“The 1946 Question” of Nationhood and
Citizenship:
“Can Citizens be Different yet Equal?”
WCH_TMI_EN
Problem & Root Cause & Alternative
(1) 1946, when it all went wrong for us
1946, British return.
Decolonisation: can we be different yet equal? “No” victory.
1957, Merdeka Compromise. Communist,
Alliance formula.
Citizenship, Religion, Language.
Assimilationist model.
Plural society – a threat, brought
by colonialist; in fact, capitalist development.
1969, more Pro-Malay
2008, counter-shift
(2) The Illegitimate trio of
multiculturalism, democracy and secularism
The
trio is linked to colonialists. Its acceptance needs a more sophisticated view.
However,
there are different groups which accepts at least one of them:
|
English-educated
group
Malay
left
|
Secularism
& Democracy
|
Multiculturalism
|
Accept
multi-religion, against multilingualism & communal social networks
|
|
UMNO,
Anglicised Malay conservative elites
|
Secularism
|
Tolerate
democracy & multiculturalism
|
-
Provided it does not threaten Malay dominance
|
|
*
In the aftermath of May 13, when the cry for a total Malay dominance was
high, Tun Razak did not opt for a de jure one-party state and full
ethnocracy.
|
|
PAS
|
Multiculturalism
& Democracy
|
Secularism
|
Ottorman’s
millet system
|
So
what if we know that the root cause of our problem goes all the way back to the
(3) Only Malay-Muslims can save Malaysia’s
pluralism
The disappearing minorities ‘veto
power’: tango fashion, i.e. the cycle of encroachment, negotiation, and
retreat.
Sources of veto power: 1) Federal
constitution; 2) Informal negotiation power, e.g. security, electoral, or
economic threats.
1) Federal Constitution:
- the ruling coalition, two-thirds
majority & parlimentarians voted like a sheep.
If the ruling coalition loses two-thirds majority, it may be restored
with malapportionment and gerrymandering, which requires only simple majority.
* 1966 constitution crisis in Sarawak.
- the federal constitution has
loopholes.
- Judiciary & the calibre of
judges.
2) Security (no after communist
insurgency), economic (cheap foreign workers & foreign capital), Electoral
power (UMNO aims now for a simple majority)
The Only Solution: Selling pluralism
to Malay-Muslims
(24)
Transcending 1946: accepting colonial
past, embracing plural future
A) Malaysia’s History; B)
Empowerment; C) Political System
Malaysia’s
History
Problem: Melaka Sultanate +
Anti-colonialist; In this narrative, Malaysia would have stayed as a myriad
Malay absolute kingdoms rather than a parliamentary democracy; been governed
under Shariah laws rather than predominantly English Common Law; and lastly,
been populated by only Malay-Muslims rather than a multi-ethnic population.
Three Flaws: Ignorance over: 1) the
outcome of capitalist development; 2) Malay aristocrats’ involvement over
British colonization; 3) the history of East Malaysians.
Alternative: 1) the successor of the
colonial state; 2) decolonisation: democracy throughout all regions; 3)
preserve the positive aspects of British legacies.
Inclusion and Historical Continuity:
1) Malaysia, part of the Nusantara world. Great civilization with hybrid
nature; 2) Malay as national language along with linguistic freedom of other
languages; 3) Uphold Islam in the model of Westphalian secularism.
Empowerment
Problem: 【Islamisation + NEP】To
consolidate the UMNO hegemony, nurture a radicalised Malay-Muslim community
which supports the regime. 1) Come on in, differentiated citizenship
inducement, interest-vested with the regime; 2) No exit, one-way conversion; 3)
Make u provocative & intellectually inferior, radicalisation &
obscurantism.
Alternative:
【Guarantee equal
social upward mobility】1) should be empowerment, not entitlement;
2) based on class, not ethnicity; 3) no one should be discriminated.
Political System
Problem: Big Government…..
* election manipulation. Resolves the inter- and intra-party rivalries by
creating more legislative seats, exacerbate opposition’s under-representation.
The
heightened anxiety amongst the Malays is caused by two things: the high stake
described above (inability to resolve (economic) crisis) and also the
unpredictability of electoral outcome.
