A friend from Sydney, about to be seconded to KL, asked about the political crisis in Malaysia.  “I’ve read the papers and the travel advisories,” she said. “But how safe is it on the streets,” she asked, alluding to the Australian media reports on the 1MDB scandal and urgings for the prime minister’s resignation.

“You’re right,” I said, alluding to the leaked Muhyiddin Yassin video . “The prime minister’s in deep s**t.  He’s getting hit at every turn from within and outside the ruling party. Najib Abdul Razak has gone beyond the point of no return in earning back the people’s trust, in his ministers, in his government.”

If that was so, my friend quipped, the situation should be ripe for Malaysians to translate their private anger into public action to kick out the corrupt government.  Like People Power in the Philippines that ousted then-president Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda in 1986? Or the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, the Red-Yellow Shirts protests in Thailand, the Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong?

“Not likely in Malaysia, although factional loyalties in Umno could see a change of leadership before the next general election in 2018,” I said, referring to the many conspiracies circulated on social media, or the possibility that some brave souls would come out to defy the state with radical actions to ignite a united people’s movement, one that crosses racial and religious lines, to compel Najib to come clean and deliver on his reformist pledge in 2009 to govern with greater transparency, revoke the sedition laws, and roll back the affirmative action programmes.

As the National Economic Advisory Council has assured in the New Economic Model report (2010), affirmative action policies (a) “will be revamped to remove the rent seeking and market distorting features which have blemished the effectiveness of the programme”; (b) “will consider all ethnic groups fairly and equally as long as they are in the low income 40 percent of households”; (c) “would be based on market-friendly and market-based criteria together taking into consideration the needs and merits of the applicants”; and (d) “an Equal Opportunities Commission will be established to ensure fairness and address undue discrimination when occasional abuses by dominant groups are encountered." (p.25, Table H). Looks good on paper, but in practice Najib has not explicitly addressed these four assurances. 

The situation in Malaysia is certainly ripe to spark a nationwide people’s movement for structural reforms, if not to move for a regime change when the opposition coalition can regroup to wrestle the critical seats from Umno in the next general election.  

Meanwhile, are we prepared for a painful period of arbitrary detention of dissidents, clampdown on critical journalism, falling ringgit, rising living costs, and potential by extremist groups to stir up racial and religious related violence like the incident at Low Yat Plaza in Bukit Bintang?

Activists may think they’re in a powerful position to mobilise the people and agitate for political change. Almost always they’re not. The power of social movements to mobilise civil disobedience is charged up by issues that affect the daily lives of the people - such as the freedom rides against racial segregation in the US and anti-Vietnam war protests in the 60s, protests against apartheid in South Africa in the 80s, the Iraq war after 9/11, and most recently, police brutality against black Americans.

‘Life and death issues’

Do Malaysians perceive the 1MDB scandal and Umno leadership crisis as ‘life and death issues’? We need more than street protests and online petitions to achieve real change.  It goes beyond challenging the system, which past protests have clearly succeeded in doing.

I have participated in past Bersih protests, hollered with the crowd and had my share of tear gas. The practical outcomes, however, had not matched the political energy on the streets. It was disappointing to see normalcy return the next day. While clearly popular as a mob event to let off steam, street protests are limited in achieving their political goals when we don’t see any workable alternatives to a corrupt system.  

When protesters lose their energy to stay the course, when we feel we can’t afford to sacrifice another day marching on the street because we have a job to go back to, when we ask “so what after this?” and get no definable and achievable goals, the result is capitulation to the system.

It’s easy to muster up anti-government protesters via social media. But what do we do after the march, after the angst and negative energy have been expended in confronting the police and braving the water cannons and tear gas? Post incendiary tweets and fiery Facebook messages?  

Indeed, social media can easily muster the people to challenge the system. But to impact on policies and governance, to achieve fundamental reforms, this takes strategic lobbying orchestrated campaigns by a united people’s front, diplomacy and patient old-fashioned politicking to engage with those who hold the reins of power.

If critical attitudinal, ideological and political reforms were to occur in Malaysia, it must first emerge from those we least expect to initiate that change - in this case from within Umno and 60 percent of the population comprising the bumiputeras.

It took president Richard Nixon, an anti-Communist hardliner, to visit Beijing in 1972 and shake hands with chairperson Mao Zedong for the conservatives in the US to see the political sensibility of engaging with China. Nixon defied public expectations and dominant anti-Communist discourse in the US at that time.  

The ‘Nixon-in-China’ effect, a political metaphor widely used in the late 70s to show the impact on hardline conservative leaders in forging fundamental reforms, marked the normalisation of Sino-American relations.

Defying the expectations of Chinese Malaysians

Two years later, our second prime minister, Abdul Razak Hussein, visited Beijing on the invitation of Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, and shook hands with Mao Zedong on May 19, 1974.  (Najib was 21 years old then who would graduate from the University of Nottingham with a degree in industrial economics). Razak’s visit to China defied the expectations of many Chinese Malaysians in the lead up to the country’s general election in August 1974.

Just as it took Nixon to go to China to normalise Sino-American relations, we need Umno and the majority Malay population to overcome the siege mentality and take that first leap of faith in eradicating the culture of political patronage, kinship loyalties, and money politics.  

Hardline conservatives in Umno must first get over the siege mentality to see the greater good of political and socio-economic reforms to arrest the endemic public corruption, racial discrimination, falling ringgit, rising costs of living, religious extremism and street crimes.  We will all lose if we allow the 1MDB scandal, leadership crisis in Umno and trust in the government and its institutions continue to drag down the country.

As an aside, the prime minister’s dilemma reminds me of a South Korean period drama where a sage advises a prince on extricating himself from the palace politics: “If you had to choose between money and power, which would you pick? If you were wise, you’d have to forget both to gain both.  

“If your sole purpose in life is to gain money and power, you will be ruined because of one or the other. The more you focus on one, it will become a weapon of destruction later. When you’d rather die than surrender, you must learn how to surrender. It’s called humility.”

ERIC LOO left Malaysia for Australia in 1986 to work as a journalist. He currently lectures at University of Wollongong, Australia, and serves on the advisory committee of UPI Next , a journalism education and training platform run by United Press International. He edits a refereed journal Asia Pacific Media Educator and conducts journalism training workshops in Asia. Email: eloo@uow.edu.au