspaper, Singapore, 11 July 2011.

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Bersih 2.0 was given its name partly to secure its connection to the first Bersih rally but it was reformed several months ago pointedly without official participation from opposition parties. This was to allow it to develop as a purely civil society initiative. However, opposition activists are bound to support it because the electoral reforms demanded aim to create a more level playing field for democracy; and that is why the government saw red when faced with the prospect of a march by tens of thousands through the streets of Kuala Lumpur. Bersih 2.0’s activities have been largely about raising Malaysian consciousness about democratic processes and rights, voter registration and political engagement. The government’s use of harsh laws, emergency regulations such as the banning of the organisation and yellow T-shirts, and the police muscle used before and during the march on Saturday merely served to enhance the NGO’s agenda. Looking back, it is hard not to see that the challenge from Bersih activists could have easily been better managed. If permission had been given for the rally, then the police would have been able to decide the route and to exercise tight control over the event. By announcing that no permit would be given even before it was applied for, the Home Ministry made a street confrontation inevitable. Intimidation through arrests and other means over the preceding two weeks did have some effect and caused Bersih leaders to quickly accept an unexpected offer made by the King. When Bersih agreed to change the march to an assembly within a stadium, it looked as if Mr Najib had pulled off a clever manoeuvre and had forced his opponents to fight on his terms. However, this perception was soon proved incorrect when Home Affairs Minister Hishammuddin Hussein immediately ignored the King’s feat by denying Bersih a stadium. To be sure, in order not to compromise too heavily, Bersih had demanded to use the arena with the most emblematic value - Merdeka Stadium, where the declaration of independence was read out in 1957 by the first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman. 68

The minister’s strange move threw the point of confrontation back onto the streets, leaving the police with not much choice but to use riot weapons on peaceful demonstrators. The symbolism embedded in Bersih’s wish to hand over the memorandum to the King and not the Prime Minister is quite obvious. It was meant to convey disappointment in the Najib administration and was a desperate appeal to the throne as the alternative national authority, and to past but respected leadership. The question of what price the events of July 9 will extract now lies with the voters.

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24. Must We Stay Victims Of Past Strategies?* From 2 August 2011, the name of the research centre that produces this magazine is changed from SERI to Penang Institute. While there are several reasons for this evolution, the change that it signals most strongly is the realisation that social research in Penang and Malaysia – be this in policy making, city planning, governance and democracy, economics, the environment or history – must embrace the increasingly regionalised character of the arena within which the state and the country function. This is as true where knowledge creation and education are involved as it is in the areas of labour migration and investment. Now, the freedom and prosperity that independence from colonialism promised Asians following the Second World War did not come simultaneously or equally to all the countries or individuals concerned. Looking back, we see that Asian prosperity on a wide scale could not really occur as long as China and India did not lead the way. For half a century, National Growth corresponded closely to Income Inequality. In the extreme opposite case of China, policies aimed at extreme egalitarianism mainly only meant parity in poverty. As long as the two giant countries tarried in economic development, each mired in its own ideological constraints; smaller countries in the neighbourhood had to make do with what they had. Nationalism was adopted as the noblest of human sentiments in all cases. But all knew, as Napoleon Bonaparte did two centuries earlier, that once China – and India – awoke, the playing field would change beyond recognition. That has happened in our time, and since both the behemoths are stirring simultaneously, the Asian Drama that now unfolds is greater than anyone – including Napoleon – could have anticipated. Nationalism must now adapt to the realities of Regionalism. * Editorial in Penang Monthly, August 2011.

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The most difficult part of this change is in the public mindset, informed as it often is by notions fuelled by the fears and insecurities that necessarily accompanied sudden nationhood. Soul-searching among Asians in the wake of global financial crisis following global financial crisis in recent times must, to be effective, question the very structure and concepts of their post-independent strategies. Without such soul-searching, we are doomed to be victims of history’s pendulum swings. The existential worries that informed the first faltering decades of national being need to be replaced by dialogue about the relationship between political stability and wealth distribution; high growth and environmental degradation; economic development and human dignity; cities and their broader hinterland; man and nature; men and women; individual and individual. And behind all these issues lurks one big question. Early nationbuilding tended to limit the freedom of speech. In this time of global shifts, we have to ask ourselves; why Independence if it continues to be at the cost of our right to think and speak freely? For without freedom of speech and freedom to public information, modern Asians must remain mediocre where original thought is concerned.

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25. UMNO Turning Right Leads BN Downhill*

On July 9, the streets of Kuala Lumpur played host to animated engagements between demonstrators and the police. Bersih 2.0, which started out as a simple and hesitant attempt to revive public interest in electoral reforms, became a huge demonstration that captured the imagination of many young Malaysians. It seized their imagination more strongly than anyone expected, leaving little doubt that Malaysia is in transition. But what needs studying is what it is transiting away from, and what it is transiting to. The two are, of course, strongly related but what is this widespread eagerness for change a part of, which now pervades the country? The situation is complicated no doubt but we do not need to go very far back in time to find an answer. Let us remind ourselves that the long-lived Barisan Nasional (BN) ruling coalition enjoyed its best electoral results as late as in 2004, under Mr Abdullah Badawi. As many as 91 per cent of voters supported him and the honeymoon period that the public gave him as Prime Minister was a long and gracious one. It was only in 2007 that signs appeared to say that a lot was not well under Mr Abdullah. So what was it that happened? And why is it that the BN has not been able to turn things around since then? It still has a lot of power; why can’t it correct itself ? Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s recent comment that the problem is not with the BN model as such but with the lack of good leadership, was but the latest and rather desperate attempt to limit the credibility crisis that the ruling coalition suffers from.

* In TODAY newspaper, Singapore 2 September 2011.

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After the General Election of March 8, 2008, the country went through an uncertain though exciting period. This was to be expected after the shock results that saw five states coming under the rule of opposition parties and the long-lived BN losing its power to amend the Constitution at will. The opposition parties immediately had their share of problems ranging from a serious lack of experience in governing, to sabotage by civil servants unable to distinguish party from government, and the economic and political measures by the federal government to punish and undermine them. The federal government naturally tried its best to control the damage it had suffered. This included putting on trial - again - opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim for sodomy; regaining the state of Perak through dubious means in February 2009; and manoeuvring PM Abdullah Badawi from power in April 2009 and replacing him with a more dynamic and debonair Najib Abdul Razak. Mr Najib’s main task was to generate public confidence in the BN’s ability to respond to changes for the national good, to regain the trust of the Malay middle class and to rejuvenate the coalition. The Sarawak state election on April 11 this year, when the opposition made impressive gains, showed that he was not doing enough and that he was not succeeding. Bersih 2.0 showed that the government was more alienated from public sentiment than ever before. Things began to go seriously wrong when UMNO began turning right after its historic victory in April 2004. In mid-2005, UMNO Youth brought the Malays-first New Economic Policy back into the national consciousness and the swing towards the right was most noticeable in how the movement’s leader, the presentday Home Affairs Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, unsheathed and brandished his keris at the party’s general assembly. He would continue to do that for two more years despite extensive criticism.

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The arrogance stemming from the 2004 victory spread quickly and with the absence of a national vision following Dr Mahathir’s retirement, divisions in Malaysian society became worse and deeper while UMNO thinking was vulgarised into simple racialism. Religious tensions began rising when Muslim authorities and individual leaders recognised the new freedom being allowed them to win political points through creating friction with other religions. What we see today - the impudence of right-wing Perkasa, the use of draconian legislation instead of criminal laws, the steady subsuming of government institutions under the ruling coalition and the conjuring of a Christian threat to Islam - are the results of this imprudent swing to the right that began six years ago. In short, the strong longing for change now evident in Malaysia is largely a public reaction to the inability of the BN model to create a society that is open-minded and diverse enough to be the harmonious and liberal Malaysia that the founding generation had imagined possible.

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26. ISA Repeal: Najib Should Push Ahead*

Malaysian Premier Najib Abdul Razak’s sudden announcement on Thursday night that he would very soon be repealing several unpopular laws, including the Internal Security Act (ISA) of 1960, should have won him praise from most quarters. But it did not. Instead, a general wait-and-see sense of disbelief was the common reaction, be it from the opposition or the right wing of the ruling United Malays National Organisation. Why? Is he not allowed to get anything right? The struggle to get rid of the ISA has after all been an issue that engages wide segments of Malaysian society. Furthermore, he promised to have three emergency declarations lifted. These are the nationwide May 15, 1969 Emergency, the Sarawak Emergency from Sept 14, 1969 and the Kelantan Emergency from Nov 8, 1977. The first will mean that the Emergency Ordinance that, like the ISA, also allows for detention without trial will disappear. This ordinance was recently used against six members of Parti Sosialis Malaysia in the run-up to the Bersih 2.0 march for electoral reforms. The Restricted Residence Act of 1993 and the Printing Presses and Publication Act of 1984 will also be reviewed. This will mean that the much hated requirement for annual applications for renewal by the mass media will be dropped. No doubt, Mr Najib’s personal popularity has been dropping badly. This should worry the ruling coalition. After all, since he took office in April 2009, he has consistently been more popular than his party or his coalition has been. A bad dip for him just when a snap election is being planned must be a big worry for his government.

* In TODAY newspaper, Singapore 17 September 2011.

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But for the rest of Malaysia, the announcement surely bodes well. Who cares if Mr Najib is being a populist here and is doing the right thing for the wrong reason? There are grounds for scepticism from the savvy pundits in Malaysia. Well, for one thing, his own Home Affairs Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, the man who must bear the responsibility for any use of the ISA, was reported two days earlier to have replied thus to a request for clarification on rumours of a repeal of the ISA: “There is no talk about abolishing ISA. Who has been saying that?” Taken at face value, this suggests that no serious discussion on the immediate repeal of the laws had taken place between the major players in the Cabinet. Such a grave matter surely warrants the Home Minister’s participation. If no such discussion took place, then the question is: Is the repeal seriously meant? Will it really take place? This wait-and-see attitude among Malaysians is rational enough, given how serious reforms are such a rare thing in Malaysia. Furthermore, two Bills are to be tabled to replace the laws now being repealed or modified. Their structure is as yet not known and the fact that the Home Minister has stated that he will study the United States’ Patriot Act and the United Kingdom’s and Australia’s Anti-terrorism Act in drafting the new laws necessarily makes the sceptics worry even more. In making his announcement, the Prime Minister must now see things through. He is bound to meet strong resistance from within his own ranks, but it is to be hoped that he realises it would be political suicide for him to disappoint voters at this point in time. It is exactly something as dramatic as the ISA repeal that he needs to regain the political initiative. But many are expecting him to drag his feet or to come up with some side manoeuvre. Should he do any of that, then the whole exercise will backfire on him.

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27. Will Najib’s Election Goodies Be Enough?*

The annual budget is a powerful weapon for the Malaysian government, and never more so than when national elections are impending. Mr Najib Razak’s third budget as Prime Minister, announced last Friday, definitely signals that elections are indeed on the way. Beleaguered as his government must feel - after the Bersih demonstration in July turned into a bigger anti-government event than it needed to be when major economic indicators are all pointing the wrong way and with only one and a half years left before a General Election has to be held, it is wiser for Mr Najib not to postpone the use of this weapon until next October. In fact, there is no reason for him to believe that the political and the economic situation will improve over the coming year. Political scepticism runs high in Malaysia and even his recent initiative to repeal the unpopular Internal Security Act (ISA), to lift three declarations of emergency and end the requirement for annual renewal of printing licences, was given a lukewarm reception. What the public is concerned with is what the government will replace the ISA with. Few believe the repeal is motivated by a humanitarian wish to increase civil liberties. After two-and-a-half years as Prime Minister, Mr Najib continues to suffer from a credibility problem, which has been aggravated by his penchant for using foreign consultants for public relations exercises and his piecemeal reform initiatives. PR exercises threaten to overshadow serious policy debate in Malaysia. Given this political milieu, the annual budget announced last week was expected by most to be full of goodies for as many constituencies as possible. In that respect, Mr Najib exceeded expectations. * In TODAY newspaper, Singapore, 10 October 2011.

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Not only will 1.3 million civil servants get pay increases of between 7 and 13 per cent, their retirement age is being raised from 58 years to 60. Cheap loans for first-time house owners making less than RM3,000 (S$1,230) a month are being made available for properties up to RM400,000 while taxi drivers are being given various monetary aids. Significantly, cash handouts to poorer households will benefit as many as 3.4 million families. That’s 53 per cent of all households. And not only will subsidies for food and fuel be retained, as many as 85 subsidised grocery stores are to be set up throughout the country. The goodies list goes on. While one should not fault the government for helping the needy, it is difficult to see how with the 10 per cent increase in expenditure, the GDP deficit can still be brought down from 5.4 per cent to 4.7 per cent as is predicted. But those are figures for the future. For now, the stream of goodies flows. Something like 1.3 million students above the age of 17 will be given RM200 vouchers. These will include the many first-time voters that the opposition has for three years been trying to get to register to vote. Despite all this, the government still denies that what it has presented is an election budget. In fact, what the two-coalition system that has developed in Malaysian politics seems to have done is to put the country in a perpetual campaigning mode. So there is little need to deny that this most important of political weapons is being used at this crucial time. Mr Najib is obviously aiming for numbers, structuring his budget to positively affect the wallets of as many voters as possible. He is targeting the Malay community where the battle for votes in the General Election will be strongest. The big question is whether it is enough. Will voters take the money and support the opposition anyway or will they think that the time for reforms is past and the piecemeal measures that Mr Najib is taking are all they should expect?

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As it is, these costly measures are bound to show tangible gains for the government. The resources available to the incumbent party should never be underestimated, and Mr Najib is now using them to generate immediate effect. Nevertheless, the ball is now in the opposition’s court. Pakatan Rakyat’s strength lies in the promise of significant betterment of Malaysian life and it has to project a vision that takes voters beyond the tiresome slugging that characterises the country’s day-to-day politics. The coming campaign period is going to be an interesting one.

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28. Did Malaysia Mature When We Were Not Looking?*

The flurry of Malay organisations making the news in Malaysia bodes well for the country, whether or not these group together extreme rightists, opposition voices, concerned students or professors, or green or human right activists. The matter has now become too obvious to be denied, which is that the Malay community in Malaysia is like any other community anywhere in the world. Its collectiveness, like anyone else’s, is pragmatic and contingent. This is how it should be. They are not an entity whose extremely diverse and individual needs, thoughts and aspirations can be articulated through one single political party. The myth is broken. What will take its place is a cacophony of noises or a symphony of tunes, depending on one’s politics and disposition. That powerful party, UMNO, is the oldest in the country, founded as it was just one year after the Second World War. It has dominated Malaysian politics to this day, but now rightly fears that it will lose power in the very near future. When the party started, its slogan was “Hidup Melayu” - Long Live the Malays. Only after changing that to “Merdeka” in March 1951 did it begin to make serious headway into the popular consciousness. From the very beginning, Malay political consciousness went in many directions. There were pan-Indonesianists, communists and other leftists, monarchists, Fabian socialists and republicans. The British, with their reputation lost through their defeat by the Japanese, favoured conservatives who were willing to work closely with the nine sultanates. The amazing diversity found in the Malay community - as in all communities - was obvious from the onset. Those more concerned about religious values broke away to form PAS in 1951, while UMNO itself * In TODAY newspaper, 31 October 2011.

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split around the same time when its president, Mr Onn Jaafar, left with his group of followers to form the Independence of Malaya Party (IMP). UMNO gained the upper hand through cooperation with the Malayan Chinese Association, formed at the instigation of the British to draw Chinese support away from the communists. This coalition managed to gain independence in 1957 for the country after its electoral successes saw the British abandoning the IMP, which they had favoured since its founding. Even after 1969, when the so-called Malay agenda could be applied fully through the New Economic Policy, internal fighting continued within UMNO, leading to outright splits in 1988 and 1998. Today, when more and more Malays are urban and well educated, and make up an increasing portion of the population, the expression of diversity within that community - the breaking of the collective myth - should be seen as the coming into being of Malaysia’s modern citizen, largely determined by the Malays. Opposition from other communities since 1969 has been generally weak, and based on the activism of certain individuals. The propaganda that had served UMNO for so long, that the Malays are in danger of extinction, does not work anymore. This became most obvious when the group Himpun recently demonstrated with a cry against purported Christian threats to Islam. Despite the claim that a massive crowd of one million would turn up, the UMNO government granted the permit. Only 5,000 people showed up, indicating quite clearly that Malays in general cannot relate to the old idle logic any longer. The Malays continue to decide the national discourse, as they have done since the beginning. But most hearteningly, diversity is taken for granted, and a lot of activism is done in collaboration with non-Malays. The Malaysian citizen has come into his or her own right. There is no longer any doubt that the Malays will “hidup”; and Merdeka was won a long time ago. What seems to be the problem now is, how

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quickly will the death of the old myth mean the fall from power of UMNO? Instead of 1Malaysia, UMNO’s latest slogan, to be correctly reflective of the government’s concern, should be “Hidup Pemimpin UMNO” – Long Live UMNO Leaders.

