Change in Malaysia will depend on which government stays in power. I think - and I hope - people realize that. The structure of our democracy has been so corrupted by the present government that nothing is far from their reach. Everything from the UMNO-appointed heads of civil services, to collusion with the Police and the criminal element, to the typical, UMNOputra rentier mentality, to ethnic chauvinism that continues to keep Malaysians apart - all of this is the result of giving in to the aspirations of the ultra-nationalist element in Malaysia.
The safe option, unfortunately, is stasis and stagnation - to carry on with things the way they’ve always been. We’ve had the government tell us what to do and what’s right for so long it’s created a Pavlovian response in us: don’t vote for MCA or other component parties and your ethnic group is screwed, is denied representation; vote for PAS and vote for an Islamist future; vote for DAP and the Malays are screwed. Fear, this fear, is like a trigger. Dear God, aren’t you sick of it already?
I wonder how far Anwar Ibrahim can take his fight. He’s chosen to stand on moral grounds. UMNO cannot hope to meet him there, so they try to next best thing: character assassination. In fact, if you think about it, that’s all UMNO is capable of (besides the huge, horrible machinery backing it). Anwar has tarred all of UMNO including its sidekicks as corrupt, greedy politicians trying to hang on to power. It’s a smart play, because UMNO’s in government too long - it has no previous administration to push the blame to, and all cases of corruption, foul play and wastage can only be laid at its feet. Not an enviable position, I should think.
And UMNO can’t play the religious card because PAS - a party with a “feared” reputation for being a party of thorough-going Muslims - has block that avenue to the top of the hill. In many ways, UMNO is a victim of its own sloganeering: UMNO claims to protect the rights of Malays, and when you have your party agenda so focused on communal arguments, you find yourself open to attack from members of that said community who hold different views - whether these views claim to a higher (and therefore more basic) truth as with PAS, or if members of the same community hold to a more inclusive, democratic ideal.
I mean, you’ve got to understand just how much of a dinosaur UMNO really is, in all senses of the word. They’re big, they squash the little people, but they’re slow and stupid, and they are the victims of their own size. UMNO cannot occupy the periphery of accepted views, it cannot consider options and variances in its basic party philosophy because it has boxed itself in precisely by making itself so exclusive. In the real world, this plays out in a pragmatic way: you have ministers telling the rakyat that they should change their lifestyles to adapt to increasingly difficult times, while driving around in a shiny Mercedes and making plans to move millions of ringgit offshore. UMNO, like the government of East Germany before the wall, is increasingly out of touch with its people.
Instead, to exert control over the rakyat, UMNO must rely on fear - and we human beings have such a capacity to fear. We, the rakyat, must be watched. We must be coddled, we must be separate, and we must be made to feel grateful. We must be made to feel like we owe everything to UMNO and Barisan Nasional, all the while forgetting that we the rakyat have survived despite the policies of the government.
And now they want to strip Anwar Ibrahim of his chance at getting back into office, because I bet UMNO knows just how precarious its grip on power really is. It’s facing total divestment of power, it’s facing a total lack of control. Come on, in any healthy democracy, parliament rarely falls into a 2/3rds majority - Barisan Nasional has been enjoying this success for the past 50 years or so (yes, I’m discounting May 13th 1969 - that loss of 2/3rds was snatched back from winners). The BN are control freaks, it’s plain and simple!
So what does UMNO do? They black-ball Anwar Ibrahim. They saddle him with a “crime” they’re sure will outrage the Malay heartland and they bring the whole machinery of government to bear on the innocent.
Has Anwar Ibrahim become a messianic figure in opposition politics? Yes, I definitely think so. All the hallmarks are there: it’s an almost insurmountable fight against the government, his people are divided in their opinions about him, and he, being “one of their own”, will soon be crucified by the so-called representatives of his own community. In the broad sweep of history, we may find that his fight and possible sacrifice at the altar might be more important in the larger scheme of things. Sometimes I think that it is not Anwar Ibrahim the person who is important - circumstances have made him the former number two from the “other side”, an anomaly in the UMNO edifice that may finally bring it down.