The
First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) is notorious for electoral volatility as a small
shift in votes can result in much greater changes in seats. A double-edged
sword, the rampant malapportionment and gerrymandering in Malaysia amplify both
BN’s victories and defeats, making electoral outcomes more volatile and
unpredictable.
In
2008, many voters just wanted to teach BN a lesson, but the lesson was so huge
that the ruling coalition can be ousted with the defection of just 30
parliamentarians. While many non-Malays were excited to see an end to UMNO’s
rule, many Malays were shocked and they regretted. The post-2008 rise of
Malay-Muslim ultra-nationalists like Perkasa and Isma is therefore a “rational”
response of the insecure Malays to overcome their existential fear.
Politics
should be more competitive but less volatile.
Alternative: 1) Division of power. (states,
local councils, fully-elected senates) * create many third-tiered
administrative divisions (cities, districts, divisions) comfortably dominated
by a substantial ethnoreligious majority, so the voters have no psychological
need to echo slogans like Malay Unity or Chinese Unity.
2)
MMP system & multi-party. (Mixed Member Proportional, Germany & New
Zealand).
*
In MMP, voters would have two votes, one vote for the constituency MP and the
other vote for their favourite party who can list their candidates on a party
list.
*
In multi-party system, political parties are required to win minimum 5% of
party votes before being allocated any party-list seat. These parties will
likely have to form coalitions to govern, and are hence forced to be moderate.
3)
Empower parliament by transforming parties to be “internally-made parties”,
where party leadership is elected by their parliamentarians, rather than their
delegates. We can further democratise the parties by letting party members
choose their candidates for geographical constituencies, as well as those on
party list.
【A】 Secularism & Empowerment
(4) Can secularism benefit Malay-Muslims?
Secularism has been a dirty word for
Malaysian Muslims: the Kemalist legacy in Turkey & the British legacy in
Malaya.
British legacy: it would mean impartiality
between Muslims and non-Muslims.
1874, British indirect rule. Malay
ruler: religious affairs & Malay custom, religion as the ethnic boundary of
the Malays. Malay – Muslim.
Secularism will benefit different
denominations of Islam.
(5) The undermining of Bahasa Malaysia, by
state
There are two grounds for uplifting
Malay language: civic nationalism & Malay ethno-nationalism. Malay
ethnonationalism, uplifting the language speakers and disadvantage the others
economically and politically. The Malay language was promoted to subjugate the
non-Malays rather than to bring about national integration and inclusion.
*
By 1970, Malay became the medium for all subjects except English in the former
English-medium schools. By 1983, from primary up to pre-university, all public
schools except the Chinese- and Tamil-medium ones used Malay as the medium of
instruction. In that year too, English started to be phased out by Malay in
universities.
Tip-top Malay proficiency would not
open all doors for non-Malays unlike an excellent command of English would be
in the colonial days. While the Malay language is rigorously promoted by the
state, it is often resisted and belittled by the non-Malays in market and
society, beyond the reach of the state. For many non-Malays who cannot or dare
not to hit back at the discriminatory state, disparaging the Malay language –
alongside Islam and the Malays – becomes an everyday resistance act.
******
“Allah” issue: Muslims’ and
non-Muslims’ variants of Malay. From National language to a communal language
for the Malay-Muslims. As many Malays are multi-lingual, the actual target of
“religious protectionism” is only the monolingual Malay-speaking Muslims, e.g.
Allah, The Origin of Species, and Allah, Liberty and Love. Such policy
aims to make the community intellectually inferior.
The ideology of Malay/Muslim
supremacy will now fight for its survival through, no longer assimilation of
the non-Malays, but the creation of a Malay-speaking, Muslim-centric
ethnic-partisan core, who would read Utusan, join Isma and Perkasa, and vote
Umno.
(15) The Malays’ post-NEP anxiety – Part I
Malaysia’s
cultural diversity largely overlaps with socio-economic inequality – with the
ethnic minorities over-represented in modern economy and education than the
ethnic majority, creating reinforcing cleavages.
Such
a situation poses a big challenge in decolonisation – will independence lead to
the dominance of the ethnic minorities and the further marginalisation of the
ethnic majority? If so, prolonged colonisation could buy time for the backward
majorities to build themselves up.
