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Does The Prime Minister Sow Racial
Discord?
The Prime Minister, if he were Dato' Seri Anwar
Ibrahim or even an ordinary individual, would have found himself in court, charged
with sedition and worse, for what he spouts these days. Yesterday (11 Dec
00), he raised the racial ante in Parliament. He said if the government
accepted the
Suqui demands, Malay rights could well have to be abolished. He
equates Suqui, an umbrella organisation of 2,000 Chinese organisations, with the
communists, accuses it of disloyalty and worse. He implies national unity is
hampered if non-Malay groups demand their cultural and political rights, but he
encourages this by disallowing straightforward discussion on these issues.
UMNO's reaction to these demands was not discussion but an UMNO youth protest
march against Suqui. He tried to distinguish between Suqui and the Chinese
community, implying Suqui is as remote from its
Chinese constituency is as UMNO
is to its Malay constituency.
Far from it. That the Ministry of Home
Affairs must warn Chinese newspapers of reporting the debate extensively for
"causing disaffection against the government" heightens the government's
anger that what it prescribes is challenged. In this loyal Malaysian
community is, of course, the Malaysian Chinese Association and Gerakan Rakyat
Malaysia, the two West Malaysian Chinese political parties in the National Front.
The
Prime Minister says he forbade UMNO youth and Malay groups from violent protests.
"They were told I will personally deal with the issue," he said.
And he did not. He orders and demands from his cloistered office in Putra Jaya,
preaching hate and fury, that racial harmony is now at risk. The Suqui did
not want the loss of Malay rights when it made the demands, of course, but that is
how it must be read, says the Prime Minister. He is frightened that if Suqui
had his way, the Malay would be left far behind. It would narrow the divide
between the Malays and non-Malays, and that, in his view, is a bad thing.
In
other words, he shortchanges the Malay. He harks back to the social compact
at independence in 1957 in which, he implies, the non-Malay races allowed the
Malays to march over them for ever. Laws passed later, especially after the
13 May 1969 riots, made this permanent, one he insists the
non-Malays cannot
challenge. This cannot when citizens of one race gets all the benefits and
the others have their hands tied. The Prime Minister rails against
meritocracy. Malaysians accept the need to get the Malays into the mainstream.
The Malay quotas in every facet of Malaysian life is accepted, but not that this
quota is exercised at every level of a Malay's promotion. The non-Malay is
told to accept a permanent running handicap that he reaches a glass ceiling beyond
which he cannot aspire. It is, to not put a fine point to it, a form of
apartheid. But it was accepted as a necessary restriction for a unified
Malaysia.
If this persists, racial discord and disunity is inevitable.
The younger Chinese, born after independence, would rebel as the blacks in South
Africa and the United States did at their inferior cultural status. The
Chinese educationists and Suqui opposed Vision Schools for reasons yet unrebutted.
But if the proposal had come with it one to open UiTM, the former Mara Institute
of Technology, to non-Malays and allow more non-Malays into Malaysian
universities, the opposition would not have been as severe. The UiTM is a Malay
university, with a smattering of other native races. Is is right and proper
for a university for one race?
So, whether Malaysia is multiracial and
diversified rests not with the non-Malays but with the Malays. It is they
who holds the reins of power. If they look upon every call for fair play as
sedition and treachery, Malaysia heads for a difficult future. The New
Economic Policy was to narrow the wide economic differences between the Malays and
non-Malays, but built into it was Malay dominance. The non-Malay parties in
the then Alliance government gave up the ghost after the 13 May 1969 riots, and
stupidly, on reflection, withdrew to allow UMNO to do as it wanted. This Malay
dominance holds so long as the Malays are behind UMNO and the Chinese are there to
prop it up. This Chinese support is in doubt. The Prime Minister
therefore panders to Malay chauvinism to keep UMNO and him in control. Within his
government, none would question him. Not in fear but in nonchalant anger
that the end is at hand. Which is why when the Prime Minister makes racist
statements and demands, few in UMNO take him seriously.
That cannot hold
for the Chinese cabinet ministers. The Chinese community holds them to account for
their refusal to stand up and be counted. No Chinese minister has defended
this unwarranted attack on the Chinese community. So, he and his Chinese
colleagues in the cabinet endorse the
Prime Minister's criticism of the
community on whose support they survive. He first attacked Suqui in his
National Day speech last August. In the four months since, the MCA
ministers, particularly, kept quiet. But the MCA president, Dato' Seri Ling
Liong Sik, believes he can neutralise the Suqui as effectively as the Prime
Minister has neutralised him. He has as much influence on the Chinese
community these days as the Prime Minister has on the Malay. So, it is not
if the Prime Minister's attacks upsets the Chinese or Suqui or Chinese
educationist, but how much more embattled the National Front Chinese political
parties would be.
M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my
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