Focus Malaysia:
“As Malays aren’t the underdogs, leadership purge is the only realistic way to unite them”
By Nehru Sathiamoorthy
THE first time that the Malays rallied together under one banner was to confront the establishment of the Malayan Union. At that time, it was the British that were still ruling Malaya but the British had been weakened as a result of World War II.
The second time that the Malays united was probably around the period leading to the race riots of 1969 when they felt like an underdog to the non-Malays in terms of a share in the nation’s wealth.
Today, Sabah and Sarawak are getting more united to confront Putrajaya. They are doing so because they both feel like they are the underdogs while also perceiving that Putrajaya is weakening.
In the Semenanjung, the only race that is united is seemingly the Chinese. The Chinese are the only race that is able to unite because they too feel that they are an underdog while also perceiving that the Malays are weakening.
The Indians on the other hand, though also feeling like an underdog, are not united because the racial groups that they are competing against are too strong for them to mount a challenge.
From all these examples, one can see that unity is something that occurs only when (i) a group feels like an underdog; and (ii) the incumbent group that they compete against has weakened sufficiently to be challenged.
Weak organisational strength
Going by this condition it is hard to see how the Malays are going to be united as how Bersatu supreme council member Datuk Seri Redzuan Yusof wants them to when the Malays are currently (i) not an underdog and (ii) the group that they oppose which is the non-Malays are neither in a position of incumbency nor weakening.
The leader of the country today is a Malay by the name of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim whose stewardship of the unity government is unlike Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s leadership of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration in 2018.
Under the Dr Mahathir leadership, there was a legitimate doubt as to whether it was Dr Mahathir that was in-charge or whether it was actually DAP that was actually calling the shots from behind the scene.
Under Anwar’s leadership however, no such doubt is arising. Everybody in the country has no doubt that it is actually Anwar that is in-charge. More astonishingly, DAP is clearly submitting to Anwar’s leadership despite being the largest party in the ruling coalition.
Although the Malays are fractured into half a dozen factions today, they also do not feel like an underdog.
Instead, they most likely still feel like a winner even if they are not as strong or united as they used to be.
When you feel like you are a part of a winning side – despite the obvious fact that you are weakening – asking everybody on your side to unite will not work simply because it is not the nature of winners to unite.
If you are part of a winning side yet you feel that you are weakening, this is not due to lack of unity but because your side is unable to focus on its organisational strength.
The scattering factor in the Malay organisational strength is the numbers of its established leaders and aspiring leaders.
Why leadership purging is essential?
If the Malays feel that they need to consolidate their organisational strength instead of calling the race to rally and unite, they should first reduce the numbers of its established and aspiring leaders which is scattering away their ability to focus their organisational strength.
Instead of making a call to unite as if they are weak when they are not, they should accept their strength and attempt to purge their leaders in order to re-establish a focused and cohesive leadership structure and hierarchy.
From the incumbent Anwar to the imprisoned Datuk Seri Najib Razak to the ‘ancient’ Dr Mahathir to the banished Khairy Jamaludin to Tan Sri Hadi Awang, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, Datuk Seri Azmin Mohamed Ali and Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin, the list of leaders and aspiring leaders of the Malays is too long.
Comparatively, the Chinese have only one name – Anthony Loke Siew Fook – as their potential leader to focus their organisational strength upon.
The other Chinese leaders in the likes of Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong or Lim Guan Eng are either too weak in comparison to the current DAP secretary-general and Transport Minister or have learned their place in relation to Loke.
The Malays, however, do not seem to have a stomach to purge their leaders. From Najib to Khairy, the Malays are trying to save even their purged leaders instead of getting more leaders to join their ranks.
If the Malays do not have the stomach to purge their leaders, it is unlikely that they will be able to re-establish their organisational strength in the foreseeable future.
If such is the case, then the Malays will only get an opportunity to re-establish their organisational strength when they (i) lose their incumbency and become an underdog; and (ii) the race that replaces them in incumbency weakens.
Once one loses one’s incumbency and one’s competitor takes over one’s position, it might take generations before one’s competitor will weaken and the condition to re-establish one’s incumbency through unity will arise again.
This is the cold hard truth. – Nov 4, 2024
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is a roving tutor who loves politics, philosophy and psychology.
If the Malays feel that they need to consolidate their organisational strength instead of calling the race to rally and unite, they should first reduce the numbers of its established and aspiring leaders which is scattering away their ability to focus their organisational strength.
Instead of making a call to unite as if they are weak when they are not, they should accept their strength and attempt to purge their leaders in order to re-establish a focused and cohesive leadership structure and hierarchy.
From the incumbent Anwar to the imprisoned Datuk Seri Najib Razak to the ‘ancient’ Dr Mahathir to the banished Khairy Jamaludin to Tan Sri Hadi Awang, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, Datuk Seri Azmin Mohamed Ali and Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin, the list of leaders and aspiring leaders of the Malays is too long.
Comparatively, the Chinese have only one name – Anthony Loke Siew Fook – as their potential leader to focus their organisational strength upon.
The other Chinese leaders in the likes of Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong or Lim Guan Eng are either too weak in comparison to the current DAP secretary-general and Transport Minister or have learned their place in relation to Loke.
The Malays, however, do not seem to have a stomach to purge their leaders. From Najib to Khairy, the Malays are trying to save even their purged leaders instead of getting more leaders to join their ranks.
If the Malays do not have the stomach to purge their leaders, it is unlikely that they will be able to re-establish their organisational strength in the foreseeable future.
If such is the case, then the Malays will only get an opportunity to re-establish their organisational strength when they (i) lose their incumbency and become an underdog; and (ii) the race that replaces them in incumbency weakens.
Once one loses one’s incumbency and one’s competitor takes over one’s position, it might take generations before one’s competitor will weaken and the condition to re-establish one’s incumbency through unity will arise again.
This is the cold hard truth. – Nov 4, 2024
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is a roving tutor who loves politics, philosophy and psychology.
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kt comments:
I respectfully disagree with my matey Nehru on one point, that of the position of Anthony Loke. Loke may be the current leader of the DAP but he is far from being the unspoken leader of the Chinese Malaysians, far from it matey. I even doubt his de facto status in his own party, the DAP, let alone the larger Chinese Malaysian community.
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