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29. Securing Public Space In The PostImperial Age* A History of Public Space in Post-Colonial Countries is long overdue. Such a narrative would be a powerful one indeed if it also adopts the fall of empires as its background. We no longer ponder about the strange phenomenon of the string of empires – colonial or traditional – that fell in dramatic domino fashion throughout the 20th Century. This started with the 1911 Xinhai Revolution of China, which celebrated its 100th anniversary on October 10 this year. By the end of the so-called First World War in 1918, at least three others had disintegrated – the Russian Empire, The Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. The victorious empires and colonial powers – Britain, France and Holland – would chug along for a while yet. The United States, in the meantime, had heralded its coming global influence. Some of the fallen would rise again, while others would not. In the intermediate spaces, a stream of nations rose to declare independence— by definition, from imperial control. These ranged from countries such as Finland, Poland and Yugoslavia, to Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. The badly defeated Ottoman Empire officially ended only in 1923, and in its stead arose as many as 30 countries. This process of imperial disintegration accelerated after the so-called Second World War, with the fall of colonial powers such as Britain, France and Holland allowing for the rise of huge numbers of countries in Asia and Africa. Some of these were as big as empires in themselves, such as India, and some were small, such as Singapore. Malaysia laid somewhere in between. This imperial disintegration was not a mono-directional affair, however. While the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian ended for good, the Russian and Chinese managed to rise again, to return to the global fray. * Editorial in Penang Monthly, November 2011.

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Thus, new nations rose on wobbly legs under the heavy shadow of new imperial stand-offs—the so-called Cold War. Now we come to what I wish to say about Public Space. The existential uncertainty of newly acquired nationhood meant that governments took it as a god-given right to be authoritarian. Nation Building became the only game in town, or countryside. Public Space was an unaffordable luxury. But as existential fears grew less justified as these polities matured, the inherent tension between state control and civil liberties could not help but increase. That is the impasse where post-colonial and post-imperial societies now find themselves be they located in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East or Southeast Asia. In the Malaysian context, we see that the words most bandied around today include audacious ones like “change” and “reform”. The federal government’s recent promise to repeal the Internal Security Act; lift emergency declarations; and end the requirement for annual printing licences, are guarded attempts to lessen the tension. The big challenge now is whether the country – and many other countries for that matter – can gather enough courage to switch from existentialistic nation building mode to confident adulthood mode. The political battles now fought daily between the government and the opposition express exactly this fateful gathering of courage. But if there is anything at all we learn from history, it is that no outcome can be taken for granted.

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30. In Malaysia, Reforms Take A Staggered Path* The leader of the Youth Wing declared at the United Malays National Organisation’s (UMNO) annual assembly held this week that the opposition parties had been vehemently opposing the Peaceful Assembly Act because they were hoping to create the conditions for widespread demonstrations in the hope that these would sweep away the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional (BN). But it is not an Arab Spring that UMNO, Malaysia’s dominant party, should be worried about. Despite some seriously bad governing, the country has always had a democratic structure, and despite authoritarian trends, there are more possibilities for venting dissatisfaction than in the Arab world. The political process of change in Malaysia is thus not revolutionary as has been the case in the Middle East. It is reformist, and evolutionary at most, coming in stages. Seen that way, the new powers given to the police by the new Act, and the curbing of demonstrations this involves, will have the effect of limiting the venting of popular anger, and push political dissent to take less peaceful forms. Paradoxically, the most successful reform rhetoric in Malaysia in recent times did not come from the opposition parties, although calls for reform echoed strongly after former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was sacked in September 1998 and created a generation of activists. It came from the Abdullah Badawi administration that succeeded Dr Mahathir Mohamad in October 2003. Mr Abdullah sought to project a liberal image of Islam with his “Islam Hadhari”, an approach that apparently “emphasises development consistent with the tenets of Islam and focuses on enhancing the quality of life”. * In TODAY newspaper, 3 December 2011.

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His famous slogan, “Work with me, not for me”, evoked enough optimism and confidence to win for the BN more than 90 per cent of the seats in Parliament in 2004. This was a national record. Thus, there was a time when UMNO and BN actually had the political initiative and dictated the reform agenda. UMNO could have easily denied the brow-beaten opposition of 2004 any chance of mounting the successful offensive that in 2008 saw five of 13 states being lost by the ruling coalition. But what we saw instead was a government who got its political slogans right, but whose political will was found to be badly wanting. The success of the slogans made the failure of the policies all the more jarring. Premier Najib Razak’s reform programmes transcend rhetoric more than Mr Abdullah’s did, but too little is being done too late. His “One Malaysia, People first, Performance Now” could have worked if he had shown more purpose and acted more decisively. But today, cynicism still pervades the country. BN’s weak position today is therefore not necessarily the result of decades-old policies, but of its post-Mahathir failure to remedy the excesses of the 1981-2003 period. Malaysia is not a Middle Eastern country. Its problems are not purely bread-and-butter ones and the sense of desperation is far from being as deep as the case has been in the Arab world. Why it was necessary for the Malaysian government to push through the unpopular Peaceful Assembly Act through Parliament this week was because of the historical precedent of demonstrations in 2007, which saw the opposition ride into power in five states the following year. Lacking better strategies at a time when elections need to be called, the Najib administration has decided to prevent a superficial repeat of BN’s losses. It is highly doubtful that it will work since the process of reform that has been going on since 1998 is far from over.

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31. A Long Life Lived In Politics*

The passing of Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu in November last year threw a challenge to all serious scholars of Malaysian history. Not much has so far been written about him. No doubt most books on the country’s political history do mention episodes such as his successful challenge against Tan Cheng Lock in 1958 for the presidency of the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), his failed attempt to gain extra seat allocations from Tunku Abdul Rahman in 1959, the triumph of the Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia in 1969, him leading the party into the Barisan Nasional in 1973, and the Penang economic miracle that he facilitated in the 1970s and 1980s. But further details are rare. Aside from the need to uncover details, a proper analysis into Tun Dr Lim’s life is required for several weighty reasons. His political life was after all impressively long—at least 40 hectic years; and through it all, he always played a major role. His struggles reflected in no uncertain terms major interrelated dimensions of Malaysian politics which are as relevant today as they had ever been.

Hastened Democracy

For one thing, the complications surrounding an electoral system that was put in place only when colonialism was no longer a viable option, and which had to evolve under great pressure from British haste to withdraw, inter-ethnic tensions and the communist insurgency, were all too evident. The immature democratic culture, along with the social diversity, saw the growth of a strong tendency towards consociationalism and coalition building.

* First published in Penang Economic Monthly, January 2011.

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The need for Malayan leaders of that time to arrive at a quick solution that showed sufficient promise for political stability, inter-ethnic compromise and effective anti-communism saw the innovation that was the Alliance Model being triumphant. Dr Lim was involved from the very beginning in Malaya’s electoral development, when his Penang Radical Party won the first ever municipal election ever held in the country. This was in George Town in 1951. By 1955, he had joined the MCA, and had become its president by 1958. The Alliance Model, constructed for the purpose of gaining independence, had the perpetual problem of seat allocation among its members. This was clearly seen in Dr Lim’s attempt to increase the MCA’s share. He failed, and soon had to leave the party. Party politics in Malaysia was always a knotty affair. Just as Onn Jaafar formed the Independence of Malay Party and then Party Negara after being forced out of UMNO as new vehicles for his political career, Dr Lim was instrumental in forming the United Democratic Party and then the Gerakan after leaving the MCA. The need among small parties to form coalitions was always strong, and in 1965, the UDP joined the PAP, the PPP and the SUPP to form the Malaysia Solidarity Convention. This failed, and after the Gerakan did well in the 1969 elections, we saw Dr Lim leading it into the Alliance coalition to form the Barisan Nasional by 1973.

Local vs National

Secondly, the relationship between local and national politics was always a tricky issue. The trend towards centralism was perhaps unavoidable, given the many social schisms that existed in the new country. For prominent politicians, the choice between participating at the state or the national arena was and is a perpetual quandary. Dr Lim, for example, was asked already in August 1957 to become the first chief minister of Penang. He refused, giving the reason that his father had recently passed away, and as a good Confucian, he could not as yet

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accept high office. This was a valid enough reason, but critics suspected that he was aiming for higher office at the national level. There is a basis for that latter belief. The following year, he was already MCA president, and if his attempt to gain more seats for the party had not gone so horribly wrong, he would have been highly influential in national politics after the 1959 elections. Dr Lim’s attempt at a comeback went via unsuccessful challenges through the UDP and the MSC. However, in the 1969 elections, benefiting from the leftist polls boycott, the Gerakan managed to secure the majority in Penang. Dr Lim became chief minister of his home state, twelve years after he had first refused that position. The racial riots changed the country’s political equation seriously, and no alternative coalition was possible after 1969. Dr Lim soon took Gerakan into the federal coalition, there joining the PPP and the Islamist PAS. With that decision, his political role became concentrated at the state level. Twenty years in national politics ended with him being the top politician in his home state.

Multiracialism vs Communalism

The third dimension in Malaysian politics evidenced in Dr Lim’s chequered career was the struggle between communal and non-communal party politics. The Alliance consociation and its queer brand of “multiracialism” had proved to be an electoral triumph, which put great pressure on noncommunal politicians to convince a communally conscious population that non-communal principles were preferable in the long run. The multiracial route Dr Lim sought before joining the Alliance and after leaving it ended up compromised under the umbrella of the BN. Whatever his reasons for taking that path, his political arena shrank from the national to the local, his popularity would slowly diminished, and the universalist principles of the Gerakan became effectively subsumed under the communal politics of the BN.

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To be sure, in the decades after 1969, the federal government undertook serious measures to curb the power of the states. The central soon overpowered the local, the communal the non-communal.

Intra-Group vs Inter-Group Conflicts

Finally, another truism revealed in Dr Lim’s experiences was the divisions within communal groups. These tended to run as deep as those between the groups. The myth of intra-ethnic unity had the vital function of sustaining inter-group divisions to suit certain agendas. One could argue that it was this inability to unite on the part of small non-communal parties that convinced Dr Lim in the end that if he wanted anything done, he had to compromise with the communal parties, and then hope for the best. To what extent this strategy actually worked in the long run is for future historians to ascertain.

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32. Anwar Acquittal Boosts Malaysia’s Opposition*

To the great surprise of many of his followers, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was found not guilty of the sodomy charge brought against him by a former aide. High Court judge Zabidin Mohamad Diah declared him innocent early on Monday morning, while huge crowds gathered outside the building in support of the former deputy prime minister. The DNA samples presented by the prosecution to prove Mr Anwar’s guilt, he decided, were compromised. The unexpected verdict may not prove that the judiciary is free of the executive, but it does show that the executive is not all-powerful. This is also the second time Mr Anwar has been acquitted on such a charge. After being sacked as the country’s second most powerful person by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed back in September 1998, he was jailed for misuse of power for six years. Just when a consecutive nine-year jail sentence for sodomy was to be served, the Federal Court overturned the decision in 2004. After that Mr Anwar’s return to the thick of politics was spectacular. He managed to sew together an electoral agreement in 2008 between his Parti Keadilan Rakyat, and the Islamist Parti Agama SeMalaysia and the Democratic Action Party. Not only did this lead to historical victories when the three parties won five of 13 states plus the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur, it also paved the way for Mr Anwar to regain his parliamentary seat.

New Generation

Although Monday’s verdict is being used by the government to rebut opposition claims that the country’s judiciary is strongly compromised by * In BBC Online, 9 January 2012.

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state intervention, the advantage gained from this will not be significant, given many other examples of bad governance. But the acquittal is a strong gust of wind in the sail of the opposition coalition, the Pakatan Rakyat (PR). While a guilty verdict would have provided the PR with powerful arguments about deteriorating governance, Mr Anwar being free to campaign is of much greater benefit to its chances of winning federal power. He is a formidable speaker, as was obvious during the last general election in March 2008 when many Malays swung to support him late in the campaign. Without that shift, the opposition would not have come close to making the impressive gains that they did. In the days before the verdict was due, Mr Anwar went on a whirlwind tour of the country to shore up support. He gave several speeches setting out the direction for his coalition, declaring that as many as 40% of the candidates that his own party would field in the coming elections would be new ones, who would be both young and educated. This was engineered to go down well with the growing crowd of reformseeking voters whose main complaint since 2008 had been that the calibre of PR lawmakers was less than impressive. With this, Mr Anwar signalled that his party did realise that a new generation of capable youths had to be recruited if his reform movement was to progress further. The weeks preceding the verdict also saw increased calls by student demonstrators to be allowed to participate in politics and to join parties. This right was constitutionally denied them after race riots took place in Kuala Lumpur in May 1969.

Conservative Change

This second sodomy case had been going on for three-and-a-half years, distracting Mr Anwar greatly at a time when the newly-formed opposition needed to concentrate its resources. The allegation came to public attention in June 2008, when Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, an aide newly recruited into Mr Anwar’s office, lodged a

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police report that his boss had performed sodomy on him. This hurt Mr Anwar’s crucial attempt at that time to convince government lawmakers to defect and join the opposition on 16 September, Malaysia Day, causing great damage to his credibility. Making Mr Anwar appear a morally dubious person has been the weapon of choice of his enemies for a long time. In 1998 a book titled “50 reasons why Anwar cannot become Prime Minister” was circulated among members of the ruling party, harming his reputation. In March last year, there was a further attempt to smear Mr Anwar’s reputation. A video was screened at a press conference, showing someone resembling Mr Anwar having sex with a supposed prostitute. Mr Anwar and his family denied that the person captured on film was him. Now that these smear campaigns are behind him, his coalition is expected to prepare for the coming elections with renewed vigour. Surviving the trial strengthens Mr Anwar’s standing as a comeback kid. The latest acquittal is not as much a defeat for Prime Minister Najib Razak as it is for the right wing in his coalition. After the 2008 election saw five states falling to the opposition, a polarisation took place within the ruling party between moderates who accepted that Malaysia was now a two-party democracy on the one hand, and a group who took it upon themselves to undermine the opposition and reverse the democratic process on the other. The prime minister’s only chance of winning electoral ground now is to enhance his image as a reformist leader. To do that, he must rein in the conservatives in his party.

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Timeline:

Anwar Ibrahim

1993 to 1998

Deputy Prime Minister, under Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad

1999

Jailed for abuse of power, sparking huge street protests

2000

Found guilty of sodomy with his wife’s driver

2004

Supreme Court overturns the sodomy conviction, freeing him from jail. He quickly emerges as the de facto opposition leader

Mar 2008

Ruling coalition narrowly wins general election, but with its worst results in 50 years. The opposition makes unprecedented gains

Aug 2008

Anwar charged with sodomy for a second time, but despite this is soon voted in as an MP

Feb 2009

Second trial for sodomy starts

Jan 2012

Acquitted of sodomy by High Court

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33. New Think Tanks For New Times*

This interview with YB Liew Chin Tong, outgoing Executive Director of Penang Institute and Member of Parliament for Bukit Bendera, discusses his understanding of the tasks think tanks need to adopt in the 21st century. Malaysian nation building has not been an easy process, and one of the negative developments it involved was not only a huge outflow of brains but also the outsourcing of thinking by the government. The latter has left governance in Malaysia in a sad state, run according to knee-jerk reactions and for populist appeal. Q: Tell us how you became involved in think-tank activities and in Penang especially? Well, after the Democratic Action Party won power in the state in early 2008, I had a discussion with the Chief Minister, Mr Lim Guan Eng, about the need for a new think tank in the state to supply the new state government with good advice based on good research. This would make full use of the many experts on urban and municipal government who can be found in Penang. Decision-making is essentially based on advice, which means that it is the duty of all of us to make sure that good advice is available, that sound information is available to the government and to society at large. This is something that I have always been convinced of; that the government needs a think tank; and that the party needs a think tank. What do you have otherwise? If the input is garbage, you cannot expect the output to be otherwise. If the quality and depth and breadth of advice is good, then decisions can be based on evidence. You cannot work based only on civil service advice.

