By now, from the results of GE15 and the August 12 elections, I think we can safely conclude that racial consciousness is still alive and kicking in Malaysia.
Even if there are those amongst us who sincerely believe that we are “Malaysian First”, I hope you will be rational enough to see that we might not be a significant majority. A lot of people claim that they are “Malaysian First”, but the actual number of people who actually believe that they are “Malaysian first” might be far lower.
We know this because we can see that not just the Malays, but the Indians as well, will abandon their Malaysian First claims, and revert back to their much stronger racial identity, as soon as they realise that being Malaysian first offers them nothing.
I think the only people who are claiming they are Malaysian First in the peninsular today are the Chinese, but that is likely just because the Chinese still retain hope that they have something to gain by seeing themselves as Malaysian First.
If they see that they have nothing to gain, then like the Malays after GE15 and the Indians after the August 12 elections, they might abandon their Malaysian First claim and just go back to being Chinese.
I am saying all this because if the reality is that Malaysia is still very much a race-conscious country, then maybe the way forward for us is to re-establish a revised version of the UMNO-MIC-MCA brotherhood that obtained independence for us in 1957.
Under the UMNO-MIC-MCA political arrangement, the Malays through the UMNO will always be the “big brother”, while the Indians and Chinese under MIC and MCA will always be taken care of and be treated well by “big brother”, for as long as MIC and MCA act like good little brothers and help big brother take care of the minority races in the peninsular.
This Mandala political model, as manifested by the old UMNO-MIC-MCA political arrangement, might not only still be relevant, but it might be the only realistic political model that can stabilise and balance the socio-political reality in Malaysia today.
Of course, today, we don’t have to strictly make our arrangements according to the old UMNO-MIC-MCA model.
Today, we can revise the model to make it so that instead of having racial parties like UMNO, MIC or MCA, we can perhaps do a version 2.0 of the arrangement, and create a new and improved Mandala that is made up of multiracial parties with the dominant characteristics of a single race serving as the component parties.
Instead of a strictly racial party like UMNO to represent the Malays, we can have a multiracial party with a dominant Malay characteristic like PKR to represent the Malays.
Instead of a strictly racial party like MCA to represent the Chinese, we can have a multiracial party with a dominant Chinese characteristic like DAP to represent the Chinese.
Instead of a strictly racial party like MIC to represent the Indians, we can have a multiracial party with a dominant Indian characteristic, which might need to be created from scratch, in order to represent the Indians.
GE15 and the August 12 elections are clearly telling us that we might need an intermediate step before we can proceed from being a racially conscious nation to a Malaysian First Nation.
If we jump from being a racially conscious nation to becoming a Malaysian First nation too drastically, the leap will be so radical, that it will likely release so much negativity into our collective consciousness, and risks destabilising the country.
To revive a revised Mandala political model ala the old MIC-UMNO-MCA arrangement, what might need to be done is to merge UMNO with PKR and split DAP in two.
If UMNO is merged into PKR, it will have the youth and vitality of PKR and the legitimacy of UMNO, to represent the Malays.
Zahid Hamidi of UMNO currently has a poor reputation amongst Malaysians across the board. Maybe the one way he can redeem his legacy is by being the UMNO president that merges UMNO into PKR.
To the uninitiated, PKR itself is a party that emerged on 3 August 2003, through the merger of Parti Keadilan Nasional and Parti Rakyat Malaysia. If UMNO is merged into PKR, maybe PKR can go by the name PKRB, or Parti Keadilan Rakyat Bersatu.
To create the yet-to-exist multiracial party with Indian characteristics, DAP could be split in two.
Other than to create the multiracial Indian party, DAP probably needs to be split because the August 12 election has clearly indicated that a unity government that has a singular DAP as its main pillar, is inviting such a negative backlash from the Malays that it is destabilising the country.
Having 3 multiracial parties with the dominant characteristics of one race forming a ruling coalition ala the MIC-MCA-UMNO brotherhood of the past will also allow a Malaysian first nation to emerge in a more gradual manner.
In these racially conscious multiracial parties, there are bound to be members of other races. Organisational politics is as such that disputes and schisms will always appear in any political organisation. When schisms occur amongst the Chinese in multiracial Chinese parties like DAP, for example, one faction might choose to leave DAP and join PKRB or the yet-to-be-formed multiracial Indian party. The same can also be expected to occur in PKRB and the yet-to-be-formed multiracial Indian party.
The diffusion of races throughout these multiracial political parties, over time, might result in a Malaysian identity gradually and naturally emerging.
Many people have made many suggestions to PMX Anwar on how to stabilise the country following the result of August 12. Some are saying that he should choose a more conservative path in order to appease the Malays, others are saying that he should release Najib from jail, others are saying that he should invite PN to join the unity government while some are saying that he should just focus on the economy.
But all these options will require us to take a step backwards or halt the advance of the Malaysian agenda. Merging UMNO and splitting DAP, however, allows for the possibility to address the political instability we are facing while still moving forward with the Malaysian agenda.
The grounds for splitting DAP in two are already there. Post August 12, after the dropping of Ramasamy and the election of Jagdeep Singh Deo as the DCM II of Penang, the Indians not only in Penang, but the whole of Malaysia, are already inclined to believe that they require a political party of their own to represent themselves in national politics. If PMX Anwar just gives his go-ahead, I reckon that many of the Indians who support DAP and even a number of Indians who are in PKR and MIC might leave these parties to coagulate in the newly formed multiracial Indian party, who will still remain loyal to the PH led unity government he leads.
In the August 12 elections, UMNO has already taken steps to become a more multiracial party. It probably received more votes from Chinese and Indians in the August 12 elections than from Malays. Some people still believe that if Najib returns from jail, UMNO can still come back as a force to be reckoned with as a Malay nationalist party, but I think there is a good chance that its Malay nationalism days are over for UMNO.
Malay nationalism is currently being championed by PN, which doesn’t need UMNO.
It might be inevitable that the only viable way forward for UMNO is by merging with PKR. If Najib is willing to support the merging of UMNO and PKR, for the greater interest of the nation, I personally would sign a petition to have him pardoned by the Agong.
While I do realise the chances of all these things happening is probably low, I still feel it is worth looking into, because if you look at all the other options that we have, the outlook is not good.
Did you see Anwar converting a Hindu youth to the Islamic faith recently? A lot of us non-Malays were shocked by what he did, but if you think about it objectively, you have to realise that Anwar has very limited options to stabilise the country. As shocking as what he did, objectively speaking, he was probably just exercising one of the few options that he has left.
None of the options that Anwar has, if you think about it, is good. Either he has to become more conservative to fight PN in its own game, or he might have to consider a more authoritarian rule or he might have to mortgage the country’s assets to foreign institutions in order to stimulate economic growth in the country during this difficult period in the global economy.
The way I see it, the revival of a revised MIC-MCA-UMNO model is the only positive option he has under the given circumstances, even if it is not the most realistic option.
It is a compromise that has something to offer everyone, and even if it doesn't yield the result that we want today, it will at least lead us to the result we desire in the future.
We can never underestimate the will of the people. If the people truly want something, politicians and political parties will have to do it, even if they don’t want to do it.
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