A Malay country

Dina Zaman's article Something to think about in the Malay Mail Online (drawn to my attention by RPK's Malaysia Today) provides irrefutable statistics on the Malay voting dominance. The statistics is quite logical when it's common knowledge that bumiputeras constitute 65% of Malaysia's population.

However, UMNO's hardliners might not have liked two facts from above:

(1) disregarding the Malays who voted for non-Malay candidates, most of them voted not just for UMNO but also PAS and (the Malay candidates in) PKR, which has been why there were umpteen overtures to PAS on 'Malay Unity'.

It's also interesting to note that when DAP emerged from GE-13 with 38 seats, some in UMNO (perhaps with their leaders' approval or even prompting) 'tested the waters with their toes' in slyly hinting to DAP to join BN. Karpal Singh cheekily suggested that UMNO join Pakatan instead.

But it's a succinct demonstration that in politics there is no permanent friend or foe, where one day UMNO may propose Malay Unity and the next, Malaysian Unity.

Also see my pre GE-13 post Will DAP become another MCA?

(2) not all 65% bumiputeras are Malays (only 50% are).

Nonetheless, the point we can gather is that Malays will continue to dominate the politics of Malaysia and a Malay was, is and will be the Prime Minister of our country, not that we ever need statistics to inform us of the political reality, nor we worry about this issue, since many Chinese supported Anwar as the alternative PM during GE-13.

Thus, political scientist Wahabuddin Ra’ees, who wrote Malays must dominate political leadership in Malaysiakini doesn't ever have to worry about Chinese usurping political powers in Malaysia.

Bugis, Indian and Chinese?

Truly Malaysian, wakakaka

But will Bapak Wanandi Siang ever have a chance?

To find out who is Bapak Wanandi Siang, 
read my post Should Chinese Malaysians adopt indigenous surnames? 

The second point I want to re-emphasize (note I mention 're-emphasize' and not 'emphasize') is the applicability of a Mao saying for Malaysia, namely that 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun'.

[from Mao's 'Problems of War and Strategy' (November 6, 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 224]

And UMNO holds the military and police guns, which appreciation did make me wonder at times what would have happened if BN-UMNO lost GE-13. Would we have witnessed a de-Morsi-lization?

Additionally, UMNO has a powerful tool in the mainstream media (msm), with which it influences the thinking and fears of the Malay heartland. Even Steven Gan, editor of online news portal Malaysiakini, has acknowledged that the msm continues to be important, especially for the Heartland though they're not much believed by urbanites and the younger Malays.

Please bear in mind that Dina Zaman is a moderate and I hate to see her being 'Michelle-Yeoh-rized' but my personal take is that her article has not only effectively buried Dr Mahathir's so-called Bangsa Malaysia but also cremated it kau kau.

We should also note that Dr Mahathir had much earlier disowned the aspect of his Vision 2020 which embraced (past tense) the Malaysian-Utopian race, much in the same way as he has disowned many of his records. unless of course they're of glowering and commendable status.

Didn't I tell you Melayu mudah lupa?

wakakaka

What does this sad realization hold for the 'nons'?

Someone, a Malay, once wrote on how terrible it is to describe many Malaysians as 'nons' but what difference does it now make.

Well, in kaytee's simplistic terms, the Indians appear to be split into 4 groups though I wonder whether there are also 4 respective sets of thinking?

There's the ikut-saja MIC and PPP, ikut-juga Waythamoorthy group including many BN-friendly mosquito parties, in-your-face Uthayakumar group and finally the DAP's Malaysian First.

The Chinese mindset is far more simple (though not in simplistic fashion) to pinpoint. It's virtually (though not completely) pro-Pakatan.

MCA and Gerakan are walking political zombies, at the beck and call of their Voodoo-UMNO masters. Mind you, MCA is fairly asset rich so there seems to be still a spark of life, a will to plod on, presumably at least until the assets are disposed of or from the party.

But the complexity of the pro-Pakatan Chinese mindset exists in its generational divide, where the older echelon prefers the pragmatic survival tradition of overseas Chinese, that is, to lie low, minimize oneself as a target to jealous natives and quietly plod on with whatever business it can conduct and where possible, quietly prosper or failing which, to quietly lose and quietly fade away into silence, all of which influence them to quietly vote in accordance with their community's interests.

OTOH, the new younger Chinese Malaysians, much evolved from and thus having values different to their migrant forefathers, want to assert their rights as citizens of this country, refuse to recognize political-social-cultural (and lamentably at times, even religious) taboos and flex their political muscles ostentatiously.

The second is a 'Chinese' that older Malays are not used to, seeing the young upstart as unacceptably biadap. These young Chinese Malaysians provide UMNO with gnam gnam ammo to machine-gun the Chinese community as arrogant, ferocious and power crazy, not unlike the way that UMNO projected there was a Chinese communist bogeyman behind every Malaysian hibiscus bush during the earlier days of Malaya. Old formula works best!

It's a depressing picture not because racial harmony is impossible but because UMNO leaders see the continuation of racial divide as essential to those leaders' personal political survival. And from time to time, yes, even some PAS and PKR leaders join in the anti-Chinese bashing for the same political survival. The whole lamentable mish-mash is then given a creamier chocolatey topping of sensitive religious and royal issues to make the planned anti-Chinese diatribe more lemak.

Now, unless the anti-Chinese bashing stops, and it should in the face of such statistical reality that Malays dominate and will dominate the Malaysian political landscape forevermore, where's the escape pod for the 'nons' from an imploding Mothership?