* Profile in Penang Monthly, January 2012

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Once you have alternative advice alongside civil service advice, then you have policy dialogue. In Malaysia, we tend to have the civil service on one hand, and on the other, we have private interests. Of course, we cannot blame the latter for voicing their preferences and lobbying for their own benefit. What we need is something in the middle – a third force; and that is what think tanks should aim to be. Compared to civil society groups, think tanks have to function more broadly and be more result-oriented. In late 2006, I began heading a think tank in Kuala Lumpur called Research for Social Advancement (REFSA). This is now being led by Dr Teh Chi-Chang. Penang already had the Socio-economic and Environmental Research Institute (SERI). But I thought it best that we started a totally new think tank. I wanted to start from scratch. But since we have strong ties with Dr Toh Kin Woon, a compromise was arrived at, and the new state government decided to continue financing SERI. I became a board member in October 2008. Having my own vision and going it alone was very difficult. There was not much I could accomplish in the beginning. During the Christmas holidays in 2008, I had a long chat with the chairman of the executive committee, Datuk Seri Chet Singh, and we decided to bring in Deputy Chief Minister P. Ramasamy onto the board. I was pushing for a change in SERI leadership. I was suggesting for example that you, Kee Beng, could move back to Penang to take over. That didn’t happen. These discussions went on from April until late October 2009, when it was decided that I would be executive director, without pay. Q: What is it you want so bad to achieve at the institute? My wish has been to turn the institute into a place that could generate alternative advice for the state and the people, and help the state project

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itself beyond the nation-state. The future likes in cities. We see the world changing in front of our eyes, and yet we do not react accordingly. I remember talking in May 2009 to the late Tun Lim Chong Eu, the Chief Minister of Penang from 1969 to 1990, at the 90th birthday dinner we hosted for him. He said that we were in a period that was highly reminiscent of the post-WWII period, when the global financial system was being reconstructed. We are going through massive changes right now, no doubt about that. The whole of Asia has been relying on exports to the USA for its economic well-being. Those days are over, at least for a long time to come. Unemployment there is just too high, and they cannot really consume the amount we need them to consume. The type of globalization we have been seeing is at an end. Eventually, China, India and Indonesia are going to be the drivers in many ways. Now, how can Penang find its niche in this future growth area? We are right in the middle of this, geographically and even culturally. That is what the future looks like. So, you see how important I feel think tanks like Penang Institute are. Q: Some would say that you are being too idealistic. You see, the framework for decision making is extremely important. One must not make important decisions based only on verbal advice. That will lead to weak policies, and to the need to defend these weak policies. This can be tragic for society at large. You must formalize your framework, create good channels, and set the parameters. Thinking takes time, and thinking needs reliable information. With the name change from SERI to Penang Institute, we adopted several clusters for research. We have Penang Studies; we have Cities, Environment and Urbanisation; we have Economics and Entrepreneurship; we have Global Democracy, Social Justice, Gender and Equity.

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These are the areas we are hoping to work on, and we hope to build networks throughout the region in order to propel Penang onto a new level. Where Penang Studies is concerned, one can learn a lot from studying the post-Independence period in Penang. We need to study the policy ideas and the policy-making processes of that time. In the end, Penang Institute has to be a public policy body. We are creating the Lim Chong Eu public archives; and we are studying the George Town City Council period. This will help us think through our future, and about city environment and governance. Penang can be a role model for the region. In economics, we look at Penang within the regional framework to look for ways to enhance entrepreneurship and economic development. Lastly, we wish to understand more deeply issues of social injustice and inequality as manifested today. Q: You have now been Executive Director for two years at the institute. What do you see when you look back today? In 2009, we decided to revamp the institute’s magazine, Penang Economic Monthly, into the success it is today. I had been involved quite a lot in publications, and thought that the publishing licence the institute had was not being properly utilized, and the money was not being used effectively. All that was needed was vision and will to turn it into what it is today. This process itself reflects clearly, for me, the amazing cultural depth that Penang has, the potential it commands, the goodwill it enjoys. All this is on display in the magazine. Nowhere else, even in Kuala Lumpur, can such a magazine come into being. If any legacy of my time here is left in the years to come, I hope it will be the magazine. To be honest with you, looking back, I think we actually should have started a totally new organization. The whole process took too long, a lot of energy was wasted, and a lot of acrimony was created along the way.

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It was very uncharacteristic of a think tank for me to have had to fight so hard to have new ideas accepted. A think tank is a place where you have to be bold enough to experiment with ideas, and often with what seems to be small ideas. It is a place for experiments to create ways of thinking that can be replicated at a higher level. It was only when the state finally agreed to pump a substantial amount into Penang Institute – this was in mid-2011 – that we could have the structure for research that we now have. I told the board from the very beginning that I was not staying for long. The position was transitional for me. I wanted the name change from the start, in order to reflect Penang confidence in itself, to project Penang as a place to be reckoned with in the future, in the new Asia. We have held two major conferences and several key seminars; we did development blueprints for the state, the institute has published its first book (Pilot Studies for a New Penang, 2010) and the second is on the way (Catching the Wind: Penang in a Rising Asia, 2012). We have vibrancy now, and with the new recruits, and with Prof Woo Wing Thye taking over in March 2012, I think the future looks good. I must humbly add that given the long time I have been at SERI and Penang Institute, not much has been achieved, compared to what was actually achievable. The magazine of course is a resounding success, and the rest began moving only after Mr Steven Sim became our manager. The challenge now is for the institute to nurture middle-level experts in all the fields we are going into. That’s where our success or failure will occur. In conclusion, I would like to say that the point of having power is to empower others. It’s not that I have had much power, but I did punch above my weight, and that was thanks to people around me who worked with me. I have been fortunate in meeting the right people.

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34. Malaysian Envelopment*

How concepts relate to each other is always revealing. A close look at them always arouses new ways of thinking. The same goes for discovering the lost origins of words. Most of us have feasted ourselves on the connections between “revolution”, “evolution” and even “involution”. Lately, “devolution” has gained great relevance in the discussion about power structures in Malaysia. Then there is the gold mine of “reform”, “deform”, “inform”, “conform”, “uniform”, “perform”, “transform”, and what have you. Deconstructing these words in one’s head can be as much fun as food-hunting at a buffet; and as nourishing for the mind as the latter is for the body. One conceptual tie that I recently began frolicking in is that between “develop” and “envelop”. “Development” is of course the key word of our times, along with “Progress”. (Come to think of it, “progress”, “regress”, “degress”, etc, is another lode worth digging into). Now, “develop” comes from the French “desveloper”, which is built on “des-” or “dis-”, denoting “removal”, “release”, “deprivation” or simply a negation; and “voloper” which is probably of Celtic origin, signifying “to wrap”. To develop thus means to break forth, to bloom, or to evolve – perhaps in line with some essential and inherent nature, perhaps not. If we think of a child’s development, for example, then the notion, and the controversies involved, become quite clear. A child will change no matter what – it cannot help but “grow”, it has to “develop”. Whether we need to dictate over that process or whether that process is merely to be nurtured is the question. Is a growing child being “released” or being taught conformity?

* Editorial in Penang Monthly, March 2012.

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Do we discover – uncover – a young person’s talents, or do we provide him or her with form, thus informing his or her energy and curiosity? Now, “envelop” is a close antonym to “develop”. It comes from the French as well – envoloper, meaning to “wrap”, “enclose”, “conceal” or “obscure”. Looking at the process of change that new nations in our time go through, one may say that envelopment is the main ambition in the beginning. Borders are tightly secured, institutions centralised along with the army and the bureaucracy, and ethnic diversity discouraged, to say the least. Politics of identity come into play – geographically, symbolically, demographically, and educationally. A degree of political isolationism – even autism – is enforced. This is extreme in some cases, as in Maoist China, North Korea or Cuba. In Malaysia, politics of identity have been strongly ethnocentric, and not class-based. No doubt the idea did exist that cocooned in defensive envelopment, national development would take place to burst forth later in full cultural and economic brilliance – in some distant year, like 2020. But sad to say, this distrustful stage in the country’s early history has stymied much of the country’s considerable potential. The stage when development simply means blooming and empowerment has yet to come.

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35. Saving Federalism In Malaysia*

Malaysia had to begin life as a federation because, like all federations, its diversity of polity, culture, history, ethnicity and economy was simply too deep for a centrally controlled regime to be practicable. That was why the Malayan Union of 1946, hopefully constructed by a colonial power recovering from a devastating world war and that badly needed to simplify its control apparatus, could never succeed. Indirect and de facto colonialism was acceptable, but centralised and direct colonialism was too much for the Malay community to accept. And yet, as became clear in the aftermath of the 2008 general elections, the country nevertheless had in reality become centrally controlled by a coalition centred around UMNO (United Malays National Organisation), the party formed in 1946 by Onn Ja’afar to fight the Malayan Union. The 2008 election results can thus be read as a strong negative reaction by the newly liberated electorate to this sustained political denial of the country’s historical diversity. Centralism, as one can imagine, is anathema to a society that is so intrinsically diverse that the hybridism of its culture and history is what so many of its members are proud of. Malaysianness, to make any sense, is necessarily about cultural hybridism. Thus, Prime Minister Najib Razak’s slogan, One Malaysia, borders on being an oxymoron. Malaysia, by its very nature, is manifold in cultural character, and is all the better for it. What is also becoming clear globally is that the federal format for organising a modern state is a healthy compromise for counterbalancing the excesses of the nation-state format. For most societies, and certainly for those in culturally diverse regions like Southeast Asia, the nation-state uniform is too narrow and stiff to wear for too long. It is artificial in essential ways, and is constraining both * In New Mandala’s series “Malaysia after regime change”, Australian National University, 14 March 2012. Edited by Greg Lopez.

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inwardly and outwardly. Adjustments to this uptight uniform simply had to be made sooner or later. The rise of regionalism in recent times – in Europe, in Southeast Asia, and elsewhere – is a tailor’s adjustment to a suit made too tight. What we see happening in Europe are the effects of a regional organisation losing its strength because it had begun moving towards forming a super state instead of just remaining a loose uniform for a multitude of national identities to feel comfortable in. ASEAN does not run that risk because the region is obviously too diverse for anyone to seriously think of it in super-state terms. The organization was formed to lower barriers between newly- formed nation states because these barriers had immediately proved to have been built too high to be good for anyone. For peaceful relations to develop between these new political entities, a process of friendly dialogue and of limited integration between different actors had to be initiated. This began in 1967, and ASEAN has in that sense had respectable success over the last 45 years. Malaysia has also had respectable success over the last 55 years, but within it, the process of friendly dialogue and of limited integration between different actors has been a difficult one to sustain. On the one hand, the country was created in a federal format as a necessary expression of the political and ethnic diversity of its people. It would have been foolish to integrate the country too quickly, and certainly not in one fell swoop as the colonialists tried to do in 1946. On the other hand, a new country always risks disintegration if diversity is allowed to rule the day. And so, government by political coalitions became the new order. Onn Ja’afar’s attempt in 1951 to make UMNO represent all ethnicities failed for apparently going too far too fast. His willingness to compromise was seen by his followers as a sell-out. And so, what we ended up with was the Alliance Model. This coalition of communal parties would maintain “the process of friendly dialogue and of limited integration between different actors” and allow centralisation

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to take place through consociationalism. This model – especially after becoming the Barisan Nasional (BN) in 1974 – certainly had respectable success. But its path was a difficult one. UMNO’s dominance in this model was a given thing acceptable to the supporters of its allies if it stayed moderate, and if it maintained the goal of creating Malaysianness, as opposed to defending and prioritising Malayness. This was key. That was exactly why Mahathir Mohamed’s Vision 2020 and Bangsa Malaysia were highly successful slogans. In fact, they were coined exactly to conjure a future that was not ethnocentric and to project a culturally open Malaysia that was economically integrated with the region and the world. Significantly, racial tensions dropped radically throughout the 1990s in Malaysia, as compared to the period before, and the period after. The Reformasi Movement that began in 1998, as many have noticed, did not turn racial in any essential manner. It was as if Malaysia had turned a corner, and so we saw how Abdullah Badawi’s electoral triumph in 2004 was not based on ethnic issues, but on the promise of reform of governance. Things actually looked very good; and believe it or not, Barisan Nasional styled itself at that time as the champion of reform. But soon after that, the lessons learned were quickly forgotten. The undermining of major institutions during the Mahathir period was not reversed, and worst of all, UMNO leaders acted with public impunity; Islamist bureaucrats became openly arrogant; governance deteriorated further; and UMNO’s allies lost their voice. The coalition existed only in name. By this time, the federation also seemed to exist only in name, at least until the general elections of March 8, 2008 brought a new consciousness to Malaysia. The four years since the political equation changed so radically has seen a reawakening to Malaysia’s true nature. It is a diverse place; that is why it is a special place; and that it is why it is – and always has been – a federation. The lesson to be retained is that diversity is not disunity. Instead, it is the denial of diversity that leads to disunity. 104

36. Kuala Lumpur – Still Best At Being Middling*

I am sitting in a dear friend’s apartment in Hong Kong’s Wanchai district, looking across to Kowloon. Well, that’s not totally correct. I can actually not see Kowloon at all. The mist is so dense that even the vessels floating in the straits are not really visible. It is early spring, and the skies are overcast. But beneath this thick air, the streets are buzzing with life, and the deals in the offices and the businesses in the malls are steadily being done. This is one of the most important business districts in the world. The Economic Intelligence Unit has just ranked Hong Kong the fourth most competitive city in the world—and Asia’s second—after Singapore in third place. (New York and London still lead globally, with Paris placed alongside Hong Kong). I have in fact just arrived from Singapore and have just finished lecturing at a university here on the history of Malaysia—and of course necessarily also on the modern history of Southeast Asia. My mind is therefore filled with the infrastructural pattern for global trade found along the Asia Pacific coastline. Hong Kong was for quite a while the claw that British mercantilism plunged into the Chinese Imperial belly to attach the ancient dragon to modern global trade. Since then, the two worlds have become entwined, and the Asian Century is now taking concrete shape. All along the Pacific coast today, we see cities growing beyond comprehension. And if we look at EIU’s ranking for Overall Economic Strength, we get a glimpse of the future. The Chinese cities of Tianjin, Shenzhen and Dalian rank first, second and third respectively. Other Asia Pacific cities in the top ten on this list include Guangzhou, Shanghai, Tokyo, Chongqing and Beijing. Only New York (4) and Doha (5) are * This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia, 26 March 2012.

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from outside the region. If we look at the next five cities down this list, we get Qingdao, Chengdu, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and then Singapore at No. 15. Hong Kong comes in at No. 20 along with Hanoi, with Taipei at No. 29. To be sure, a ranking exercise should not be taken as Gospel truth, but a reputable one such as the EIU’s do highlight real trends. While the global future certainly looks more and more Chinese, most cities in the advanced world remain amazingly stable. Of the 20 most competitive cities, only Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul (at No. 20) are not Western. So where is Southeast Asia in all this? Well, among the top 60, only two countries appear – Singapore is way ahead at No. 3 while Kuala Lumpur is at No. 45. In EIU’s list of 120 cities, Kuala Lumpur beats Bangkok, which is at No. 61; Jakarta is at No. 81; Manila at No. 85; Hanoi at No. 104; Ho Chi Minh City at No. 109; Surabaya at No. 110; and Bandung at No. 114. Putting Singapore aside then, Kuala Lumpur actually leads the bunch of ASEAN cities found in the middle group in this race. As such, it seems not too bad a result. But let’s take a closer look at why it did not do better. Kuala Lumpur is placed at 10th for Financial Maturity, 28th for Environmental and Natural Hazards; and 35th for Global Appeal; it was ranked 44th for Economic Strength, 49th for Physical Capital and 46th for Human Capital; and did really badly where Institutional Effectiveness, and Social and Cultural Character are concerned. Economic Strength weighs the most, matching the next two categories of Human Capital and Institutional Effectiveness. Together they command 60% of the computation. Financial Maturity, where the city fares best, carries only 10%. This quick look at the detailed placing suggests strongly that it is in the heavy categories that Kuala Lumpur fared worst. What these figures tell us in the end is not anything surprising.

