Disgraceful, disgusting and dangerous

Was anybody surprised that Ahmad Ismail, the Malay chieftain of Umno of Penang state, was merely wrapped on his knuckles, given a three-year suspension from the ruling Malay political party by a coterie who dot the so-called Supreme Council, led by its chairman, Abdullah Badawi, who also doubles as the Malaysian prime minister?

Seriously: Was anybody at all surprised that Ahmad got away virtually scot-free? And any surprise that two of his petrol stations on Penang island – one in Island Glades and the other next to the Penang Free School - are being boycotted by those Penang-ites who find Ahmad’s comments repulsive but not the other Umno chieftains?

If I have used this before, I’ll use it again: Malaysia has gone, yet again, to the dogs. Only this time it could easily implode into the 1969 quagmire. Why? Because the Abdullah-Umno regime has not the courage to deal with one of its own leaders who, under any other circumstances, had his remarks been uttered by a non-Malay, escaped charges of sedition and hauled off to one of the regime’s secretive gulag’s for re-education and/or re-indoctrination.

What I do not understand is why Umno’s Barisan Nasional coalition partners, especially the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and Gerakan, and other minor parties, are kicking up a stink over Ahmad’s comments.

One letter writer to Malaysiakini said Ahmad has a right to free speech. He (or she) is right. What is peculiar, however, is when was every other Malaysian who does not belong to Umno given this degree of freedom under the apparent auspices of ‘democracy’, albeit Malaysian style?

Fact is that Umno and BN have always utilized racism, institutionalized and sanctioned by the state, which has historically benefited BN’s political partners.

They have consistently retained national power by consistently playing to the ethnic tribalism of all ‘Malaysians’ which, like it or not, separates them, distinguishes them, makes each one of them part of a national identity that is not national, that has not and could never make a genuinely Malaysian ‘nation’.

Where is the equality

Another writer at Malaysiakini has argued that in fact there’s a little of Ahmad Ismail in all Malaysians. He (or she) is right. But it is not just ‘a little’ but a lot of Ahmad Ismail in all Malaysians. And for all their pretensions to be led by the values of their religions, Malaysians are inherently racist, including Ahmad Ismail.

The very idea of Malaysians living in ‘harmony’ as one people, the very idea that Malaysia’s ruling politicians dare label Malaysians as Bangsa Malaysia or, worse, rakyat, is laughable.

Not laudable. It isn’t even plausible. And it’s not plausible because these same politicians - indeed all of them, including those in opposition parties - are feathered by their own identity, and that identity is their individual race that separates them, not bring them, together in a single vision because there is no unity in diversity, no unity in a virulent form of national identity.

National identity is born of nationalism, but Malaysia - historically - has always struggled with many nationalisms. Nationalisms based in race and religion. If India has a caste system that possesses all the elements of ancient ethno-tribalisms, Malaysia is no different.

Racism is what makes Malaysian blood boil and yet not one Malaysian would rectify the problem by abandoning this most vile ‘value’ that inheres every Malaysian individual - their race, their ethno-tribalism.

And so nobody is prepared to accept another Malaysian of a different race, of a different ethno-tribalism, as an equal, as a partner, as a brother or a sister.

Racial politics

Ahmad Ismail knows this, just as Dr. Mahathir Mohamad knew this in the 1960s. And both played the racist tune to satisfy their political projects. Mahathir was barred from Umno then, but he came back in 1974, installed as education minister.

The Malaysian education system sank deeper and deeper into abyss. The pus it began to emit then is the same pus it emits today - only worse. Because if anywhere, it is in Malaysia’s education system that racism is endemic and rampant.

Ahmad Ismail will make a Mahathir-like - or better still, a Lazarus-like - return to Umno and then be slotted into high political office. Why? He’s Malay. Umno’s Malay. Malaysia is Malay. Malaysia is Umno. And the other races in Malaysia are caught not in a squeeze but a pincer movement that is Malay and Muslim. And that alone will heighten Malaysia’s ethno-tribalism even more.

Danger lurks, and the chief of the Malaysian armed forces is right to point out that racism in Malaysia is getting out of hand. But you wouldn’t count on the spineless no-hoper prime minister Abdullah Badawi to do anything about it, would you?

Because Abdullah is not only out of his depth, as he was when he was foreign minister and then as deputy prime minister, but he could be manipulated by darker, deeply racist and corrupt forces within Umno.

Which is why Ahmad Ismail could afford to publicly spit in Abdullah’s face when the latter tried to haul Ahmad in to explain. And Ahmad’s three-year suspension? It roughly coincides with Abdullah’s espoused departure from politics.