The ends justifies the means, that's the system

I learned that in school then I dropped out

Hit the streets, checked a grip, and now I got clout

I had nothing, and I wanted it

You had everything, and you flaunted it

Turned the needy into the greedy

– Ice T (New Jack Hustler)

COMMENT | One of the things I find interesting is former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak’s public transformation of his image as a privileged Malay politician to that of an everyman attempting to fight the system hell-bent on destroying him. The Pakatan Harapan regime, for various reasons, comes off as malicious or tone-deaf to the message Najib is disseminating to the Malay base.

What Najib is doing is tapping into the class resentments in the Malay community, while demonising the Chinese community through a stand-in – the DAP. Harapan plays the same narrative – like demonsing the PRC – not realising (or not caring) that this narrative ultimately arrives at the same destination, the Malaysian Chinese community as a scapegoat for the mendacity of mainstream Malay international business deals, or toxic communal relationship or dissatisfaction of economic standards brought upon by unbalanced economic polices that favour a specific capitalist class in the Malay community.

When Harapan came into power, I warned that what we had was a “Malay” opposition, which would use race and religion in lieu of policy. What Harapan had to do was change the narrative because what they are up against was decades of indoctrination and entitlements programmes that had failed the Malay community.

Here is the relevant bit – “The Malay opposition will define itself by offering a virulent counter-narrative when it comes to issues of race and religion. They will attempt to force the Harapan regime to demonstrate how committed they are in their secular principles and, of course, their egalitarian principles – if they are committed to these at all.”

Far-right Malay friends have this fantasy. When the Malays finally win the demographics game, and minorities are insignificant when it comes to political power, they believe they would have this racial and religious paradise without all the problems multi-culturalism brings. Never mind the economic and social repercussions of having a mono-ethnic Malaysia, what I find hilarious is how blind some of the mainstream Malay intelligentsia are to the class divisions in Malay society.

Free Malaysia Today (FMT) ran a piece recently, where Syed Husin Ali discussed the type of conflict “yang akan dihadapi oleh masyarakat Melayu sekiranya negara ini hanya didiami oleh satu bangsa sahaja (that will be faced by Malay society when this country is inhabited by only one race).” Syed Husin rightly pointed out that the type of conflict would be a class conflict. For the record, I am a Syed Husin Ali fanboy, and have followed his career and writings for years...