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“...We can best understand the furies of war and politics by remembering that almost the whole of each party believes absolutely in its picture of the opposition, that it takes as fact, not what is, but what it supposes to be the fact.”

- Walter Lippmann, ‘Public Opinion’

To elaborate, nobody ever leaves or returns to Umno because Umno is a way of life and not merely a political party. Over the years, there have been splinter groups and a party rebirth but ultimately what politicians (establishment and opposition) never openly admit is that the system is Umno and unless there comes a time when people want a change and put in the hard work of actually facilitating that change, then what we are stuck with is the Umno way of life.

So ingrained in this Umno way of life that oppositional forces in this country who claim to be against racialist policies, bend over backwards or turn a blind eye to the racial rhetoric and policies of political allies in their quest for political power. This of course provides the Umno establishment with the ammo it needs to cry "hypocrisy" and deride the opposition of being politically expedient and without principles.

When former deputy Muhyiddin Yassin, now president of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu), dismisses returning to Umno - “Because what is the point of returning to Umno since it is no longer a party which we once knew to have fought for race, religion and country” - it really tells us something about the way how the mainstream political opposition operates.

Think about this for a moment. If anything, the current Umno leadership has decided that fighting for race, religion and country is the best way to sustain hegemony. This extends to making alliances with arch enemy PAS, discounting the urban vote, creating laws such as the National Security Council (NSC) Act and waging an ‘unerklärter Krieg’ (undeclared war) on religious minorities in this country.

And if anything, Umno is advancing the cause of “Malay rights” through outsourced thugs and component minority political parties which have a hard time justifying the anti-non-Malay rhetoric coming out of Umno.

Of course, all this is done to keep the Umno grand poobah in power but has there ever been a time when Umno has not used its resources to keep its chief in power? There has never been Umno political personalities who rejected the ideologies of Umno. There have only ever been refuseniks who have rejected the grand Umno chief.

The only person ever to be ejected from the Umno paradise, and who had the charisma to spark off a movement of dissent against Umno in the Malay community, is jailed political prisoner Anwar Ibrahim. Not only was he comfortable slaying Umno sacred cows, he had the political cunning to use Umno's underlying ideology as an indictment against the system but not against him or any of the other oppositional groups who advocated policies which were similar to the policies of his former comrades, which he claimed was destroying democracy and the rule of law of this country.

People seem to forget that when Anwar first took the streets, it was a mostly Malay affair. Before DAP managed to exploit the schisms in PAS, the charismatic former Umno operative with the pragmatism of the late Tok Guru had managed to form an alternative Malay power structure which eventually coalesced into a possible alternative to Barisan National and Umno.

People often ask me why is it I do not think that the corruption of this current regime is the existential threat facing Malaysians at this moment. My answer is simple. There has always been corruption in this country, and if we are truthful, on the scale greater than the current Umno mess.

The only thing that is different this time is because the Malay community is fractured, and Umno has had to play the race and religion card against its own. Playing the race and religion card against your own community is a recipe for disaster, especially when the country does not have an alternative to the Islam proscribed by Umno.

Essentially, like most Islamic states in failing, the conflict will always be between a fascist corrupt state and an extreme form of Islam which is thought to be the panacea for all the problems the state through its excesses creates...

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