Umno and the fascist state
“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”
- Franklin D Roosevelt
As someone who once compared the long Umno watch to the Nazi state*, I was chuckling at Umno vice-president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s description of opposition propaganda to the propaganda of Nazi officials. How many times have I used the term “Goebbelsian” to describe the lies coming from the warlords of Putrajaya?
(*From my article ‘Umno's war drums herald bleak future’ - “The long Umno watch has been an era of ‘Gleichschaltung’. For those unfamiliar with the term, it is Nazi terminology meaning 'coordination' or ‘the restructuring of German society and government into streamlined, centralised hierarchies of power, with the intention of gaining total control and coordination of all aspects of society’.”)
Every time Umno has its big pow wows, the polemics emanating from the various assemblies of Umno potentates has the urgency of one of the more popular Leni Riefenstahl films, a display of synchronised racial unity, choreographed populism and narcotised ignorance.
While I have no problem with the Umno vice-president making Nazi analogies - as I have shown, I am known for making my own - I think it is wrong to describe the opposition kool aid as something as debilitating as Nazi propaganda. The former, of course, was awful because behind it was actual state policy, while the latter is frustrating because it is just a case of unfulfilled promise.
The image of Zahid “whispering” in PM Najib Razak’s ear - a Horatio or Iago, I wonder - is indicative of the supplicant nature of Umno politics or maybe Zahid thought that approximating bedroom talk at a women’s meet, was the way of seducing his audience to work harder for the benefit of the men in Umno. Who knows?
I have always described Umno as a fascist entity or that this country has slowly and deliberately sliding down to fascism, but I have never really explored this issue beyond recognising warning signs and baiting the Umno establishment.
It took the election of Donald Trump and the resulting American punditry (which I decried in another piece, go figure) to articulate my ideas on the Umno fascist state. In this article and another one tomorrow, I hope to explain why someone like me (I do not, have not and will not, claim to speak for anyone else) who has been part of the establishment despise the current state of our union.
I always liked the opening rejoinder of the Roosevelt quote that frames this piece, “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated...”, which merely is a reminder that for decades as Malaysians, we tolerated the excesses of Umno for whatever pragmatic ‘Asian’ reasons we could come up with. We enabled a regime that systematically and overtly corrupted the constitution and eroded our rights.
We were the dupes in Winston Churchill’s admonition, feeding the Umno crocodile hoping it would eat us last, never realising that very soon we could become like the Maria Chins, the Uthayakumars, the Zunars, the Hishamuddin Raises, the Rafizi Ramlis, and the Orang Aslis that have been persecuted by the Umno state. Eventually the system always comes after you.
Like many have said, scary stuff. When Trump was elected, the American Left went berserk. Nazi and fascist analogies before and after the election spewed like the noxious black fumes from an old Proton Saga. However, beyond superficialities nobody was really interested in examining the issue...