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Economic Strength and Human Capital are closely linked by issues such as the huge income gap, weaknesses in the educational system, a persistent brain drain, and a shortfall in attracting the right foreign talents. Institutional Effectiveness is concerned most heavily with issues such as “government effectiveness”, and “electoral process and pluralism”, and less weightily, with “local government fiscal autonomy”, “rule of law”, and “taxation”. Only in the last category would Malaysia have excelled. The country is thus in need of concerted reform. Getting poor marks for Social and Cultural Character is the big surprise, but would have been due to the bad press generated by fervent religious bureaucrats and by ethnocentric politicians. Now, let’s get back to the Asian Century. Kuala Lumpur once flew with second-tier geese such as Bangkok and Jakarta, just below high-flyers like Hong Kong, Seoul, Taipei and Singapore. Today, the latter are still flying high. The trouble for the second-tier is that although still second-tier, they are losing speed and running out of options. And at the same time, the East Asian skies are filling up with more and more geese, flying out of China and Vietnam. In that crowded space, Kuala Lumpur will need to drop as much baggage and as quickly as possible if it is to stay in the air. It will have to streamline its government apparatus, encourage the rule of law, rejuvenate its educational system, and accept the pluralism that a modern economy requires.

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37. ASEAN – A Post-Colonial Sisterhood*

With Myanmar opening up faster than anyone ever expected the question how ASEAN is to develop as a community in the near future gets ever more interesting. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link” is of course a saying that holds especially true for an organisation with 10 disparate members and which is given to unanimous decision making. Ever since Myanmar joined in 19997, it had been considered ASEAN’s stepchild – going its own way, recalcitrant and disliked by neighbours near and far. But ASEAN stay relatively loyal to its family member, mainly because it had no choice. But that patience seems to have paid off, and Myanmar has become the prodigal son returned to the fold. How much humble pie it will eat is anyone’s guess, but the recent election of Aung San Suu Kyi and her party into parliament bodes well for the country and ASEAN. It also brings us to the critical issue of how ASEAN’s viability and wellbeing are dependent on the state capacity of its members. That is also another way of saying that ASEAN’s progress as a community is dependent on the decolonizing cum nation-building process in each country syncing with each other. ASEAN as a community has capacity to act only if its member-states are politically stable and economically developing. This basically means that each of them must reach a point where it feels confident enough to cooperate and compete regionally, not to mention globally. To the extent they don’t feel that confidence, their governments take measures to isolate, if not the country’s whole political economy, then at least selected and strategic parts of it. * This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia, 28 April 2012.

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A case like Myanmar clearly had not felt it could handle foreign challenges when its own sense of unity and community was in question. All across ASEAN, we see that its members adopted different combinations of openness and protectiveness to facilitate its development and defend itself. These combinations do change, as we have seen in the case of the Indochinese countries. Whether or not these comprehensive measures were or are beneficial, well-advised or outmoded, the issue is still about a fear of outside forces overwhelming weak internal forces. This fear belongs within the scenario of colonialism and its successor, globalisation. This fear is certainly not an invalid one. However, defensiveness – like any state of besiegement – cannot be successful if the overall strategy for national development is not turned into an offensive one somewhere along the way. Myanmar’s isolation saw her becoming too dependent on one big ally— China, and that in the long run was not a good strategy if the point is to protect internal conditions. Creating a Myanmarese identity among disparate indigenous groups has not succeeded well. At the other end of the scale, we have Singapore, whose strategy for growth had been about harnessing global forces and moving with them. To do that, it had to curb political dissent to a degree quite uncommon for an economy that is so open. In Malaysia, what is internal and what is external was – and is – a big issue. From the start, UMNO’s demand for constitutional recognition Malay Special Position as well as the issue of citizenship for immigrants from outside the region, showed that the line between internal and external was hard to define. The result was in practice a two-tiered system of rights that continues to be the point of conflict for political contention and economic development. But in a regional context, such a need to differentiate what belongs within and what belongs without is badly outmoded.

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We have thus to see each ASEAN member-state as post-colonial entities still caught in a thankless battle of creating modern nation-states that can function regionally and globally. It is time that ASEAN as an organisation styles itself – not only as a forum where sovereign states meet each other as peers – but as a platform where this common historical and cultural dilemma is seriously discussed, so that mutual aid can be dispensed as if among fellow victims of the nation-state ideology. Seen as a region, national lines of cultural defence should not need to be as deeply dug as in the immediate post-colonial period.

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38. General Over A Hesitant Army*

And so the third Bersih rally has taken place. It cannot be understood in isolation from the political dynamics of the last few years. The demonstration itself went well, with tens of thousands of Malaysians taking to the streets, many dressed in the yellow T-shirt that has come to signify the nation-wide demand for electoral reforms. No violence had occurred by the time the organisers, led by former Law Council chairman Ambiga Sreenevasan, told demonstrators at around 2pm to disperse, having achieved the show of strength the movement had wished for to back its call to Prime Minister Najib Razak to ensure that the coming General Election would be free and fair. Exactly how violence between the riot police and demonstrators began is not clear. Rumours that agent provocateurs were responsible have been spreading. Whatever the case, the huge April 28 demonstration poses a serious challenge to the Barisan Nasional government, especially since the event received big support from similar rallies held simultaneously throughout the country and by Malaysians in dozens of cities throughout the world.

Taking His Time

As the Bersih movement developed from being an initiative thought up by opposition parties in mid-2005 to a civil-society organisation come July last year, the government has, for the most part, played a reactive role. Since taking power in April 2009, Mr Najib has initiated many reforms - the most noteworthy being the recent repeal of the Internal Security Act (ISA) of 1960 that had allowed for unlimited detention without trial. His personal popularity grew impressively as a result but, strangely, without the coalition that he leads gaining much from it. * In TODAY newspaper, Singapore, 30 April 2012.

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The problem for him is one of credibility. His predecessor, Mr Abdullah Badawi, was correctly advised in 2005 when he formed an independent commission to help him reform the police establishment. The hopes he raised then were dashed when he had to beat a retreat on that initiative and on many of his reforms. Mr Najib has learned from this and has taken his time to work out reforms that can be carried out. He has avoided using the ISA during his time in power, but he has also avoided trying to reform the police. The result of his premiership so far is somewhat mixed. Not only have his reforms not gone far enough and not only have they come a little late, he has also ben unable to convince voters that his coalition is behind him. He has become a general over a hesitant army. It is given the complete absence of police reforms that the violence involving the police in Bersih 2.0 and Bersih 3.0 is most significant. The question being asked is: If the executive is not reformed, then what significant good will the repeal of old laws bring?

Points For Effort, Not Effect

Sadly, Mr Najib has been allowing the right wing of his party to be actively and publicly provocative on issues of religion and race - something that has undermined his concept of 1Malaysia. This is even as major allies such as the Malaysian Chinese Association, the Malaysian Indian Congress and Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia have failed to carry out any noteworthy ideological or strategic changes that could win back votes for them. It explains why Mr Najib is gaining points for effort, but not for effect. He is indeed caught between a rock - his party hardliners, who seem to include his own deputy, Mr Muhyiddin Yassin - and a hard place - the obvious need for reforms. All this looms against a backdrop of budgetary issues, made worse by his inability to reduce subsidies and to implement goods and services taxes, and by the generous handouts to woo voters.

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In short, what has been unfolding in Malaysia over the last few years is actually a race between, on one side, a government run by a Prime Minister trying to win back votes without tweaking the establishment too radically, and who has thus been pulling punches where his reforms are concerned; and on the other, an opposition that is trying to rouse the population - particularly first-time voters - to political engagement.

Violence Did Neither Side Any Good

The opposition’s best bet to win federal power is for it to fuel the sense of empowerment among young and not-so-young Malaysians. Rallies like Bersih 3.0 are effective tools in that context. And the more peacefully such demonstrations are carried out, the more political activism will be generated. In light of this, the violence on Saturday was unexpected and did no good for either side. No doubt, Mr Najib has had to move carefully in formulating his reform measures, especially given the weakness of his own political position. But he is certainly running out of time. And should he fail to gain ground for the Barisan Nasional in the 13th General Election, that number might well prove to be an unlucky one for him.

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39. “Heal Malaysia” – A Slogan For The Elections*

We can read books on Malaysia’s history by scholars of various persuasions all we want. In the end, the solution to the ills suffered by the country over the last half century will have to come from discussions about principles, not about contested facts. We can blame the British for the mess they left behind, and for the even bigger mess they engineered as their retreat strategy, aimed at protecting their post-colonial interests. We can blame colonialism for forcing the Southeast Asian region – and the entire world in fact – into the legacy of the nation state and the ethno-nationalism and inter-communal tensions that always accompany it. We can also blame the dynamics of global capitalism for moving populations around just to suit the production lines of new industries. And we can blame them for destroying the fabric of so many cultures and civilizations. We Asians can of course also blame ourselves for not seeing it coming; for being self-satisfied; for putting too much weight on social propriety and not enough on intellectual stimulation; for being excessively prone to collecting and practising superstitions; for being male-dominated; for failing to develop scientific methods of knowledge generation; for being given to traditionalism; and for being subservient to power and for being accepting of hierarchies. I can go on, except that this blame game will not take us any place worth going to. No doubt, it bestows on us the addictive but sweet soreness of being among History’s fatalities, but that’s as far as it goes. We remain victims nevertheless, and we continue to revel in the impotent outrage of the passive victim. This outrage, like most traumas of youth, is essentially aimed inwardly at our own body. Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed may be * Editorial in Penang Monthly, May 2012.

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best remembered for trying to aim our bile outwards, but even then he was inexcusably indiscriminate and opportunistic when doing that. That is perhaps the prerogative of youth—to blame everyone but oneself. As we mature, as individuals and as a nation, we should realise that the best revenge is to live well. By living well, we terminate the impact others have had on us; and by living well, we heal ourselves from within. Turning what seems a losing hand into a strong one is the only way to go, to my mind. We are divided by race and religion, a division that was perpetuated by the politics of our youth. As we mature, we should realise – and this is in itself the surest sign of our maturity – that our heart-rending divisions of race and religion are badly exaggerated to serve a few. It is only by realising that our victimhood continues only because we allow it to, can we someday laugh at the foolishness of youth and move towards closing our wounds. As a country, Malaysia was an untidy patchwork; and thus as a people, Malaysians began life divided. To move beyond that, an inclusive mindset must be nurtured to the point where differences are fêted and divisions despised. Only Malaysians can heal Malaysia.

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40. Putting May 13 To Rest*

Undoubtedly, the self-image of a nation includes the memory of key events from the past. These may include those whose impact on the course of events was so strong that no narrative, either by historians or by the layman, can ignore them. And then there are those whose impact is less obvious, and whose place in the national imagination is more political than historical; more symbolic than iconic. Thus, for Americans, the depiction of George Washington crossing the Delaware projects ideas of resilience, righteousness, conviction, and final victory. It also conveys pride that all those who wish to see themselves as Americans can imbibe and through it, feel a sense of common belonging. The Chinese Communist Party has always used images of the Long March of 1934-35 to good effect to convey heroism and hardiness on the part of survivors of those who escaped Kuomintang ambushes. Not only countries, but movements as well, use historical moments to visualise ambitions and ideals, often with the help of charismatic personalities. The civil rights movement in America had Martin Luther King Jr announcing his dreams on 28 August 1963 to the crowd outside the Lincoln Memorial, and Alberto Korda’s photograph of Ernesto “Che” Guevara quickly became a seductive image in the minds of revolutionary urban youth, of the idealistic activist doomed to glorious failure. Malaysian independence is inevitably associated with the film clips of Tengku Abdul Rahman declaring “Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!”. The sight of the Tengku raising his hand in triumph served not only to immortalise the occasion, but also to express the oneness of the country forever more. As an instrument for stimulating and sustaining sentiments of unity and community among Malaysians, that moment remains unsurpassed. * This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia, 28 May 2012.

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Malaysians do not have many more figures or occasions to feel collectively proud about. Even Malaysian sportsmen or sportswomen of today, no matter how successful on the world stage, do not enjoy unreserved cheer from all segments of society the way Malaysian badminton players and footballers used to in the early years of nationhood. In that sense, the Malaysian nation-building project has been failing. Without a doubt, the Petronas Twin Towers in the heart of Kuala Lumpur do generate a sense of identity and pride even among critics of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed. But that has a hard time trying to overshadow former Home Affairs Minister Hishammuddin Hussein waving a drawn keris in public three years in a row at the UMNO general assembly; or Malaysian riot police using tear gas and water cannons on demonstrators in Kuala Lumpur. The promise that the triumphant raising of the Tengku arm in 1957 held is definitely not reflected in the indignant raising of the keris by Hishammuddin in 2007. Somewhere in between, the project of creating national unity went seriously off track. Between those years, the greatest outbreak of violence was on May 13, 1969. And it is perhaps the divisive ghosts that appeared after that event that haunts the nation and keeps one citizen separate from the other. Like a pusher wishing to sell a drug to the unwitting first-time user, the significance of May 13 was repeatedly hard-sold by the post-1969 political establishment to a confused and cowed citizenry. The trauma became an imagination based on narratives more than on actual experience. The lived experience of daily life as individuals is not something that can be drowned out, deleted or diluted by historical images and narratives. And that is perhaps where some hope lies for Malaysia to get over May 13. Giant demonstrations such as Bersih 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, in which all ethnicities participate in support of something technical like electoral reforms and not something touchy like ethnic rights; and where the opponent is the impersonal state promise to have a cathartic effect on the population of Kuala Lumpur, where the riots of May 13 took place.

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Admittedly, May 13 should not be trivialised. However, it was very much a Selangor event and not a Malaysian trauma as such. The subsequent measures treated it like a national disaster and forced Malaysians to imagine the riots as something essential to the country’s DNA, and thus, something within Malaysians which they themselves must always fear. However, new young minds contain other ghosts and other traumas that are more personally experienced, such as being treated unfairly by bad governance, being taken for fools by the government or any political party, being kept poor while others prosper unjustly. These are more real than old narratives. To be sure, Poverty and the lack of social mobility are traumas that traverse the generational gap much more easily than images of chaos from 43 years ago. In short, Malaysians today deal with traumas that are more real to them than those imposed on them by images of May 13.

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41. Past Cures As Present Addictions*

A dialogue about something as serious as regime change in Malaysia must examine at least two vast subjects. Firstly, a thorough and open discussion about the historical conditions under which the Federation of Malaya, and then Malaysia, was constructed is vital to any deep and practical understanding of the strengths and failings of the political structure as it exists today. Political solutions in times of inevitable change – as was the case in the region in the 1940s and 1950s – are about settlements between those wishing to cut losses and those seeking to maximize benefit. Those less able to make their voices heard were, simply put, left unheard. In such times, negotiations happen under threat, stress and duress; and the solution is a mixture of ad hoc measures and meticulous planning; and a blend of concession and conflict. In Malaya in the decade after 1945, major actors included shell-shocked British colonial masters recently returned to a scene they did not and could not recognise; the Malayan communists; emergent independence movements stretching from far left to far right led by leaders surprised at their own daring and intoxicated by their apparent historical role; the sultans and rajas, and many more. The main issues were: The Cold War; the status of the sultanates; the status of immigrants; the nature of the emerging country; the future of British power; and the timing of the transfer of power and to whom. Equally important and often forgotten is the role ideas coming out of neighbouring Indonesia played, and the impact that momentous political events happening in the former Dutch colony – especially the republican revolt in culturally related eastern Sumatra which culminated in the * In New Mandala’s series “Malaysia after regime change”, Australian National University, 30 June 2012. Edited by Greg Lopez.