This
was not only the argument raised by many Bornean leaders against the hasty
Project Malaysia, for fear of dominance by Malayans and Singaporeans. The call
for Malaya’s independence was first made by the communists and leftists –
including the Malays – before it was adopted by Umno and the Alliance.
However,
The communist insurgency broke out in 1948 however denied the British and the
Malay elite the luxury of delaying decolonisation. The pragmatic solution was
“state partiality” in favour of the Malays as a response to their collective
disadvantage in “social inequality”. – Merdeka Compromise.
NEP
was to affirm the Malays politically, economically, linguistically, religiously
and culturally so that they could feel the benefit of independence – that they
are the master of this country. The non-Malays can be on board to share power
but they shall never dictate or have real veto power. - In that sense, the
first Malaya/Malaysian state born on 1957 ended in 1969. (NEP STATE)
(16) The Malays’ post-NEP anxiety – Part II
The
Achilles’ heel for the NEP state was the agency problem as agents always
prioritizes their own interests.
State partiality to the
Malays is actually that to UMNO Malays, more
precisely, those with the right connection and family ties. To benefit
maximally from the NEP state, a Malay needs not only to support Umno in the
general election, but also to support the right factions in Umno elections.
Family ties matters. Old boy fraternity matters. Business partnership matters.
This leads to three inherent
problems threatening the long-term survival of the NEP state: First, it weakens the nation’s
competitiveness with its failure in promoting meritocracy and curbing
rent-seeking*. Plagued by cronyism, the Malays simply cannot build up their
strength to fill up the void left by the non-Malays. Second, it replaces inter-ethnic inequality between the Malays and
the non-Malays with intra-ethnic inequality within the Malays, providing the
social basis for the political division of Malays. Third, the factionalism in Umno leads to schism at times of
economic crisis, producing new parties like Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s Parti
Semangat 46 (S46) in 1990 and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s Parti Keadilan
Nasional/Rakyat in 1999.
* Rent-seeking is spending wealth on
political lobbying to increase one's share of existing wealth without creating
wealth or to impose regulations on competitors, in order to increase market
share. * A famous example of rent-seeking is the limiting of access to
lucrative occupations, as by medieval guilds or modern state certifications and
licensures. Taxi licensing is a commonly-referenced example of rent-seeking. To
the extent that the issuing of licenses constrains overall supply of taxi
services (rather than ensuring competence or quality), forbidding competition
by livery vehicles, unregulated taxis and/or illegal taxis renders the
(otherwise consensual) transaction of taxi service a forced transfer of part of
the fee, from customers to taxi business proprietors.
Combining these three factors, the
NEP state has been rigorously challenged in 1990, 1999, 2008 and 2013 in the
span of six elections.
Will Malays not be worse off if
there is no NEP? Putting the foot down that Malay-Muslims control this country
hence becomes important for the Malays. The rise of Perkasa and now more
powerful Isma is a reflection of this mentality.
It’s time we face the elephant in
the room. Until the Malays can overcome their anxiety on how they may fare in a
post-NEP Malaysia, the non-Malays will see more protests in the name of “sensitivity”.
(17)
Imagine there is no NEP
The
NEP was flawed in three ways. Flaw 1:
statist assumption: Like
all statist projects, the NEP was based on the assumption the state was
benevolent and selfless, and had no mechanism to check the “agency problem” of its executors. Why NEP failed to redress
inequality? First, economically, the
uncompetitive nature of Umno’s electoral one-party state allows the ethnic
champions and guardians to steal what they are supposed to protect. If you can
only count on me to advance your interests, what don’t I take a cut? Second, politically and most detrimentally, the economic independence of
Malays will gradually eliminate the political dependence of Umno. Think of it
this way: if ghosts are forever gone, ghost-busters will be out of job. Flaw 2: mono-ethnic support: The second flaw of the NEP is that
it has no real cross-ethnic support. Non-Malays responds with brain drain,
capital flight, supporting the opposition or everyday form of resistance. This
frustrates both the state and the Malays and thereby creates a vicious circle. Flaw 3: violence as the guarantor : The third flaw of the NEP has got
everything to do with its origin: the May 13, 1969 riot. It was installed with
violence and any attempt to remove it even through democratic means is
responded with threat of violence.
Alternative to NEP – non-statist, non-ethnic, non-violent
(18) Multiethnic competition for the Malay
agenda, anyone?
