Older parties do not have an identity crisis.
Umno knows it is a Malay party.
MCA knows it is a Chinese party.
MIC knows it is an Indian party.
PAS knows it is an Islamic party.
Not only are they not confused about who they are, no one else is confused about who they are as well.
Newer parties though, tend to have a lot of confusion about who they are. Not only do they not know who they are, no one else seems to know who they are either.
Take Bersatu for example. Bersatu Youth chief Hilman Idham reportedly said that Bersatu was not a party which champions only Malay rights as its constitution calls for members to champion the welfare of Malaysians, irrespective of race or religion.
Hilman again defended his statement yesterday (20 Feb), arguing that Bersatu’s constitution clearly stipulates that it would champion national causes.
In response, Bersatu Supreme Council member Wan Ahmad Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal criticised Hilman, by asking Hilman to read up on Bersatu’s founding principles.
“Bersatu is a party for the Malays and natives. That is Bersatu’s main identity. No one can deny that, unless the entire party votes and says that we are no longer a Malay party but a multiracial one.
“When defining Bersatu’s nature, it must be as a Malay and native party. This is very clear. I am just quoting Muhyiddin,” the former Bersatu Youth chief reportedly said to rebuke its current youth chief.
So which is it, you might ask. Is Bersatu a Malay party or a Malaysian party?
Well, to this, you could probably say that Bersatu is what other new parties like MUDA or Urimai are. Can anyone answer what kind of party MUDA or Urimai is? If you ask them, they will likely not be able to agree on who they are, and even if they could agree on who they are, they will probably describe themselves in one way to you although your own eyes might see them in a different light.
The identity confusion that the newly established parties in Malaysia have might indicate the amorphous nature of identity amongst Malaysians today.
When Semenanjung gained its independence in 1957, everybody was clear as to who they were to each other. They were to each other what their race was. If I am Indian and you are Chinese and I asked you what you are in 1957, you will tell me that you are Chinese and I will tell you that I am Indian and we will both understand who we both are.
Fast forward to 2025, and today it might not even be proper to ask each other who we are and even if we do, the answer might be complicated.
In the old days, I might be able to simply say that I am Indian and be done with it, but today, I probably will have to say something more specific – like I am a Hindu Malaysian Tamil - to describe myself to the people around me, and despite being more specific, they might still not know who I am am relative to them.
The fluidity in identity might not necessarily be a negative development.
As Malaysia matures, it is presumable that that Malaysians will wean themselves away from their racial identity and embrace a national identity.
Before we leave our old identity and gain a new identity however, we might likely experience an intermediate phase, where we neither have our old racial identity nor do we have a new national identity, while at the same time having both our national and racial identity as well.
This neither here nor there stage might be confusing and stressful, but it might also be a necessary phase that we have to cross as our identities evolve to fit into the realities of our times.
The disagreement that Bersatu is encountering in identifying itself, as well as the heightened racial, regional and religious problem that we have been facing in recent times, might actually be tied to the growing pangs of our collective identity.
Whether as an individual or a collective, when our identity is in a phase where it is changing drastically, we will undergo a period where we are at war with ourselves and our world.
If we survive this “rebel without a cause” phase, then we will make peace with ourselves and our world.
Looking at such things as Bersatu’s identity crisis and the heightened level of tension we are seeing in the racial, regional and religious landscape, we can probably say that Malaysia is today in the “rebel without a cause” stage.
Time will tell how long this stage will last or whether we will make it through this stage, but one thing for sure, we will only make peace with ourselves and everybody else around us, once we have completed this stage.
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