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summary execution of aristocrats and others – had on the course of events on the peninsula. Cutting losses for the British meant giving up the ill-fated Malayan Union almost as soon as it was announced, for fear of a social revolution also taking place in Malaya at a time when the Cold War was heating up. This, the British could not afford. With the Federation of Malaya in place – an agreement between the British and the Malay leadership, which was highly conservative and supportive of the status quo in comparison to the Malayan Union – the war with the communists could be effectively fought. At the same time, the related issues of immigrant rights and indigenous rights were solved through the construction of the Alliance, to which independence was given. When this structure broke down in 1969, the diagnosis was that Malay poverty had not been alleviated and democratic practices had been too extreme. The post-May 13 regime was thus built upon a neutered parliament and a comprehensive nation-building programme fixated with issues of race. By 1990, religion had also become a major political discourse riding on the formidable back of the New Economic Policy. The Alliance also transformed itself into the Barisan Nasional, which in many essential ways was a totally different creature from its predecessor. The power the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) gained through the new power structure, the new ideology, and the new laws could only grow excessively, and lead to economic and political excesses. The second requirement in discussing regime change is to understand what the situation is like today, given how past cures to past ailments became addictions, and have locked political discourses into a fixed and shallow pattern, and given how global and national socio-political and socio-economic conditions have developed. In truth, had the latter not changed radically, the need for change that so many feel today would not have been as significant or as intense.

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Wishing for change is one thing, but the country’s ability to handle that change is something else. It must be broadly admitted that the need for change was precipitated by the excesses of recent decades that also left the country with weaknesses that it must now remedy if it is to take full advantage of the situation in order to leap into a new stage of national development. Here, there is no need to reiterate socio-economic changes that many believe explain the socio-political processes that have occurred since 1998. It is more cogent instead to identify where effort must now be expended to ensure that a more united and happy country grows out of this transitional period. Policy-making competition is the new game in town and throughout the country. And it is this that explains why the accelerating call for decentralisation seems so important. Too much centralisation is logically anathema to policy-making competition, simply put. Aside from decentralisation measures, be these fiscal or not, certain trends need to be enhanced which are necessary if good, clean and effective governance is to be the long-term result. Here, I shall mention two of them. First, Malaysia needs to continue developing a trustworthy and professional journalist culture that keeps an engaged citizenry informed about what is going on in the country and stimulates in citizens a sense of ownership in the governing of the country. Information technological advancements are already pushing things inevitably in that direction, but raising journalism to a higher professional level is an ethical imperative and a necessity that requires concerted and conscious effort from all involved. Second, experts and intellectuals need to be brought back to the centre of policy making. Policy making is too important to be left only to politicians. Politicians need the help of the various types of experts. For expertise to be brought to bear on policy making, you need institutions

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created for that purpose, either as think tanks, or advisory units within ministries and universities. Outsourcing of thinking to produce political spin is a practice that is demeaning to the citizenry and should be stopped. What Malaysians need to realise when pushing for change is that the process will require them to discard what they are used to. They will have to rise above lowly feelings of envy, greed and racialism that the past encouraged in them, and instead call upon their nobler sentiments to build a country all can be proud of.

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42. Rules Of The Road Are Best Practices For Good Governance* One fantastic thing about globalization is the knowledge easily available to us about how best to do things in any specific field. This can be about managing a company, educating a child, running a kindergaren, organizing a kitchen, growing a garden, or maintaining your car. This incredible access to information is also a great spring for inspiration. A virtual world for competitive innovations is created. And so, through globe-spanning dynamics, we are able to develop for any chosen field what are called “best practices”, which can be applied by anyone. The world is turned into a laboratory because ideas put into practice in one part of the world can be judged by other parts for efficacy and suitability, and adopted. In a real sense, technical practices are successively improved through learning from the faults of others anywhere in the world, and in any field. But what about good governance? Can we learn from one another in how best to govern a country? Just as important a question to ask is, how is compliance to be inculcated in members of society and how do citizens best contribute to good governance? The relationship between the maker and the follower of rules is dialectical, to be sure. The one responds to the other while the other adjusts his behaviour accordingly. Needless to say, governments do study each other, but more often than not, whenever they see some promising innovation that seems to work but that may threaten their world view or their power, they can always find an excuse to abstain from importing it. However, there is one wide area of governance where we see a lot of borrowing, and a lot of streamlining towards what must be called “best practices”. This is in traffic control. * This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia, 30 July 2012.

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Signage and traffic rules tend not to differentiate between rich and poor, young and old, or man and woman. There is an inherent fairness in that sense. The sign that says No Parking demands that of every driver and every vehicle. A Proton must obey as must a Ferrari. A No Entry sign is not aimed only at bumiputera drivers and not at non-bumiputera drivers, but at all drivers. Breaking the speed limit is not allowed for any driver. The red light means Stop, as does the amber, and the green basically says Don’t Stop. Now, getting a driving licence involves a process of social learning, just as social life in general does. You learn how to behave. You learn your rights and you learn the rights of others, and you learn how to give way. You learn your duties, at least ideally. Now this ideal picture provides as peacefully functional a situation as one can hope for in complex societies. We do have here all the requirements of “Best practices” where governance is concerned. The regulations are clear, simple and easily understood; they can be amended when found to be inadequate; and they apply to all. Controversies are also in principle resolvable, and are often technical in nature. The goal is also obvious—safety on the roads and efficient traffic flow. Exceptions to rules are no doubt necessary here and there since rules can be too categorical. We do have No Entry signs which may not apply to ambulances or delivery lorries; and we can grade stopping on roads from Parking Allowed, to Waiting Allowed But Not Parking, to No Waiting Allowed. The reason for exceptions is often obvious. Real trouble starts when exceptions appear through inefficient law enforcement or bribery. When rules need not be obeyed, then they lose legitimacy. When law enforcers can be bought, then the law-breaker calls the shots. On a related matter, we have all over the last 50 years or so seen antilittering signs in Malaysian cities, but when have they ever exerted any control over our littering behaviour? I dare say, never. Not since the

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beginning because there was never any serious enforcement. Same thing goes for traffic rules and for the rule of law in general. If the process of law-making is dubious through excessive politicking or because of a lack of popular participation; if laws are formulated to serve clearly partisan interests; if laws once passed are not respected by law enforcers themselves, or by the country’s leaders; then one cannot expect citizens to develop respect for them. Abiding by the law will not become second nature to them. Instead, what develops in them aside from a deep disdain for authority is a culture of looking for shot cuts and a penchant to try to beat the system. Where road behaviour is concerned, obstructive parking becomes endemic, speeding becomes a common place, the amber light means Hurry Up and not Stop, and the traffic police are just an eternal nuisance to be waved off with a hundred-ringgit bill. A reliable traffic police is therefore key to good governance. If the public cannot trust its traffic police, it can disregard the rules, and it cannot feel any sense of respect for the country’s governance, not to mention its government. And the dialectical relationship between top and bottom, instead of going upwards towards more compliant and lawful behaviour, spirals downwards into a disrespect for rules even when these were developed for the obvious good of all. Good governance is not a difficult thing. We already know how it can be obtained. It is not nuclear science, it is found in the highway code.

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43. Dignity Is The Basic Human Right*

The so-called Arab spring that began with the public suicide on 17 December 2010 of a miserable Tunisian vegetable seller whose cart was towed away by the police is often denoted a pro-democracy movement. That latter term is technically correct, seeing how it quickly led to the fall of dictators and to popular elections in certain Arab countries. But the easy categorization of these momentous events as a struggle for democracy, besides reducing human yearning into a simple wish to vote, conceals a profound truth about human despair and political coercion. Surely despairing for a right to vote was not what the Tunisian jobless graduate Mohamed Bouazizi had on his mind when he set fire to himself. What was he protesting against? What was his despairing about? What was he wishing to draw attention to? His poverty? His public embarrassment? The loss of his last chance to have some semblance of control over his own life? Certainly. His was the final weapon of the weak. His loud death ignited uprisings throughout the region, showing how his situation was common to many. Such spontaneous and dangerous protests carried out by so many in the face of military force tells us something very profound about the human condition, and it should remind us that democracy is a means only, though to a very important end. That end is human dignity. I venture that it is the loss of dignity that brings the greatest despair. What enrages any individual most if not an attack on his or her dignity or the dignity of someone close?

* Editorial in Penang Monthly, August 2012.

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At a daily level, it is interesting to note that anyone attacking the dignity of another is most often deemed to be undignified. This tells us how central it is to our sense of propriety and fairness that we possess dignity, but that we respect the dignity of others. The golden rule that Confucius formulated 2,500 years ago still holds— “Do not do unto others what you would not have others do unto you”. We value our dignity and therefore should know that such is the case for other human beings as well. Of course, social relations are always difficult especially across cultural or class lines, and transgressions are made that are not meant. But that is why we have the word “Sorry”. The struggle by people like Dato Ambiga Sreenevasan (featured this month) is therefore not simply about improving the electoral system of Malaysia. It is about the dignity of the Malaysian voter, and therefore the Malaysian as a human being. It is about the right not to be manipulated. Bigotry of any kind does not survive in the mind of one person. It exists because a collective that does not see human dignity as a basic social value and the most important human right allows it to exist. And when collective attitudes like racism constitute the fabric of a society, what you get is a society without a sense of shame.

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44. The Nation Must Embrace A New Stage In Its Development*

Elections are on the way, and an endless stream of promises will be forthcoming. The good thing is that Malaysians are such a politically savvy people – and this is paradoxically a sad reflection on the state of politics in the country’s recent history – that they will in most cases be able to tell a sincere promise from a blatant lie. But that ability is not good enough if the country is to mature further. No doubt, the country now has a proper opposition;
a government that knows it has to respond to rising demands for reform; and a civil society in the form of the Bersih movement for clean and fair elections, which has brought a sense of growing empowerment to the general public. But for real change to come, the sense of being accountable among politicians, and what that accountability can mean for their personal career if the law is properly followed, must be sharpened. And the people who can hurry that process along are voters and social activists, not only other politicians. Being politically perceptive is one thing, but being nevertheless passive despite that has, over the decades, spawned a psyche of skepticism, if not cynicism, among Malaysians. This passiveness in the ruled encouraged arrogance and ignorance in the ruler. Thus, this unhappy balance is most effectively unhinged by the ruled. The rulers may tweak but only the ruled can reset the system. Putting constructive demands on politicians becomes the responsibility of the citizen. Being lied to is not all right; being manipulated is not all right. What is at stake here is the future dignity, not only of the individual citizen but also of the country itself. The nation-building process is far from over, and if there is anything that other cases throughout the world

* This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia, 25 August 2012.

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have taught us about nation-building, it is that it occurs in stages. This means that one has to expect stages of radical change to be followed by periods of conservative politics, and vice versa. This staggered process starts with the physical integrity of a country. Thus, securing and defining borders is the initial priority, taking place alongside the wild need to decide what is local and what is alien, and to understand what belongs within and what needs to be expunged. We saw this clearly when China kicked out foreign invaders, and the ruling Kuomintang in the process; we saw India booting out the British (and splitting into three countries in the process); and we saw the Vietnamese repulsing the French colonialists and then the Americans. The cases are numerous. Malaysia managed to secure independence with relative ease, but had to spend a decade deciding what its borders should be and fighting off aggression from its Indonesian neighbours. What seems to follow the securing of geopolitical integrity is that of impassioned contention over internal group relations; be these ideological, ethnic or religious. Malaysia thus went through two difficult decades following the racial riots of 1969. In the 1990s, Malaysia experienced a third stage in its development, one that we may call conceptual unification. The idea of Vision 2020 and Bangsa Malaysia proved an acceptable notion to many Malaysians, and with the fortunate economic growth of that period, the country made a great and positive impact on the world. But in each of these stages, the solutions were never perfect, nor could they have been expected to be. What the present generation of Malaysians has to deal with then, are the accumulated defects of these solutions. The crisis of 1997/98, in many socio-economic and political aspects, continues to plague the country. The budgetary deficit has continued to grow despite reductions in the first few years of the Abdullah Badawi administration; the social activism unleashed by the Mahathir-Anwar conflict has developed beyond recognition; and the leadership crisis that expectedly

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followed the retirement of strongman Mahathir is not over. Malaysia is thus at the crossroads, and few would disagree that the 13th general election will herald even greater changes for the country no matter who the victor turns out to be. The dynamics of nation-building, boosted by regional and global changes, appear such that the question is HOW the country is to change, not IF it should change. Seen in that light, the responsibility that lies with the urban and educated young of all ethnic groups is great. How the country positions itself and what new self-image it develops in the coming years will decide its ability to compete and mature in a world changing beyond recognition. Staying skeptical or cynical is not an option. Inclusiveness in ethnic, political and geographic terms is key, as is the integrity of the government and its institutions. The challenge is huge indeed, and the initiative lies not with the government but with a citizenry newly educated, newly urbanised and newly empowered.

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45. Marks Of A Sincere Malaysian Leader*

There is an anecdote told among close acquaintances of the late Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s feared and respected Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister in the early 1970s, that he once in confidence said that he felt he was at heart a greater racist than in his actions, unlike most of his politician colleagues, who were more opportunistic and were racists in words and deeds, but not at heart. And yet, he was the Malay leader that Chinese Malaysian leaders of his day trusted. In fact, even Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore has often reiterated that Tun Dr Ismail was the only Malaysian leader he had faith in. As a reflection of the Malaysian culture prevalent during his time perhaps, many of his best friends throughout his life were non-Malays. When Tun Dr Ismail was growing up in Johor Bahru, among his family’s closest friends were the Cheahs, the Kuoks and the Puthuchearys. Dr Cheah Tiang Eam was a medical doctor who was very close to Ismail’s father, Abdul Rahman Yassin. Ismail’s elder brother, Suleiman, later a member of Malaya’s first Cabinet, was sent to the Cheah home to learn English manners from Mrs Cheah, who was an English lady. Ismail was especially fond of the youngest Cheah daughters, who later married the Kuok brothers, Philip and Robert. The Kuoks would be among Ismail’s closest friends in adult life. The painful process of securing independence and negotiating a workable path of nation building in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s seared the ever-present issue of race onto the political foreground, where it has stayed until today. Racial issues submerged consciousness of the interethnic exchanges and cultural hybridisation, which continued nevertheless. Understandably, in many Malaysians, strong ethnocentric emotions were

* In New Mandala, Australia National University, 26 September 2012. Edited by Greg Lopez.

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stimulated for a time, something that the ensuing politicking would not allow to dissipate. What went wrong, of course, when we look back over the last few decades, was that they allowed themselves to be manipulated into seeing themselves exhaustively in racial terms and not in citizenship terms. The political establishment grew to depend on this discourse, and turned it into a chronic pathological state.

The Golf Handicap

Where policy making was concerned, Tun Dr Ismail saw racialism as a technical issue, and not a matter of rights. An unhappy and unacceptable historically given socio-economic condition had to be rectified for the country to move on—and that condition happened to have an extremely strong ethnic element to it. That was the reason why Malaysian politics had to have such a strong racial slant. It was a historical contingence. One of his more memorable ideas was his famous use of the golf handicap metaphor to explain affirmative action for the Malays—the NEP. Having the handicap system is meant, firstly, to allow those weaker in the sport to participate, and secondly to provide these newcomers with opportunities to improve their game and to lessen their handicap successively. The aim is for as many players as possible to have as low a handicap as possible. Realising the danger that the NEP could devolve into an exercise in Malay entitlement if not properly handled, he pushed for a twenty-year limit to be put on it. The poignant point in Tun Dr Ismail’s admission about his feelings – and it is one that forces all of us to be sincere at least to ourselves – is that what makes a man good and a leader great is not what his innermost feelings are but how he rises above them. As the celebrated scholar Prof Wang Gungwu once told me: “We are all racially biased in our feelings at some level; but what is essential is how we rise above them in our actions”.