The real problem with communalism is
not particularism in its demands (“We have different needs”) but rather
protectionism in its supply (“Only our own people can fulfil our special
need”). Empowering (perkasakan) the Malays should be an open field for
competition, the jobs can be done by even non-Malays and need not be by
Perkasa, Isma, Umno and the likes. Empowering Malays (and for that matter, any
groups) should become an issue of competence (how good are you?) rather than
one of position.
The ethnic-centrism consists of the
demand side and supply side (protectionism). By protectionism, he refers to
realities like “Umno/Perkasa/Isma enjoys the protection of Malays from
competition”, like Proton. To understand the view, it is important to recognise
the altruistic and rational nature of communalism. Only if we can fully
understand it, we are then able to eliminate its need.
Real communalists/ethnic-centrists
are altruistic in the sense that they really love their people. The problem is
they think the world as zero-sum game between groups rather than cooperation
and competition between individuals. Yet, communalism is also natural in the
sense that it is a survival skill for people to conclude a “formula” (or
stereotype) from their personal experience, e.g. ten Chinese bully me, Chinese
must be bad. Then, such person would likely look for other victims with similar
characteristics to form a solidarity network to protect themselves from the victimisers.
We need to make sure our cooperation
or competition is more individualistic rather than group-based, which needs
equality of individuals at least in opportunity and before law and ensuring the
minimum competence of the weakest members of society. Protectionism (kinship of
a certain group) is natural yet should be individual. It should not be
institutionalized by the authority. Group membership should be based on free
will. 【protectionism,
group membership and ethnic boundary.】
We
should compete with the like of ISMA and Perkasa for empowering Malays.
【B】 Multiculturalism
(6) Malaysia’s trouble: overly or
inadequately diverse?
Most nation-building projects
believe in homogenisation. There are two grounds for that: 1) national
identity. (uniqueness, dominant group); 2) national integration.
National Integration.
Reinforcing cleavages and
cross-cutting cleavages.
Malay-Muslim-Bumiputera VS N – N – N
(7) Can Chinese-medium schools be
‘national’?
Diversity
and Segregation are not same.
- Reinforcing and cross-cutting
cleavages.
When
a language is no longer an ethnic marker, it breaks reinforcing cleavages.
Two
options: a) Integration of Streams (Ultimate Objective); b) integration within
streams (presently defunct English-medium schools).
(8) Mother tongue education and inequality
Mother tongue: ethnic tongue or
cradle tongue?
Ethnic tongue – cultural identity,
cultural right
Cradle
tongue – cultural right, socio-economic
right
English and Malay are mother tongues
too.
Chauvinism: advocating mother tongue
education is not chauvinism; believing a language is inferior to other
languages is chauvinism.
The debate on this issue should
focus on equality and integration.
Three issues: 1) cultural right;
2) quality education; 3) social mobility (market values of different
languages).
*
Modern education is about human flourishing so that individuals can actualise
their potential, not just fulfilling the need of job market.
UNESCO:
1.
Promoting education in the mother tongue to improve the quality of education.
2.
Encouraging bilingual and/or multilingual education at all levels of schooling
as a means of furthering social and gender equality and a as a key part of
linguistically diverse societies.
3.
Pushing languages as a central part of inter-cultural education.
(9) Malay kids in Chinese schools
Malay kids in Chinese schools pose
difficulties to two parties:
1) Government: if a Chinese school
consists of 50% Malay and 50% Chinese, what kind of threat can it pose to
national integration?
* Unless government’s argument is
based on monolingualism.
2) Chinese educationist:
- ethnically-mixed population
dilutes the character of Chinese schools.
- Chinese may lose their linguistic
edge.
- it would affect its secular
nature.
- the negation of mother tongue
education argument.
***
The fundamental question in the
policy debate on education: need and choice. Both Chinese educationist and
government believe in need instead of choice.
The challenge to mother tongue
education: will an individual’s need for mother tongue education cease?
(pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary)
Therefore, schools are meant to be
built for native speakers. There is no second-language support for non-native.
***
Personal Nation
/ Group right
Quality education Cultural
Right
Social mobility National
Integration
The decisions should be made by
parents and students not by community elders, politicians and bureaucrats.
(10) Reviving English schools – why and why
not?
