“...then he added, as if requiring a response to his own remark, 'Probably the greater the difference, the greater the similarity, and the greater the similarity, the greater the difference.' At that moment he did not yet know how right he was.”

- José Saramago, ‘All The Names’

Before I begin, I would just like to highlight Chris Lau's amazing reportage on the Malaysian 'chemsex' scene. This is the kind of work that Malaysiakini needs more of.

And a big thumbs down to Sports and Youth Minister Khairy Jamaluddin (KJ) for not engaging with Malaysiakini by using such a moronic excuse (that the news portal is a “purveyor of one-sided journalism”). KJ used to be the kind of establishment operative who at the very least had the cojones to deal with the alternative media. I guess eventually the excesses of this regime makes eunuchs of all its political operatives.

Meanwhile, if anyone is interested, I am putting out my own prize-winning compilation (I awarded myself the first and only prize) - ‘Umno a danger to Malaysians and secularism in Malaysia’ - out there soon, so stayed tuned.

Opposition propaganda seems to have this blowback effect. The very public internal squabbles seem to be the only thing that the opposition is reliable at. Until now, I never really understood the whole Umno DNA line of reasoning that people throw at PKR and the “Malay” component of the opposition.

The only reason why there is a viable opposition is that there is a split in the Malay polity. There is a split in the Malay polity because jailed political prisoner Anwar Ibrahim managed to galvanise a Malay base with the help of PAS and then in a move that in hindsight can only be described as miraculous, hobbled together an opposition alliance that delivered a blow to the hegemon that nearly brought it to its knees.

Throughout the years, the opposition has seen the migration of BN politicians into the opposition fold and the erosion of ideological and religious values that resulted in the opposition becoming a viable alternative to the ruling hegemon. The DAP and PAS, who never were able to put aside their differences, managed to find some middle ground but this common ground was not ideological but political.

“Setting aside differences”, while a potent political strategy, unfortunately does not translate to good governance, policies or principles that Malaysians desperately need to recover from the self-inflicted wound that is Umno-BN hegemony. Is there a difference between the opposition and the establishment? Of course there is, because even a superficial difference is a difference, but we should not think that the difference is a paradigm shifting one that some opposition operatives claim will save Malaysia.

Of former law minister Zaid Ibrahim, I wrote, “When DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang says in jest that Zaid should be a team player and not a prima donna, I think of it in terms of nervous laughter instead of a political joke to break the tension. The DAP has a history of losing prominent ‘Malay’ voices and a history of vilifying those who leave the flock. Will history repeat itself, especially considering that Zaid has a history of feuding with his allies and has no problem exposing the flaws of internal party politics?”

His latest spat with PKR’s Rafizi Ramli is interesting because this whole idea of “BN culture” has always been defined as relating to “corruption” or “racism”. This “culture” has never been contextualised as Malaysians have very little understanding of the separation of powers and independent institutions beyond the fact that the Umno regime has very little respect for those ideas and institutions.

Tanah Melayu

Well okay, the racism aspect of BN culture is important too, but not in the way how most opposition supporters think. Take this whole strategy of claiming Tanah Melayu is being auctioned off to China. This narrative that the “Malays” are under siege is something that was invented by Umno, condoned by the non-Malay component parties of the BN - something that in the good old days was vehemently opposed by the opposition.

And make no mistake, while PAS was the opposition, their imperatives were different. They were no less opposed to Umno as the DAP, but their agenda was different. The DAP was the secular alternative to BN and were the line in the sand against BN’s racial hegemonic agenda.

The opposition now condones the strategy of claiming that Tanah Melayu is under siege, which is the same kind of cultural trait that is in BN. People say there is a difference and there probably is. However, this difference is lost on a polity that has been for years radicalised by Umno propaganda.

Here is an anecdote that some people will dismiss but could prove prophetic. I was speaking to a group of young Malays who were concerned that the country was in the process of being sold off to Chinese interests. They were concerned that Chinese Malaysians had a place to return and now they could rightly claim that Malaysia was theirs too because China had “bought the country”.

Now you may dismiss them as just another “ignorant” Umno-supporting Malays, but to do that is to dismiss the potency of this strategy. Honestly, this and religion are the main reasons that some Malay/Muslim political operatives tell me that PAS perhaps has more support than what is claimed in the alternative press. When it comes to racial strategies, conflation is the product and not the by-product.

Zaid is absolutely correct when he reminds the opposition that claiming Anwar will be installed as prime minister two weeks after winning the general elections displays a profound disregard for legal and institutional processes that although compromised will not regain any credibility if the opposition does exactly what they accuse Umno of doing.

Part of the reason for this kind of thinking is that the opposition has never really addressed the systemic dysfunctionality that plagues the country. There has never really been a serious dialectic within the opposition on the issues of race, religion and institutional integrity. The 1MDB issue has been the centrepiece of the fight against Umno but as anyone on the ground will tell you, this has not gained any traction with the demographic that the opposition needs most.

About the only thing that I disagree with Zaid on this issue is when he claims that BN culture is also defined by the disrespectful manner in which the discourse is carried out. I would argue that when it comes to internal squabbling, the BN has always been very disciplined, especially when their operatives disagree with one another in public.

Only with the rise of the Najibputras and the outsourcing of their racist rhetoric has the coalition's discipline faltered. Indeed, it is the culture of the opposition to publicly disagree and sometimes in an uncouth manner with one another.

Whether you believe this is a good thing because it is “transparent” is missing the point. The real point is that it is not really BN culture which is the problem, but Malaysian political culture that needs to be reformed.

S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.