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This attempt at rising above his feelings was what enabled Tun Dr Ismail to reach across ethnic divides. It was also well-known that he strongly disliked the term “Bumiputera” and feared that it would disunite Malaysians. He felt it best not to confuse the issue by lumping Malays with other groups. Tun Dr Ismail enjoyed widespread respect from all who knew him and instilled awe in his subordinates because he could not stand fools. That trait is more important than one might think. If one takes the duties of leadership as seriously as he did, then subordinates or peers who did not feel a sense of urgency in what they did actually undermined one’s labours. In fact, he was feared as a medical doctor as well, never tolerating patients who showed signs of self-pity and who were psychosomatic. As his Johor Bahru neighbour Robert Kuok would later say, “Doc would not have fared well running a medical clinic”. Politics became Ismail’s calling instead, and self-discipline, practical wisdom, and a strong ethical sense would mark his career. He could not stand corruption either, as was seen in how he with a shouted threat of prosecution sent away a Chinese vendor who had delivered vegetables and other goods to his home as gifts for his family. Despite being Home Affairs Minister, it was nevertheless Tun Dr Ismail’s vision of a neutral Southeast Asia which came to define the country’s foreign policy that has remained so successful and consistent till this day. As Tun Abdul Razak’s main confidante, he exerted a greater influence over the early years of Razak’s premiership than is normally assumed. When news of his demise in September 1973 reached Razak in Ottawa where the prime minister was attending a Commonwealth meeting, the latter practically collapsed and had to be medicated. Tun Razak later lamented: “Whom shall I trust now?” Tun Dr Ismail has been dead for 40 years now, and Malaysia has changed greatly. But his legacy of inclusion and moderation, and honest

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and honourable leadership, is unforgettable and can yet inspire new generations of Malaysians from both sides of the political divide to lead with wisdom. Perhaps we will yet see a Malaysia that strives to unite its people; that spontaneously celebrates its diversity; and that acts on universal human principles instead of demeaning opportunism. I would venture that that was the Malaysian Dream from the very start.

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46. Impressions Of Istanbul, Or How History Never Ends*

Its very name is magic…Istanbul. All its old names are magic…Byzantium …Constantinople. They conjure images of ancient civilizations, always fighting each other, and sometimes enriching each other. But in the end, they had to merge to leave a skyline that fascinates any visitor to this city; and a cultural wealth that takes any person’s breath away. How does one not love those minarets? They may be somewhat ubiquitous, but they never fail to catch one’s interest. How not to be awed by the Blue Mosque, by Hagia Sophia, by the Walls of Constantinople? By the Archeological Museum? By the food? How does one best describe this enchanting place where northern waters join southern seas, and where eastern paths separate from western roads? Is this where East and West assemble, or is this where East and West split? Today, the answer does not seem important. Walking at an end-ofseason late summer’s day down the famous and fabulous 3-kilometre long promenade, İstiklâl Caddesi, from Taksim Square in the north down to the exciting Karaköy fish market beside the Golden Horn by the Galata Bridge, one is struck by how this sprawling city is Central Asian, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean, all at once. It is Muslim, it is Orthodox Christian, it is Greek, and it is Roman. It is imperial. Of Turkey’s 77 million people today, 15 to 19 million live in Istanbul. This means that every fifth Turkish citizen resides in this city. And despite oversimplifying official figures telling us that as many as 99% of Istanbul’s residents are Sunni Turks, the profound ethnic mix is all too obvious. In short, I am seeing before me not only the end product of 500 years of Ottoman ethnic integration, but that of many more centuries of painful * This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia, 24 September 2012.

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intermingling before that. The names of ethnic groups and kingdoms mentioned in the amazing Istanbul Archeological Museum, for example, and who existed in Anatolia and its surroundings read like the Bible and more. Crusaders have been here, Vikings have been here. Huns, Persians, Arabs, you name it, they have been there. The proud faces one sees are not easy to place. For people living in what is often called a crossroads, they seem to belong so infinitely to the place though. This is a meeting place of civilizations; and as we know, civilizations do not always meet with open arms. Its history has been as much about war as anything else. But then, conflicts and contradictions do find common ground when covered by the sands of time. At the moment, Istanbul exudes the modern pride of its Turkish inhabitants. Their recent economic growth has been miraculous. While East Asia buckled under its financial crisis in 1997-98, Turkey suffered its own only in 2001. This quickly led to financial and fiscal reforms that succeeded and saw the country grow at an annual average of 6% after that. 2009 was a bad year when the economy actually contracted, but since then the rebound has been dramatic. The Turkisk GDP grew by 9% in 2010 and by 8.5% in 2011. There are fears about the current account deficit amounting to 10% of GDP, and the inflation rate going above 10% earlier this year. The property market has also worried observers, who see a housing glut happening. This is however not like the situation in Ireland or other EU countries, and seems to be more an asset bubble where too many new developments seek higher income buyers, and ignore the needs of the lower classes. Definite signs of a slowdown this year have been welcome by the authorities, who are hoping for an economic soft landing. But the general optimism remains high. For example, the first eight months of this year saw 6.2 million foreign visitors live in Istanbul’s many hotels, eat in its fragrant restaurants, and walk its busy streets. This is 18% more than in the same period last year. And we are talking only about foreigners, most of whom were Germans abandoning their traditional

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holiday spots in Greece for the fresher and more affordable exoticism of Istanbul. Domestic tourism figures, if available, would be much more daunting. The interest of Germans in Turkey is not unexpected since 10.1% of Turkish exports go to them. This figure is nicely balanced by 9.5% where imports are concerned. Turkey’s other major trading partners are Russia and China. I digress. I had meant to write a travel piece on Istanbul, but it is difficult not to try to capture something of the economic optimism permeating the streets of this city that is now a successful modern Muslim-majority economy where half the work force is in services, a quarter is in agriculture and the rest in industry. But back to impressions of Istanbul. A simple two-hour boat trip up the Bosporus alone is mind-boggling enough. One gets a better idea of how big the city actually is, how it stretches across both sides of the waters, and how it is joined by gigantic bridge after gigantic bridge. Political troubles at distant borders seem far away, and one senses the cultural and geographic – and geopolitical – vastness that Turkey still commands today. One also feels how it will be the centre of an influential Turkic world that stretches from the hills of Istanbul to the mountains of China. At the same time, despite the continental expanse, one is reminded that modernity – if I may use that much maligned word loosely here – is an urban process. But it is an urban process that is just the latest in a string of urban processes. It is faster today perhaps and draws on impulses from further away perhaps, but it is still an urban process of creating wealth and value through commercial and cultural interaction with other cities and peoples of our diverse world. The intermingling continues.

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47. School Is Dead, Long Live Education*

Under the rubric of Nation-building, countries throughout modern times have been struggling to construct institutions that can safeguard national independence, bring economic growth, and create a harmonious society. Thus, small and new countries like Malaysia have been frantically trying to put their house into some semblance of good order, and play catch-up on as many fronts as possible. It is a valiant – and yes, defiant – project. But the trap they tend to fall into is to adopt a defensive attitude in protection of the often innovative measures taken by their founding fathers. In the process, they also perpetuate the national nationalistic mindset that was appropriate in earlier times. This navel-gazing – which is what it becomes in the end – saddles later generations with leaders and civil servants who through lethargy if nothing else, are keepers of the past and not nation-builders for the future. It leaves them oblivious to the fact that the race is not so much against time as against further global technological and other advancements moving beyond its people ability to comprehend and utilize. Once that happens, provincialism takes hold and scientific thought is ignored. So, this brings me to the importance of education—and to the challenges that developing and even developed nations face. What has democratically been an incredibly liberating factor in modern life is the universal access to education. Except among Talibans in Afghanistan, this is now an unquestioned claim. Nothing undermines authoritarianism the way a good education does, and nothing spurs social mobility in post-colonial and post-feudal societies the way mass education does. Without the enormous investments put into schooling, the huge income gap that now troubles successfully developing countries like China, Singapore and Malaysia would be much worse. * This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia, 29 October 2012.

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Poor kids can beat a path to a professional career and a decent living through education. However, schooling and education are not static things. As we know, the school system that most countries still use today was actually constructed to serve 19th century industrialisation. [Here, I would suggest readers listen to Ken Robinson’s lectures available at http://www.ted.com.] The speed at which new knowledge is being generated is exponential, and simply beyond imagination, be this in biology or computer science, mathematics or geography. And even more importantly, the amazing advancements in communication technology over the last three decades, and even over the last three years (what with smart phones, the wi-fi revolution, the search engine revolution and the social mass media), have turned old educational structures into a hindrance. The race to innovate in the global education industry is on; and it is a race that must push us to ask if further investments in schools and school buildings are a good idea; if squabbling and quibbling over languages of instruction is costing us too much time, resources and opportunities or not; if the teaching profession should not undergo a painful revolution; and if it is perhaps time to release the brakes on development which postindependence thinking has become.

Access To Knowledge

What has become obvious today is that access to knowledge – crispy new knowledge even – has increased a million fold. This is thanks on one side to the Internet, the search engine revolution and the household wi-fi. On the other side, we have the innovativeness and generosity of top universities in the world; not to mention the big-heartedness of many scholars, who are making their lectures and their knowledge online for the world to use. The TED site is already well known for its many quality talks. What are really revolutionary are the sites that provide university-level courses gratis. Just take a look at http://www.coursera.org for starters, if you don’t believe me.

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With knowledge, lectures and course choices so easily available already today, we have to wonder what school certificates are going to be worth in the future. What is it that they will be attesting to? Is this not the end of the paper chase era? What about the teaching profession? Can teachers continue pretending that they are the only experts available to the student who, for the opportunity to listen to him or her, have to keep time and be present in class? Certainly not. Today, a student need only to pick any subject online and he or she can immediately listen to a world authority instead. Who needs the sarcasm, the caustic remarks, the controlling schedule, the wagging finger, and the disciplining? With a simple registration, I can follow courses that no institution in my neighbourhood can offer and be taught by world experts whenever it suits me. I can click in to a lecture just before bed, at breakfast, in the bath, under the coconut tree in the garden, and even at work. Can you beat that? Our industrial-age school system is definitely running out of relevance faster than you can upgrade your smart phone. Our thinking about the providing of education is archaic and inefficient, and is done more for societal control than for social education. The amount of new knowledge found in the English language is growing by the second; and the means for their dissemination are growing by the megabyte. This revolution in pedagogy is upon us whether we like it or not, and I don’t think it is a good idea to wait for politicians to realise this. For our own sake and for the sake of our children, we should seize the moment because the moment is not going to wait for us.

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48. Income Gap, Outcome Bad*

It is certainly true that never before in human history have so many been lifted out of poverty as has been the case in East Asia over the last few decades. The suggested reasons for these are many, though few easily agreed upon. In China, the poverty rate fell from 85% of the population to 27% between 1981 and 2004. An incredible 600 million moved above the poverty line, for we are after all talking about the most populous country in the world. In neighbouring Vietnam, the proportion of poor people dropped from 58% to 14% between 1993 and 2008. As we know, Malaysia has also done remarkably well. In 1970, 49.3% of its people were poor, but by 2004, that figure had dropped to 5.7%. In 2007, it was as low as 3.6% but rose again to 3.8% in 2009. Whether or not we agree with the definition of poverty used in all these cases, the statistical trend downwards is beyond doubt. But also beyond doubt is the widening income gap. And that is going to be the largest challenge the region will have to face. A quarter of a century ago, the Gini coefficient for China was around 0.3, which was not strange under communism’s control economy. But a small income gap without growth was not a desirable situation in the long run. However, after Deng Xiaoping’s ethos that being rich was glorious was fully accepted in the early 1990s, both wealth and inequality have been rising. China’s Gini coefficient today is a state secret (a very ominous sign indeed), but observers suggest that it is now close to 0.5. Anything above 0.4 on that scale, according to experts, is a warning sign, and social unrest is to be expected above that point.

* Editorial in Penang Monthly, November 2012.

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Now, one can safely argue that this was part of the Deng’s plan for economic development to remedy the ill effects of Mao Zedong’s ultraegalitarian ideology. Deng realized that he had to allow some to get rich first. In effect, his slogan was, “Let the Income Gap Grow”. The trick now for his successors in this risky plan is to manage the next step—maintaining economic growth while decreasing inequality. A huge income gap is thus seen as a temporary condition which becomes a serious problem when ignored and allowed to continue. Malaysia’s Gini coefficient in 2011, according to the UN Development Report is 0.462. We are not far behind China. Other salient aspects of Malaysia’s inequality are in the urban-rural divide (2.5% of its city population is poor compared to 11.9% in rural areas), in the difference between states (Sabah, the resource-rich state has a poverty rate of 19.7%, which makes it the country’s poorest state according to figures from 2009); and in being the largest among the majority group, the Malays! Clearly, political stability in the region is under threat. Governments can no longer ignore the increasingly huge income inequality that dogs their economic policies. For any government and population, bucking that trend will require new ways of thinking about development, wealth and state responsibilities.

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49. The Deuce Position And Najib’s Incumbency Advantage*

The coming into being of a steady two-party system in Malaysia is often thought of as a necessary step in democratic development. But we have to remind ourselves that the process itself, the detailed dynamics of that transformation, is not a given matter. There are many ways to skin a cat, and there are many ways for Malaysia to become a country where open political competition is a norm . even now when the polarity has become so obvious, and so obviously contentious and deep. To be sure, we are talking about coalitions, and in both cases – the Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat – the marriages are largely of convenience. In many ways, therefore, there is a stand-off in Malaysian politics where both sides, despite their best efforts at putting on a united front, do not seem able to make serious inroads into the position of the other side. In such a deuce situation, the advantage of incumbency becomes a major factor to consider. The national budgets for 2012 and 2013 have both been geared towards electoral concerns, and notwithstanding social media and Internet news sites, the government still controls the print media and television networks. This is alongside the enormous resources that are available to the federal government, which have often been used as much for policy purposes as for partisan campaign reasons. And yet, this 50-50 situation is not a stable one. Today, as the 13th general election approaches, the great challenge to this largely peninsulabased division comes from East Malaysia. The neat divisive dimensions that we are so used to when studying Peninsular Malaysia are not only undermined by the Sabahans and the * This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia, 26 November 2012.

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Sarawakians; they are actually becoming outmoded. And it is, therefore, the challenges to basic dimensions of socio-political life and thought in the country that we should be paying greater attention to. We are dealing with a deep paradigmatic shift, not just a simple challenge to the race-based party coalition by another that is less race based. As in 1969, it was the failure in 2008 of Chinese-based parties within the ruling coalition to harness votes for the BN that led to serious reversals in popular support. But unlike 1969, the general election of 2008 saw a broad maturing of Malay opposition to Umno – and by extension, to BN itself – and it was under the leadership of that enhanced Malay interest in nation-building options that the other communities also revealed their wish for a change away from the system of government that the BN had settled upon. Paradoxically, it is this gradual rise of a strong Malay opposition which lies behind the shift away from racial politics. The other ethnic groups would not have moved to any significant extent – be this through Bersih or Hindraf – without the sustained public display of dissent by members of the Malay community over the last 15 years. More immediately, the disappointment with former premier Tun Abdullah Badawi’s reforms was a major element in the electorate decline of the BN. That disenchantment was deepened by the conceit and arrogance, not to mention the lack of political sense, displayed by establishment figures and ministers following the amazing victory won by Abdullah in 2004. Although the popular support was just over 60%, the BN gained control of over 90% of parliamentary seats. We should also remind ourselves that the BN won all – I repeat ALL – by-elections during the 2004-2008 mandate period. The Reformasi of 1998 seemed forgotten, and the relative success of the opposition in the 1999 elections (excepting the DAP), seemed a thing of the past. What is the situation today?

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The ball is actually still in BN’s court. Adopting a reform platform following Tun Mahathir Mohamad’s retirement as prime minister in 2003, Umno leaders tried to regain support by adopting reform agendas. Abdullah’s was a promising one, and he was generously given the benefit of the doubt by Malaysians. However, in the end, his inability or unwillingness to carry things through branded him a faint-hearted if not insincere reformist. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, unlike Abdullah and being unavoidably seen as the second reformist BN leader in a row, never had a honeymoon period. Four years after taking office, he is still launching projects to reform the financial, political and economic structure of the country. However, he suffers from a credibility problem which is not due only to his political past, but more immediately to the perception that his party and his coalition are not wholeheartedly supporting him. This turns his efforts in the eyes of cynical Malaysians into manipulative gestures. How much is spin and how much is sincere? Without biting the bullet where his own supporters are concerned, the prime minister’s ability to project himself as a reformist of a calibre needed at this point in the country’s history is seriously questioned. His refusal to chastise right-wingers among Umno followers does nothing to correct that image of him as a general without an army. His huge popularity relative to his coalition is a telling one. If he should act against his own right wing, the extra support he would gain may guarantee him his own mandate as prime minister. However, things have gone so far that such a move has to be thorough if it is to convince fence sitters. It is here he is found most wanting. In that important sense, the election is his to lose.