There are two forms of
English-medium education: 1) maximalist form (Singapore), no different form
Malay nationalist. 2) diluted form (Science and Mathematics in Englsh).
Two grounds of objection for English
education:
1)
Maximalist form: Malay over English
2)
Mother tongue education.
English education might cause
inequality among different circles.
Yet, from the view of mother tongue
education, kids have every right to be educated in English-medium schools.
Different languages has different
market values. This is a fundamental problem posed and encountered by
multiculturalism.
For the revival of English-medium
schools to be politically viable, the standard of Malay schools and the
competitiveness of Malay language must be enhanced.
【C】 Federalism & Democracy
(11) The beauty of division
Democracy
should not be majoritarianism. Democracy should work its best to avoid
oppression against minority. Madison was clearly against political unity that
suppresses freedom and rights. Tyrannical unity could be checked by division.
Federalism of Malaysian.
What
we need is democracy and freedom. When you are free, you can choose marriage or
singlehood. On the other hand, if you remain unfree, would marriage or
singlehood make a real difference?
(12) Let’s have federalism for the right
reasons
“Malaysia” is a post-colonial state
shaped by Cold War and communalism instead of the successor state of the
Malacca Sultanate. (west-coast-Malaya-centric world view.)
Malaysia was intended to be the
successor state of de facto “British Southeast Asia”, which was the combination
of British Malaya and British Borneo, which was built on the ruins of four
regional empires: Johor-Riau, Siam, Brunei and Sulu. And it eventually became
the union of Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak. The self-exclusion of Brunei and the
eventual expulsion of Singapore were not part of the original design.
The British colonialists aimed for a
viable state that was Anglophile and pro-West, on one hand, and ethnically
inclusive enough to stay stable on the other. Despite sharing the same concerns
of the British, conservative elites represented by UMNO prioritized Malay
dominance over others.
The British introduced a unitary
state for Malaya in 1946, replaced it with a federation in 1948 and casually
contemplated a confederation engulfing Malaya, Singapore, Brunei, Sarawak and
North Borneo in 1955.
Federalism
juncture 1: 1946 – 1957
Rejection of the Malayan Union
(1946): 1) not gaining a real independence, form protectorates to a larger
colony. 2) jus soli reduce Malay dominance.
Palaces wanted a less centralised
polity while UMNO see the advantage of a centralised state, both against the
communist insurgency and the communal challenges. The 1948 Malayan federation
is the compromise between two parties.
Hence, the most important change
brought about by the 1948 federation was really the tightening of
enfranchisement regime and the affirming of sovereignty of the Malay States,
keeping Malaya closer to an ethnocracy. (a multi-ethnic unitary state to a
monoethnic federation).This suggests a mismatch between “goal” and “form” in
institutional design – because federalism is meant to accommodate diversity,
especially the population’s major fault-lines.
The federation at independence in
1957 was, therefore, rather inclusive, but the accommodation of communal
differences was done through coalition politics in the Alliance, rather than
federal-state mechanism.
Federalism
juncture 2: 1963 – 1965
Two vital calculations: communalism
& cold war
To begin with, the first partition
of Malaya and Singapore in 1946 was driven by the British’s communal
calculation to retain a Malay majority in Malaya so that the Malayan Union
might be easier accepted.
But when Singapore looked set to go
independent soon after its 1959 election, the Cold War calculation drove both
the British and the Singapore ruling elite to push for the island’s
reunification with Malaya to avoid it falling into the hand of communists.
The communal fear of Chinese
domination in 1946, however, did not disappear. This led the UMNO elite to
demand the inclusion of British Borneo as the prize for Malaya to absorb
Singapore; Tunku saw the Borneo natives as “almost Malays” and thought that
they would be UMNO’s natural allies.
The communal consideration
eventually led to the expulsion of Singapore when its elites tried to challenge
UMNO.
The
‘taming’ of Sabah and Sarawak
As Sarawak’s first chief minister
Tan Sri Stephen Kalong Ningkan and his Sabah counterpart, (Tun Fuad) Donald
Stephens – both Christian Bumiputera
– turned out to be staunch defenders of state rights, Kuala Lumpur also soon
decided that Sabah and Sarawak needed to be tamed through the introduction of
communal politics of Malaya.