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50. The Resurgence Of Social Activism In Malaysia*

Introduction

Malaysia’s Parliament has to be dissolved by the end of April 2013, following which Malaysians must go to the polls within 60 days. Nothing significant about that, except that this 13th general election is a critical one which will decide how the country’s politics will develop in the coming decade. A two-party system is now in place, thanks to the spectacular results of the 12th general election five years ago which brought opposition parties to power at the state-level. Of the many reasons ventured for this shift, the one that cannot be ignored is the impressive rise in social activism. A strong sense of empowerment has come to the fore, which the ruling coalition continues to have a difficult time managing. The consolidation of oppositional forces in general, not only partybased ones, has been extraordinary. This makes the status quo untenable; something that the government of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak realizes but is unable to accept wholeheartedly. This is partly because the social activism of the 21st century is very differently config­ured, compared to earlier decades.

Unity Despite Diversity

Resistance to the central power in Malaysia has more often than not, happened along racial and religious lines. This is not strange, given the extreme multicultural nature of its popula­tion as well as the nature of the conservative compromise between the retreating British colonialists and the elite ostensibly representing the various ethnic groups.

* In ISEAS Perspective, 26 November 2012. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Also published in French as “Malaisie: La renaissance de l’activisme social” in Etat des Resistances Dans Le Sud – Asie. Brussels: Le Centre tricontinental (CETRI). December 2012.

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The major security concerns that surrounded the birth of the country as the Federation of Malaya in 1957 were communism and communalism; as well as external threats posed especially by Indonesia. By 1965, what emerged after the dust settled following the change in government in Indonesia, and the departure of Singapore, was a parliamentary democracy that was also a nominal 13-state federation where nine states were headed ceremonially by royal houses. Geographically, the country is now divided into two parts by the southern end of the South China Sea. In simple terms, all the parts of archipelagic Southeast Asia that the British had controlled, excepting Brunei, which chose to stay out, and Singapore, whose inclusion in 196365 proved untenable, came together to form one complex country. The issues that the country’s nascent civil society concerned itself with back then tended to be about ethnic rights and citizenship rights. One of the country’s most powerful civil society movements took form already in the early 1950s—the Malaysian Chinese Education Movement. Generally known as the Dongjiaozong, it fought to retain mother tongue education. By 1969, when the National Language Bill was passed in parliament, Malay became the sole national language, leading to great discomfort among non-Malays. Inter-ethnic tensions were high. Racial riots broke out on May 13 that year, following general elections in which the federal government lost significant ground and the sultanate of Selangor was on the verge of being ruled by a state government run by non-Malays. Governance in Malaysia was changed forever. Harsh laws were put into place to curb discussions about ethnic rights and other sensitive matters; “The Father of Malaysia” Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman retired; the ruling coalition of three race-based parties was expanded into the Barisan Nasional, and the major party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), became decidedly dominant; local elections were

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banned for good; and most importantly, a powerful affirmative action programme favouring the Malays was put in place. The New Economic Policy (NEP) was put in place. It was formally a worthy attempt to remedy historical economic imbalances between ethnic groups and to fight poverty. Planned to last for 20 years, it sought a balance between leftist sentiments wishing to minimize the wealth gap on the one hand, and conservative obsession with Malay rights on the other. It sought to give substance to the notion of Malay Special Position that was so prominent in earlier discussions about the national Constitution. However, the NEP quickly subsumed class discourses under a race discourse that soon became interwoven with Islamic terminology, especially under Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed (1981-2003). In the process, a two-tier citizenship structure was created which worsened ethnic divisions in the country and exacerbated the non-Malay brain drain from the country. NGO activities then tended therefore to be about cultural rather than human or other rights, and issues that may not have appeared racial in character were usually a front for inter-ethnic contestations. In 1984, for example, the Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Sikhism was formed solely in response to Islamisation policies implemented by Mahathir. In spirit, the NEP continued even after 1990, however, but with Mahathir counteracting rising opposition by injecting more tolerant concepts such as Bangsa Malaysia (Malaysian nationality) and Vision 2020 (Malaysia as advanced and harmonious nation by that year) into the equation. Between 1990 and 1998 therefore, developmentalism and Malaycentrism functioned as intertwined pillars for Malaysian nation building. The impressive economic growth that the country and the rest of the region experienced during that period saw racial tension in Malaysia sink to its lowest. The deterioration of major institutions was easily ignored while the country was gaining substantial wealth and international influence in the 1990s. 148

An Early Spring

One could well argue that Southeast Asia had its Arab Spring much earlier than in the Middle East. In 1998. Indonesia’s strongman Suharto was deposed, while in Malaysia, a battle royal broke out between Mahathir and his erstwhile political heir, Anwar Ibrahim, who as Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister was in charge of managing the economic crisis that had broken out in the region. By sacking Anwar on 1 September 1998, Mahathir inadvertently unleashed an enor­mous wave of resistance to his continued hold on power, to elite corruption and to the predominance of his party UMNO and its allies. And so, the high influential Reformasi Movement was born. Anwar refused to fade into oblivion and instead toured the country to raise support and to oppose Mahathir. This recalcitrance led to a public trial for sodomy that was carried out under such dubious conditions that it shamed the Malaysian judiciary. Although Anwar was imprisoned for six years for abuse of power (his conviction for sodomy was overturned in 2004), the movement against Mahathir continued to grow. Many would argue, this made it risky for his coalition if Mahathir were to seek another mandate after the bad results of the 1999 elections. In many significant ways, it is this new movement that inspired the widespread social activism and resistance that we see in Malaysia today. Many of the young opposition politi­ cians and activists that people the opposition parties today trace their political awakening to the demonstrations of 1998. It is most probably the success of this preceding activism that continues to encourage the strategy of mass rallies held in Malaysia witnessed over the last five years. The strong and sustained hold on power that UMNO and the BN enjoyed for so many years had had the effect of creating a mindset in the opposition of seeing itself as champi­ons of obstinate – and eternal – resistance. This helps explain many of the strategies opposi­tion leaders such as Lim Kit Siang adopted over the years, and provides insight into the relationship between the political opposition and individuals and 149

organizations within civil society, and into their behaviour. Race and religion informed the political sphere, and infor­mation flow was tightly controlled by the central government. The line between opposition parties – especially those nominally supportive of multicul­turalism and secularism – and civil society groups, was never clearly drawn. Seen in such a context, claims made today that the opposition is hijacking Malaysia’s civil society appear uninformed. It is also important to note that public space in Malaysia’s racially polarized atmosphere tends also to be an arena for proxy conflicts, especially in recent years when in the wake of weakening central power, many nominal non-government organizations were formed which were clearly run by key members of the ruling parties. Schematically then, one may understand public space in Malaysia as an alternative area into which the government often intrudes, and in which the opposition, given its weak posi­tion before 2008, had always worked closely with social activists. With the expansion of that space since 1998, issues such as welfare, justice and good governance have come to the fore. What is ground breaking in the resistance to power we see in Malaysia today is the mass show of support for issues that are impossible to rede­fine as racial. Not only are street demonstrators clearly from all walks of life and of all ages; their goals are largely about governance, starting with free and fair elections. Sociological factors behind this sea change include the youthfulness of Malaysian soci­ety today; the continuing urbanization of the population, largely involving Malays; the better educational level of the young, again affecting the Malays most; and the huge impact that the Internet and the social media have had on public discussions, along with the sudden availability of information about the world and about Malaysia’s own past. Over the last decade, not only have numerous influential online news portals and blogs come into being, many active think tanks and research institutes have been founded throughout the country to publish alternative media or to organize public events often involving foreign intellectuals,

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such as the Muslim philosopher, Professor Tariq Ramadan from Oxford University. What is often overlooked in this new scenario is how dependent this revival of social activism has been dependent on the sharp increase in antigovernment sentiments among the Malays. Given how public discourse since 1969 had often included threats of ethnic violence, non-Malays had tended to stay low and had expressed their discontent by means that were not clearly politically challenging, such as through creating alternative educational channels, and through emigration. But with the raising of Malay voices against the BN government, many non-Malays have been encouraged to participate in public displays of discontent and in discussions about alternative political agendas. In this atmosphere, the role of Anwar Ibrahim is crucial to the unity of opposition forces.

The Rise Of Bersih

The sudden explosion of activism has made the relationship between opposition parties and NGO members somewhat complicated, however. This is reflected especially clearly in the evolution of Bersih, the highly effective movement seeking electoral reform. As an argument, the call for electoral reform has been able to capture the imagination of the young largely because such an issue could not be easily turned into a racial issue that could pit one ethnic group against another the way education, religion, language and most other issues that have excited Malaysians so far had done. After then-Premier Abdullah Badawi, the successor to Mahathir, won a landslide vic­tory in the general election of 2004, the country’s opposition parties were despondent and at a loss. It was only in July 2005 that the Democratic Action Party (DAP), Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) and Parti KeAdilan Rakyat, managed to put aside their deep differences in order to meet clandestinely in Port Klang, outside Kuala Lumpur, and to work out strate­gies for the future.

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The strategy they agreed could make them work as a united front was the issue of electoral reform. And so, the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih, meaning Clean in Malay) was formed by these parties and a group of NGOs supportive of the issue. Interestingly, this accord was reached at a time when the BN, still flushed with their great victory a year earlier, was clearly turning right, with their rhetoric taking on a rather arrogant and strongly Malay-centric tone. In this, the opposition parties managed to connect with a groundswell of discontent; and electoral reforms became the lightning rod for social activism. Two years down the road, in mid-2007, just before the 50th anniversary of Malaysia’s independence, a series of demonstrations began taking place. Relatively small union rallies calling for minimum wage legislation took place, and were followed on 26 September that year by the Walk for Justice by 2,000 lawyers and their supporters, to express their deep worry about the compromised state of the judiciary. Six weeks later, on November 10, as many as 50,000 people, mostly dressed in the royal yellow colour, took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur, formally calling on the king – whose role is otherwise ceremonial – to champion electoral reforms. This first Bersih march suf­fered police brutality, as all later ones would also do. What was obvious to the casual ob­server on that occasion was the tight organization of the march, and the central role played by the opposition parties, especially PAS. Somewhat unrelated to this was the rise of Hindraf, the Hindu Rights Action Force. This movement was fronted by a group of Indian lawyers to protest against historical ill treat­ment of Malaysians of Hindu origins. Two weeks after the Bersih rally, it held an equally huge demonstration in Kuala Lumpur despite police attempts throughout the preceding week to stop Indian Malaysians from coming into the city, and despite the arrest of three of its leaders the day before. The political engagement generated by these demonstrations led to the government suffering huge setbacks in the general elections held just

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five months later, on March 8, 2008. The federal government lost its 2/3 majority in parliament, as well as control over five state governments. A new era dawned in Malaysia, and a two-party system effectively came into being. Although it quickly managed to regain one state through defections from the opposi­tion, the federal government under Abdullah Badawi could not last, and he was replaced on April 1, 2009 by his deputy, Najib Abdul Razak. Since 2008, national policy-making has had to seriously consider competition from the opposition that was now ruling key states and to listen to criticism from the general public. The administration of Najib Abdul Razak has thus been coming up with a steady flow of reforms to appease critics and to reverse the outward flow of capital investments. Some of his moves were dramatic, such as the repeal of the hated Internal Security Act, while others were smaller though significant. For example, for the first time ever, the Household Income and Basic Amenities Survey Report 2009, the latest of the govern­ment’s five-year survey, was made public in June 2012. The general demand for more information about government matters, fueled by the two-party system that has developed so suddenly in the country, has had an undeniable impact. However, the Najib government continued to be dogged by scandals and by a deep and persistent crisis of credibility. The government had to formulate reforms and yet remain Malay-centric and conservative at the same time. In trying to please both sides, the gov­ernment under Najib does not seem to have won back much ground despite announcing reform programme after reform programme. On July 9, 2011, the second Bersih demonstration was held to press for electoral re­forms, and timed to force the government to carry out such reforms before calling for elec­tions. What made this rally essentially different from the first one was that the opposition parties agreed to give up its central role and to hand over the movement to NGO leaders. Ambiga Sreenevasan, the former chairman of the Malaysian Bar Council

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that organized the much-noted Walk for Justice in September 2007, agreed to head the Bersih 2.0 steer­ing committee consisting of civil society activists, on condition that the parties kept their distance. This essential difference encouraged a much larger crowd to take part in Bersih 2.0 than in Bersih 1. Most importantly, the participants were now clearly of all races, and cut across all class, gender and age divides. This was even more the case when Bersih 3.0 was held on April 28, 2012, in which 100,000 people reportedly participated.

The Need To Participate

The Malaysian reluctance to attend political rallies, once so common and widespread, had been replaced by an eagerness to take part in public expressions of unity across racial and other lines. Street rallies were like public picnics. To a surprisingly large extent, issues of race and religion are being overshadowed by concerns about governance, and about the weak national economy. A lot of this has to do with the public space opened up by the new media and by how these have been so enthusiastically used by young educated Malaysians of all ethnic de­nominations. To be fair, the Najib administration’s reform initiatives reflect these shifts clearly, show­ing that it does know what needs doing. Its major projects, apart from the attempt at pro­jecting Malaysian social unity through its overused 1Malaysia slogan, are titled Government Transformation Programme (GTP) and his Economic Transformation Programme. But try as he may, in the final analysis, Najib’s inability to rein in Malaycentric elements within his own party, together with stark inconsistencies in action and word on his part, are what undermine his reputation as a reformist prime minister. Over the last five years, much has indeed changed in Malaysia, and the issue of elec­toral reform will continue to be the central theme for uniting progressive elements. By all accounts, there is no turning back, since the factors causing changes include powerful ex­ternal ones such as

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the regionalization of the economy, of jobs, of schooling and of capital. The question boils down in many ways to one of leadership. How the government formed after the next election balances the hopes of the new against the fears of the old will decide Malaysia’s ability to compete with its neighbours. The vision for a freer and fairer system of government is already clearly projected through recent social movements.

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51. From Now On, It’s A Malay vs Malay Contest* As United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) general assemblies go, the one held last week was rather tame in its rhetoric. It was certainly memorable for its lack of vitriolic language. And it was expectedly so – therein lies its significance. Things were quite different back in the days before 2008, when ethnocentric exhortations were run of the mill, and UMNO Youth was the amplifier of racial extremist voices. This year, showing party unity was the order of the day. Much of the credit must go to the fact that Malaysia today has a surprisingly stable two-party system in place. As we know, such a competitive structure has a strong moderating effect on extremist voices, be they racial or religious. After all, gaining the middle ground is how electoral victories are won. The fact that the incumbent Prime Minister, Mr Najib Razak, reportedly cited – as a warning to his followers – significant errors made by Republican challenger Mitt Romney in his defeat at the hands of United States President Barack Obama, tells us that even at the highest level, the possibility of the hitherto invincible UMNO being toppled is being taken seriously. Indeed, the bipolar Obama-Romney battle is being reflected in the clash between Mr Najib and Mr Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of the opposition. What this actually reveals is the most important point that anyone can make today about the dramatic changes that have been taking place in Malaysian politics, not only over the last five years but also over the last decade and a half. Opposition forces within the Malay community have come of age. That is the fundamental difference. We are witnessing a Malay-Malay battle. * In TODAY newspaper, Singapore. 5 December 2012.

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Despite the rhetoric, the Malay community – perhaps because of its increased relative size, its comparative youth, its growing urbanity or its heightened educational level – is showing a political confidence it did not have before. Its questioning of UMNO’s claim to being the only plausible champion of their interests as a community – in fact, questioning the limitations of communal politicking – is an expression of that very maturity. One Malay leader is pitted against another Malay leader, and each is backed by an assortment of non-Malays. Such a situation, strangely enough, does not encourage racial or religious politics. This goes for UMNO as well as the Islamist opposition, PAS. Instead, the new issues are about wealth distribution and governance, not those of race against race, or religion against religion.

Transformation Agenda

Now, issues of governance are not simple things. They are comprehensive, covering difficult matters such as cronyism, corruption, rule of law, the state of the civil service and the electoral system, among others. What all this boils down to once elections come around is: Who will be the next Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mr Najib or Mr Anwar? Mr Abdullah Badawi was replaced by Mr Najib in April 2009 in punishment for letting so much support for Barisan Nasional slip away. Mr Najib’s job, therefore, is to win back that support. To his mind, the best way to do that is to continue with the reform agenda (he has preferred the term “transformation”). However, should support for his coalition not rise markedly in the coming elections, there is a real risk that he will be replaced in his turn. But why this sudden wish for reform and transformation on BN’s part? No doubt, Mr Anwar has a lot to do with it. He was after all the man behind the pivotal Reformasi movement that started in 1998 after his sacking by Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

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But the fact that Mr Abdullah’s impressive electoral victory in 2004 could not bury that movement for good tells us that the forces pushing for change have deep roots in society, and in the times. What Mr Anwar managed to do after his release from prison in 2005 was to become a bridge for the major opposition parties on the one hand, and a lightning rod for general social discontent on the other. And so, although at one level, the fight is between two Malay leaders, the election, whichever way it goes, is at a deeper level about how governance in Malaysia is to develop – how Malaysia is to develop – in the coming years. And within that equation, the role of East Malaysia will increase since both coalitions will be fighting to win votes there. Since the racial and religious – not to mention political – conditions in Sabah and Sarawak are so markedly different from those found in West Malaysia, the heightened significance of these states is bound to transform the socio-political situation. Predicting Malaysia’s political future has become a much harder undertaking.

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52. If Only The World Would Remain Flat…*

Where do litterbugs come from? By litterbugs, I mean anyone who leaves trash, wastes or pollutants behind for others to dispose of. Actually, I mean everybody. Let us also ask, in what kind of world would such behaviour not matter? Well, conceivably, there was a time in human history when our wastes were of no great consequence to the Earth. This was a time when we had little to throw away; when we humans were not as incredibly numerous as we are now; when our rubbish was infinitely less toxic and not as long-lasting; and, most importantly, when the world was endlessly big in relation to our ability to intrude upon its processes. In short, this was during a time when we acted as if the world were flat – flat meaning it effectively went on forever – the world had no end and there was no cliff that marked the beginning of nothingness. This was psychologically the time of the hunter gatherer, when everything he consumed was easily broken down, and because he never stayed in one place for long, Mother Nature could in most cases heal herself from whatever damage he had caused. He had the luxury of not having to care – and the habit of not caring – about his own effect on his ecology. So even if he was one who would wander back to familiar places seasonally, the forests or plains would have recovered each time. When we conceptually move on to the agriculturalist, what we then imagine is a person whose original body of knowledge was about predicting the weather and the movements of heavenly bodies and how these affected him. He had to nullify the whims of Nature, and he had to

* This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia, 24 December 2012.

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irrigate or drain his fields to suit his crops. He had to think in ecosystemic terms, even though on a geographically limited scale. And then we have the city dweller, whose understanding of cycles and of nature in his daily life is highly fragmentary. He is the spoiled being who does not have to hunt for his food, or grow his own crop, or catch his own fish, and therefore, does not have to experience the consequences of his daily actions. In our day, he is the insatiable consumer of everything under the sky, under the seas and under the sands. His numbers and his appetite has made the Earth round and finite. The world is no longer flat. It is now a globe, and in effect, the rubbish we throw in our backyard ends up in our living room. We have harnessed so much energy – so much power – that we now threaten the very life process of the planet. As a species, then, Modern Man is in serious trouble. He is in serious need of a mindset change. For now, his habits remain that of a hunter gatherer, which assume the Earth has endless resources and a natural ability to absorb any amount of rubbish, pollutants and damage we throw into it. Yet, as a species, we have never been as knowledgeable as we are today and we have never been as capable of altering our surroundings as we are today, and yet, we have never been as good at poisoning ourselves and degrading the Earth as we are today. We prefer not to think that the air we sully as a species is breathed by us as a species, the water we pollute is drunk by us as a species, and the soil we stain is the soil that will grow our food. As a species, the pressure we put on the Earth’s natural resources and Nature’s ability to recycle is nothing short of suicidal. The world as our provider and our rubbish dump is no longer flat, and shall never be again. While priding ourselves at our productiveness, innovativeness and creativeness, we continue not to see ourselves as the greatest producers of rubbish – of waste – of all times. Like the hunter

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gatherer, we acquire, consume, chuck rubbish behind us – be this a banana peal or nuclear waste – and move on to greener pastures. And greener pastures are becoming very rare. I suppose the mentality that the highly urbanised world needs to adopt is more that of the traditionaly agriculturalist, who has to think in terms of recyclables. But one extra ingredient is needed though—the global perspective. We have to become global agriculturalists, concerned with the Earth as a finite place whose cyclical and recycling essence is what sustains us. We are able today, perhaps for the first time in history, to see that the Earth is a globe, finite in essence. Our needs therefore cannot be infinite, and the wastes we leave behind cannot be infinite. Our development as a species cannot continue to be driven by greed, but by a strong sense of impending doom.

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53. Education For What And For Whom?*

The Federal Government announced its Master Plan for Education in September 2012. As was expected, the general goals sound fine at first glance while the larger problem of implementation – and credibility – remains. Let me take this opportunity…to add my one-sen worth to the subject of education. Education policy-making in new nations such as Malaysia is a complicated and conflictive process where different political agendas necessarily fight things out over time. Continuing the imagery of warfare, there must therefore be long periods of deadlock and defensiveness of past policies. This is of course counter-productive in the long run. At any one time, the first question to ask is: Education for what and for whom? If for the individual, then education is a human right with which the student can at a suitable pace develop intellectually to his or her best potential, not only where employability is concerned but also where his or her general ability to understand the world for himself or herself is concerned. His grasp of philosophical issues and the generating of knowledge – i.e. developing a scientific mindset – is necessarily encouraged. If for the State, then the creation of a sufficiently literate citizenry that can participate in nation building and develop the national economy is paramount. But to be realistic, we must realise that the State is always a compromise of agendas, where the solution is never the optimal one. Also, we must not assume that a State always wants all its citizens to be as fully literate and scientific as they can be.

* Editorial in Penang Monthly, January 2012.

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If for private corporations (and this was what mass education in its early years was all about), then education looks quite different again. Training for employment means that schools aim at fostering industrial workers at various levels. Such regimentation was the essence of early nation building throughout the world. If for the teaching profession, then conditions in schools are likely to be conservative where values and even knowledge are concerned. What was true when these teachers went to school will be taught as true even for the next generation. If for religious teachers, then we are on another plane altogether, and the end products may not even be what the national economy and nation building in general requires. The scientific mindset will probably not be what is developed in the student at all. If for the parents as a whole, then exam results will probably become the mainstay of education policies. And if for the politicians, then populist arguments and short-term and visible measures will be most dominant. In the case of Malaysia, where education policies have been a major political battlefield, what we have ended up with is an ad hoc populist construct, and not a conscious policy, where the goals are set low to start with, and the results much lower.

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54. Political Picnicking In KL*

On 12 January 2013, an estimated 100,000 Malaysians managed to pull off the latest in a series of demonstrations in the country’s major city, Kuala Lumpur. This time, it went practically without a hitch. There were none of the clashes with police that had marred the holiday atmosphere that the two most recent mass rallies – Bersih 2 on 9 July 2011 and Bersih 3 on 28 April 2012 – nevertheless had. It has not escaped the notice of Malaysia watchers that these congregations have been not only peaceful in essence; they expressed most poignantly an optimism that carried with it a sense of disbelief. This disbelief is accompanied by a sense of purpose as well, of course. It has all happened rather suddenly—thus the incredulity. And peacefully—thus the hope. In future years, when enough time has elapsed and enough changes have taken place in the country, commentators will connect these rallies more tightly together than we do today; and they will perceive what in effect is a history of how public space – restricted for so long by draconian laws and by threats of racial violence – was gradually regained in Malaysia. The fact that the government of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak quickly claimed that the rally went so smoothly was due to the success of his reforms, testifies clearly that even the establishment knows what needs doing. With this, the risk of street violence in the event of an opposition victory in the coming elections should be small. The peaceful demonstration strongly implies that a peaceful change of government is totally possible. In most cases, when individual desperation explodes into action, there is no sense of long-term purpose, only an immediate release of frustration. * In YAHOO News Malaysia, 18 January 2013. See http://my.news.yahoo.com/politicalpicnicking-in-kl-042544037.html).

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Such was the case in Tunisia when the vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire on 17 December 2010 after being deprived by police officers of his only means of livelihood. In Malaysia, things have not been even close to being as desperate for most people as was the case for this poor Tunisian. The torment has instead been a psychological one; one that was slowly eroding the individual’s sense of justice and dignity. For that is what institutional racialism does, when applied for so long. It diminishes the soul. The issues that will be the most important in the coming general elections are revealing, to say the least. Class issues will be prominent, and will take the form of debates about welfare, poverty and income distribution. These will be accompanied by disputes of governance—corruption, electoral skewing, and rule of law, etc. It is certainly worth noting that all these are seeking to replace the race discourses that have plagued the Malaysian mind for so long. After five decades, the limits of such a structure are finally being breached. What the abovementioned nature of these mass rallies signify – be they organised by opposition parties like the Himpunan Kebangkitan Rakyat on 12 January this year, or Bersih 3.0 organised by non-government organisations – is a society finally reacting to its psychological ailments. All these years, whatever the excuse for racialism, the individual identity of all Malaysians was being repressed by the mantra of racial loyalty. Arguably, this was most true among the Malays, who were after all the only ones defined so firmly in the Constitution itself. That strange legal exercise in ethnic designation may have been a strong defensive tactic in 1957 on the part of Malay leaders, who were functioning in the chaotic situation of those times. But today, five decades later, that condition and the mindset it engenders are experienced by the young as collective confinement. And we are not yet touching on the bad governance that took place under cover of the race game. The Bersih movement against the manipulation

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of the popular vote, though not as extreme in Malaysia as in many other countries, was one important step along the way. This followed a lawyers’ revolt in mid-2007. It is in turn followed by an environment movement animated by the rare earth factory project in Lynas. All these have now come to a concourse. The fact that optimism and not anger, is still pervasive, bodes well for Malaysia. The chance to change the game has never been as great as now. The occupation of Kuala Lumpur’s streets and the reclaiming of public space are therefore apt responses, imbued with deep historical significance. What better way to overwhelm racial repression than through political picnics?

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55. Malaysian Togetherness Survives Despite Its Leaders* Whether we like it or not, a large part of the political and administrative infrastructure that Malaysia has today comes from the British. There is much that is of value in that system, and it is up to later generations – meaning the present one, i.e. us – to be discerning if we are to make full use of it. But to throw out the baby with the bathwater when one is overwhelmed by nationalist sentiments is never a wise move. China’s Cultural Revolution is a most poignant case in point. In Malaysia, this throwing out of the baby has been going on for 55 years, and has been happening in slow motion, making it less obvious. Not only have the country’s institutions been slowly downgraded for political reasons, our sense of togetherness has also been eroded. That is why it is so important for young Malaysians – and I would say for all post-colonial populations throughout the world – to be as learned about their own history as possible, and to be analytical and insightful about their heritage. It is through understanding why things are what they are, that they can adapt inherited structures to suit present needs, and not go into a state of denial instead. Malaysia is one of the lucky new countries in that its independence did not come at a high price, as it did in countries like Vietnam or Indonesia. There were reasons for this, one of which was that our neighbours were obviously having a hard time throwing off the yoke of colonialism while we in relative peace had the luxury of working out how best to become a new country. We saw how Sumatra had to go through a social revolution that was both bloody and destructive in 1946. We saw the Indian sub-continent divide itself with a painful separation in India and East and West Pakistan * This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia, February 26, 2013.

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in 1947. We also saw China being embroiled in civil war in 1945-49. Leaving colonialism behind was never an easy undertaking; and Malaysia, being a latecomer in gaining independence managed to avoid quite a few traps that could have made nationhood a seriously bloody and traumatic affair. Malaysia could not have enjoyed the relatively peaceful period of nationbuilding over the last 50 years if it had not started out with a competent – and very powerful – police force, capable civil services at federal and state levels, good legal professionals, a relatively well-educated population with good schools and teachers, and adept leaders from the various major ethnic groups. But having that luck also meant that many crucial issues never got to be properly aired in public debate. Or rather, the lid was progressively put on such debates after 1969. Mahathir’s era made that worse. What we are witnessing today in Malaysia is properly understood as the latest stage in the long process of post-colonial development. This has involved turning local and colonial economies into a national one, relating well to neighbours, and forging a national identity that knows itself as “Malaysian”. Economically, Malaysia may have done very well at times, but there are clear signs – such as the increasing budget deficit – that the good times are over if reforms are not properly implemented in the financial sector and in fiscal policy thinking. This problem is minor, however, when compared to the project of creating a comfortable Malaysian identity, which is of course what building a nation is all about. It is here that the development of the country’s political discourse has twisted itself into a deadlock. In fact, in forbidding freedom of expression so extensively, a culture has been created in Malaysia where argumentativeness passes for intelligence; crankiness poses as reasoning; threats masquerade as rationale; irrationality pretends to be profound; racism calls itself patriotism; coercion acts as justification and to be more sensitive is to be more right.

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Thus, the problem that Malaysia suffers from is something very fundamental. It is the absence of sufficient agreement on what the country is and where it is supposed to be going. The key question still echoes in the background: Who has the right to contribute to a future Malaysian culture, and who not? The citizenship-for-votes issue in Sabah, which has now flared up again – leading to former premier Mahathir Mohamed’s outrageous claim that whatever it was he did wrong in Sabah, was not worse than what the first premier, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra did just before independence when the latter decided on broad citizenship rights for all ethnic groups – is symptomatic of the erosion of national vision, and of how the culture of demagogic politicking must undermine the sense of togetherness that is so necessary to successful nation building. It is hard to have a clear idea of nationhood when after 55 years, who is Malaysian, really, and who is not is still be argued. Indeed, the miracle is how well Malaysians have stayed patriotic all these years despite the inherent divisiveness in the country’s political discourses. Good thing there is more sense in common folk than there has been in their leaders.

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56. Malaysians Done Making Do*

Everyone should be stunned by how anti-BN forces over the last few years have been able not only to hold their ground, but also to continue spreading a sense of empowerment throughout the country. My take on how this has been possible is two-fold. Firstly, we are not really talking about Barisan Nasional versus Pakatan Rakyat. Pakatan Rakyat’s parties were peripheral players anyway until March 8, 2008. What happened that day was a revolt by voters – largely urbanites of all ethnic groups – against abuses of power perpetrated by BN leaders, and against their arrogance. Following such a situation, opposition political parties were of course most able to become the expression of this popular anguish. Over the following five years, we have simply been witnessing this nation-wide process of despair-turning-into-optimism taking forms beyond party politics. Civil society came alive. Party politics may have been the immediate expression, but the real change – happening more slowly because it is so much deeper – is the movement away from the black-or-white, us-or-them world that Malaysian politics had become over the last 40 years. This leads me to my second dimension for describing this apparent tectonic shift. Politics in Malaysia in the 1950s and 1960s were colourful and chaotic. After that ended in violence – though mainly in Kuala Lumpur – race was used to divide the country; religion to muzzle speech; and politics and journalism became the monopoly of the ruling parties. Attempts to diversify political power and public discourse did take place every now and then. In fact, this seemed to occur every decade or so— 1988 when Tengku Razaleigh challenged Mahathir; 1998 when Anwar’s * Editorial for Penang Monthly, March 2013.

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refusal to leave power quietly gave birth to the Reformasi Movement; and then 2008, when urban Malaysia voted for “anything but BN”. This subterranean longing for a less complex-filled, less racialist, and a prouder and healthier Malaysia had been finding pendulum expression every decade. Like the rising and falling of the lunar tides. In short, the forces challenging the federal government come both from the periphery and the bottom. And they are part of a deep struggle that is as much a part of Malaysianness as Nasi Lemak. Even the ruling parties know this, which was why both Abdullah Badawi and Najib Razak had to adopt programmes of reform in order to have any chance of communicating with the general public. It is this communication – this connection – between top and bottom that is now the issue. Talking down through threats of violence, or the use of race and religion, is overused. It is so very Mahathir Era. How the two coalitions accept and adapt to – and thus communicate and celebrate – the diversity and complexity of Malaysian society (definitely including Sabah and Sarawak), will decide their fate. Manipulating the public through simple, often daft slogans and initiatives (like Psy in Penang), will no longer work. The cynicism in Malaysians has come to the point where it has turned ineradicably into empowerment.

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