Over the years, the multipolar
societies with dozens of ethnic communities in the two state were transformed
into a three-category scheme: Muslim Bumiputeras, non-Muslim Bumiputeras and
Chinese.
Religious affiliation becomes an
important factor in public office and social upward mobility in general. Even
chief ministership became a Muslim-only position, by practice, since 1970 in
Sarawak and in 2003, in Sabah, after its earlier application from 1965 to 1985.
The political power of Muslim Bumiputeras is greatly expanded with religious
conversion through proselytism, marriage and inducements, over-representation
through malapportionment and gerrymandering, and also, for Sabah, mass
enfranchisement of Muslim foreigners. These measures of socio-political
engineering successfully transformed the rebellious Borneo states in earlier
years into BN’s fixed deposits by 2008.
In exchange for their loyalty to
Putrajaya, the ruling elite of Sabah and Sarawak are allowed to plunder their
own states.
(13) Sabah and Sarawak, better together in
Malaysia?
Federalism, should be partnership,
not ownership.
The legitimization for
self-determination.
Containing separatism: Belgium,
Canada and Scotland.
* When a nation’s future can be
decided peacefully, it is the future that matters, not the past.
Federation should be marriage of
freewill. “Bornean separatism” is very much a response to “Malayan
imperialism”. To stop the former, we must first bury the latter.
- See more at:
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/opinion/wong-chin-huat/article/sabah-and-sarawak-better-together-in-malaysia#sthash.AggGzVhX.dpuf
(14) Whose country was this? Whose is it
now?
Malaysia is not a successor state of
the Malaccan sultanate. It is instead the successor state of British Southeast
Asia – officially known as British Malaya (including Singapore) and British
Borneo. Our modern boundaries are largely the result of the British, the Dutch
and the Siamese self-dividing their imperial realms.
* We cannot just look at a certain
part of ancient history and overlook the more immediate periods.
* Our founding fathers were both
collaborators and opponents to the British. They were not anti-colonial
throughout.
A universalist view would see the
state as a common possession of all citizens, therefore the state should treat
everyone equally. But as immigration becomes more prevalent, this poses a
threat to the existing citizens of a state: will they be overwhelmed by new
comers? It is a common problem in the global context.
There are two sources of resentment
towards immigrants:
-
Interest-based resentment. They are
generally more hardworking as immigration is a powerful self-selection process,
causing unemployment of the existing population.
-
Identity-based resentment. Entirely
different. Culturally, linguistically, and religiously, changing the social
fabric and cultural landscape.
State impartiality – to what degree?
In Malaysia, multiculturalism is
often seen as pursuing the extreme of religious impartiality (France and US
republicanism) and linguistic impartiality (Indian and EU), which is
unacceptable for the Malay-Muslim majority as it makes the nation a faceless
entity with no specific historical ties.
We should learn from the UK model
which we inherit, in which national religion still has its symbolic meaning.
The advocates of a multicultural
Malaysia should therefore be comfortable in believing both that “Malaysia
belongs to all Malaysians today” and “Malaysia was the lands of Malays and the
indigenous tribes.” They should enthusiastically embrace the Malay language and
linguistic freedom, and support Islam insofar as religious freedom is fully
respected.
(19) Is democracy the enemy of the majority?
Democracy
is a number game. Yet, the majority fear democracy in Malaysia. Perkasa, Silat
Lincah and Umno Youth, the logic is simple: democratisation will harm the
Malays’ political dominance. Until today, Malay ultra-groups want to keep the
Sedition Act so that the so-called “sensitive matters” won’t be questioned. But
so what if they are questioned, if the Malays, who dominate a majority of the
constituencies, want to keep the status quo, how can it be changed
democratically? So, why should Malays be prevented from thinking and making
their informed decision, by self-proclaimed defenders of their rights?
*
There are three reasons for people to hate democracy.
First,
they reject political equality. Clever & Stupid.
Second,
they hate open-endedness and diversity that democratic decision-making
promises, seeing that simply as a manifestation of ineffectiveness,
inefficiency, chaos and division. Goal-orientated, they admire uniformity,
unity and discipline. Don’t be surprised if they see ants as the role model species in the universe.
Third,
they see human interactions as ultimately do-or-die group-based competition
between “us” and “them”. And by permitting division and indulgence in
ineffectiveness, democracy only weakens “us” in our fight against “them”.
*
Democracy as an ideology is fundamentally based on individual rights, but in
societies wrecked by foreign domination, or communities traumatised by hegemony
of rival groups, democracy is only relevant if it can aid to the rise of the
nation or community vis-à-vis their rivals. Insofar collective interests are
perceived to be under threat, protection or advancement of individual rights
will be a luxury. Only when people don’t feel that they live in do-or-die group
contestation, individuals can have real meaning.
(20) Elections, gambling and Malay unity
One of the causes of communalism is
FPTP.
System
Design
|
Executive-legislative
relations
|
Parliamentarianism
Presidentialism
Semi-presidentialism
|
Parliamentarianism
-
PM is only “first among equals”.
M’sia
PM is in fact presidential PM. (PM
Department)
|
|
Centre-state
Division of Power
|
Unitary
State
Federation
|
Federation
-
decentralised
M’sia
is more centralised. Federal government controls all. State g. has little
power. Local g. was abolished.
|
|
Electoral
System
|
Majoritarian
Proportional
Semi-proportional
|
Majoritarian
(First-Past-The-Post)
GAMBLE.
The ruling party tend to use malapportionment and gerrymandering to amplify
its advantage. Yet, it will also lose more when the expectedly supporters
change their side.
|
|
|
|
|
First,
we have a presidential prime minister who can basically treat both the Cabinet
and the Parliament as rubber stamps, dictate most of the states and local
councils to carry out his wishes, and punish those which are not aligned to
him.
Second,
he does all these in the name of lifting the ethnic majority, the core
constituency of his party which mandates him his power.
Third,
the electoral system will mercilessly punish him if he loses substantial
support.
How
can he and his party not play up the insecurities of the ethnic majority they
claim to champion? How can they not call for Malay Unity to tear apart the
nation?
In
that sense, the more seats the Prime Minister can add to the Parliament, the
more malapportionment and gerrymandering the Election Commission can carry out
for him, the gamble just becomes bigger. He will likely win even bigger or lose
bigger.
And
when the stake is bigger, you expect him to be a more civil gambler?
(21) Seat increase is BN’s secret weapon for
unity and strength
Core question: how does BN manage to keep its own unity
when its survival depends on communal politics that splits the nation? The
simple answer is “power sharing”, which reads “more jobs, more perks, everyone
is happy.” Expanding ministerial posts. From 1969 until 2008, keeping four
ministerial posts was an indicator of MCA’s status in BN, never mind the
cabinet size had expanded over time and MCA ministers’ weight decreased. It is
also the same case in MP’s seat, which is achieved by malapportionment and gerrymandering.
(Instead of possibly losing two to three seats to the opposition, BN will
concede one to the opposition to retain all four others. It’s “win-win” for
both BN and the opposition.)
(22) Is this Umno assembly trailer for next
Parliament? (Part 1)
Redelineation
and seat increase will largely decide if Umno-BN will get to form a minority
government in term of vote share.
Umno’s minority rule weapon 1: intra-state malapportionment and
gerrymandering
Umno’s
minority rule weapon 2: inter-state malapportionment and seat increase
(23) Social Contract and the subversive
Sedition Act
The most serious flaw of our perception of social
contract is that our version is based on horizontal (between different
ethnicities) instead of vertical one (state vs citizens) proposed by Hobbes and
Locke. Does the social contract stipulate the relation between members and
leaders of the ethnicity in question? The real social contract is our
constitution. And constitution can be changed over time.
The
Sedition Act is not just unconstitutional, but simply anti-constitutional and
anti-national:
Sedition
act: Citizenship, National language, Special position of Malays and natives of
Sabah and Sarawak, the Monarchy; Islam, territorial inclusion of Sabah and
Sarawak. What is the
logic that we are barred from discussing certain parts of the contract? Are we
implying that these parts cannot withstand scrutiny of reason and deliberation?
Some may think that opening up everything for debates is seditious and
subversive. I beg to differ. What is seditious and subversive are the use,
threat and impunity of violence as means to change or maintain our political,
economic and social order. Using reason to change or defend anything cannot be
seditious or subversive unless we are a nation of slaves. The Sedition Act is a
living reminder that we are still colonised. The British left but the
colonisation has continued, albeit in a more subtle form.
